I hate to say it, but he does have a point. Anecdata: I was a mechanic quite a while, and while my coworkers were decent, I know that there were enough other shitty people in the trade that none of the parts stores in town could keep a female delivery driver on staff. I never knew of a female delivery driver that lasted over 2 months; and I had 2 black drivers comment along the lines of "those jackasses as shop X called me a n* b/c we didn't have something in stock". Delivery drivers weren't especially high-turnover positions, normally drivers lasted long enough I would end up knowing them by name.

And even though I felt my coworkers were somewhat OK, they would still make remarks (especially homophobic & racist ones) that would be at least grounds for disciplinary action in most white collar fields.

That (along with RSI and the pay) was one of the reasons I left the trade. I enjoyed the job, it is really satisfying to have that sense of accomplishment at the end of the day, but I was frankly tired of having to be around/associated with crappy people.