[the_only_law]

> I am being told this by a white-collar worker who went to college themselves, and is just bloviating.

Exactly. When I talk to plumbers, electricians, etc. many of them express the desire to leave because the hours and environments are hellish. Meanwhile some full of themselves tech bro is babbling on about how everyone (not them of course) should go into the trades. Or they pull some vague anecdote out of their ass about how someone they know makes a gazllion dollars in the trades after 20 years and starting their own business, which is about as valid as telling someone to go into software development because they can become a billionaire, and throwing out some anecdote about a startup founder they know who got aquired.

[dghlsakjg]

My read is that the people who do well in trades are smart, hard-working and ambitious. That combination of traits tends to do well no matter where they are applied.

While there is plenty of money to be made in the trades, one thing that gets ignored is, as you said, the working conditions. Further, those working conditions compound over the years and absolutely wreck bodies.

[ChatGTP]

Sitting at a desk for 8 hours a day will wreck your body too, don’t worry about that.

The happiest I’ve been in my life is spending about 2-3 hours a day at a desk. It’s a shit life but we don’t see it like that coz we love sitting on our ass.

[tivert]

> Sitting at a desk for 8 hours a day will wreck your body too, don’t worry about that.

But not anything like 8+ hours a day of manual, repetitive, physical labor!

Come on, there's no comparison to desk work.

[dagw]

Sitting at a desk for 8 hours a day will wreck your body too, don’t worry about that.

Except that can be trivially counteracted by get up to stretch every hour, taking a 20 minute walk at lunch and hitting the gym a couple of times a week.

[applied_heat]

>wreck bodies.

I think how hard the trades can be on your body is under appreciated