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by pavel_lishin
370 days ago
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I think a lot of us software engineers dream about having a job where we work with our hands, and plumbing and woodworking seem to be especially common dreams. But if you talk to a plumber, you'll quickly learn that while it's a respectable job that can earn you a good wage, it's also hard on the body, and often wildly unpleasant. And that's before you get to the fact that you're often your own boss, which means dealing with disgruntled or difficult customers, sometimes while you're also doing the physically uncomfortable and unpleasant task. Imagine dealing with someone yelling at you for doing something or being too expensive wrong while you're elbow-deep in literal shit. |
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That does mean the job becomes management, sales, and customer relations, but it's management, sales, and customer relations for a trade you know well, which (this is my speculation here) makes it a bit easier to swallow than doing the same thing at office-bound bigco for some product you were only introduced to last week.
[1] I suspect, from also observing the crews themselves, that it's achievable because it's relatively easy for someone with a decent head on their shoulders, who speaks good English, and with the ability to show up almost all the time and to not come off as a flaky meth addict or lazy scam artist when talking to customers, to move up very fast in the trades...
[EDIT] In fact, in the linked story, it appears the locksmith's early-retirement-from-locksmithing plan might be to become a landlord. Also a fairly solid plan, and another that I've seen tradespeople follow—they have an advantage because they can achieve better results with less money on property maintenance, between their own skills, their connections, and having insight into what a good price and good work look like in other trades.