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Comment by ssully | Hacker News Reader

I agree there is an unwarranted stigma against blue collar jobs, but I think HN romanticizes the professions as well.

I have multiple people in my family who work as plumbers and carpenters and it's not as simple as you make it out. When the getting is good, it's nice, but they have all struggled with longish periods of unemployment, injuries, etc.

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I agree--maybe it's because HN skews so heavily towards the other end, that the grass just looks that much greener, but it has a really strange and inaccurate perception of blue collar work. I've worked in a range of blue collar jobs (from landscaping to construction to electrical). Around here at least, the pay ranged from absymal ($8/hr) for unskilled to ($12/hr) for apprentice-level work, less than half of what an untrained, fresh-out-of-college, entry-level position in my current field pays (40-45K), with a much lower ceiling for advancement unless, maybe, if you operate your own business. The hours were terrible (7am-5:30pm Monday-Saturday), and on average required 30-60 minutes commute each way depending on where the job site was, with a "travel allotment" that didn't even cover the fuel costs for my cheap hybrid car, much less depreciation (I was put up in a motel when at sites more than 90-120 minutes away from home). I think people here abhor staring at the same computer screen all day (which I fully admit can be a bummer), and they think a job "working out in the sunshine where you don't have to think hard all day" sounds good. It is absolute hell on your body, and you're working in all kinds of weather in all manner of dirty, dingy environments at all times of the year--some days it's 105 degrees, some days it's 5 degrees. It's loud, stressful, exhausting, repetitive, and often dangerous work, and there's no way I'd go back to it.

Totally agree on the downside -- when you're down, you're way down.

But I'd argue, that's what separates the winners from the losers. A buddy of mine owns a lucrative landscaping business, but once the winter sets in, his revenue literally drops to zero. His solution has been a combination of part-time plumbing work and reallocating capital equipment from his landscaping business for sanding and snow removal. He probably makes more money now in the winter time than he does in the summer.

What people also don't tell you is that the majority of the middle aged men committing suicide are in blue-collar professions.

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