[karlkatzke]

Good. Needs to happen. Was talking to our HVAC repair dude. He makes as much as I do with a high school education and two years of trade school. Adjusting for age, he definitely makes more than I did at 34.

No reason to send kids who want to work with their hands to four year colleges and saddle them with 100k in debt when they can work through a trade school, be done at 20, and have no student loan debt.

[clintonb]

I assume you work in software.

How hard does the HVAC guy work? I wager if you compared wages earned per hour worked (not just employed), you come out ahead. You probably beat doctors and lawyers, too.

Large salaries mean nothing if you don’t account for how much effort is expended to earn the money.

[the_only_law]

Yeah I had nurse friends who had impressive pay on paper, but we’re desperate to work in anything else because the shifts were hellish.

[karmelapple]

I don’t understand the hours expected of healthcare professionals in the USA. It sounds like madness and a definite route to burnout.

Why don’t the professional organizations and other groups mandate serious reform for this? Have more reasonable max hour stretches, etc. Are the difficulty of hospital handoffs primarily the source for the awful hours demanded?

[saalweachter]

It especially seemed dumb at the beginning of COVID when one region's hospital would get slammed and already have been operating at the edge of burnout before half the staff was out sick and the amount of work tripled.

[confidantlake]

Isn't it ironic that healthcare professionals have such unhealthy work?

[lotsofpulp]

I.e., pay to quality of life at work ratio (which includes volatility of pay).

This is always the answer to the question “why can’t we find workers for x job”.