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Comment by oceanplexian | Hacker News Reader

Fitting pipes together is not "back breaking". We're not talking about framing or roofing, in the contracting world plumbing is a light duty skilled trade that anyone with half a brain can earn a 6-figure income on. If you take care of yourself and wear protective equipment, you won't have a problem with your knees in middle age. There's no "forced retirement", someone working as an independent contractor for 25 years is likely more wealthy than the average software engineer in most LCOL or MCOL parts of the country.

The problem isn't "lack of immigrants". The problem is that when surveyed, 25% of Gen-Z said they plan to pursue a career as "influencers". My opinion is that younger generations have been brought up in a world where they don't need to take personal responsibility or ever get their hands dirty.

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Older generation complains about newer generation's work ethic and goals, news at 11.

Seriously, this has been done since forever, and it's such a tired trope.

And why the hell shouldn't they want to be influencers? They're responding to the world they've been handed. Why is that different than "I want to be an NBA player", or rock and roll singer before that, or baseball player before that?

Gen Z will be just fine, even if Gen X doesn't understand how.

This is the first comment I have read where "Gen X" is dragged into the generational culture war. The generic brand of that generation made me think it would fly under the radar and we'd break this tired pattern.

IMO, all generational labeling is just for clicks and rage (which brings more clicks).

Generations isnt even real. People change year on year little by little not once in 20 years. It's a gradual shift not some shift that happens new years eve one year.

The pace of change quickens due to technology enabling our interconnected world today.

It's a gradual shift that's no so gradual when looking at the block of population. Gen X are those that didn't have any digital connectivity while growing up. Millennials grew up connected through text/chat/email/very early social media, but without being constantly connected to the internet. Gen Z has grown up being connected and with information and entertainment available the time.

Generations share a "core" of experiences that happen during some of the most impactful years of their lives. First geopolitical event I remember was 9/11. For some it was the Great Recession or COVID. Those big events end up exerting a lot of influence on age groups.

I think Generations can be overused in the sense that it's used like a monolith when it's not. The clickbaity "Generation Z doesn't want to work" is actually the less clickbaity "Many in Generation Z find working a less attractive option because of these specific shared experience/values..."

> Gen X are those that didn't have any digital connectivity while growing up.

My (parents’) CompuServe and (due to living in the Central Valley but most of the BBS’s I had info on being in the Bay) phone bills fron the 1980s tell a very different story.

I think the OP was referring to majority or plurality of Gen X, not necessarily dragonwriter's, or Central Valley's experience.

Cool story.

My family didn't have internet until around 1998

Try crawling around in a 2 foot high crawl space amongst spiders and snakes while ripping out old, stinky, dripping plumbing with a sabre saw or arc welder and tell yourself it is not “back breaking” or dangerous.

Also bonus asbestos and fibreglass! (Yes, obviously wear protective equipment, but that shit travels and gets on things.)

The median income for a plumber is $50k, only 10% make above $91k. https://insights.workwave.com/industry/plumbing-electrical/p...

6-figure incomes for plumbers are rare.

Where is all the money people paying tradespeople going? If I need any plumbing work done it costs me $200 an hour or more. Even with overhead and expenses, 10 hours a week gets you more than $50k a year. Twenty years ago my grandfather was a marine plumber and made $200k a year. How many apprentices and part-time plumber are in these datasets?

Same places it always has? Insurance, materials, taxes, wages, profits.

If retail stores are making record breaking profits, why are service workers paid so little? If medical costs are so high, why aren't nurses and nurse aids making more?

It's not rocket science. People aren't getting paid for the value of their labor, and productivity has rocketed up while wages have stagnated for decades. Your plumber charges 200 an hour and doesn't make anywhere near that much, because they work for a company who profits massively off their labor and exploits him as far as the law and supply and demand will allow.

> plumber charges 200 an hour and doesn't make anywhere near that much, because they work for a company who profits massively off their labor and exploits him as far as the law and supply and demand will allow

Do most plumbers responding to house calls work for an employer? There aren't many economies of scale in that work.

Being a plumber who works for a company means you are given tasks and show up at those assignments. You need to know how to plumb.

Being an independent plumber means handling: marketing, networking, customer service, etc, plus plumbing. Like any other freelance position it's not easy to break in and get enough work to live. And we're not in the days of people just opening the Yellow Pages and calling a random plumber. Now it's a labyrinth of competing search engine results, yelp reviews, HomeAdvisor references, etc.

Some people will take the time to find an independent plumber. Most people call RotoRooter or whatever company has advertised the most in their area. The plumbers, electricians, handymen I call are all independent, but they're also old, at the end of their careers, having a set of regulars they could take with them going independent, and having saved a bunch of money because they were getting paid fair wages in their prime. There are economies of scale in the skilled trades, they're just not the trades themselves.

Agree that it isn't easy going independent as a plumber. But it's easier than in, say, construction. That leaves room for trade-offs between ambition and risk on one hand and a safe, secure job on the other hand.

Sounds like more reason the call by many here to stop complaining and pay more seems spot on.

If you're in Oregon or California, it looks like the wages there are much higher.

Also, you're probably paying the company which manages the plumbers, of which the plumbers don't directly earn that.

If you're hiring a plumber directly, I'd assume it's a more experienced one running their own business. In addition to charging you $200/hr for the work, they're probably doing their accounting and business management, billing, ordering parts and equipment, replacing tools, and communicating with clients.

I could see that only resulting in 10-20 billable hours per week.

Also, if many of their jobs are paid in cash, it's possible there's a significant amount that is unreported to the agencies generating these statistics.

Tools, trucks, downtime, insurance, etc... All expenses I don't have as a corporate linux guy.

You pay $200/hr for the work you see onsite. What you don't see is overhead, drive time to site and back to HQ and because plumbers aren't guaranteed to work 40 hours a week.

If there is no work, the plumbers don't get paid.

To the business owners, towards tool and vehicle maintenance, to time sitting around talking to people on the phone trying to line up jobs or making bids, towards the substantial amount of material stock they need on hand, to saving money for the inevitable down turns in construction, etc.

For someone to come work in your house for 30 minutes, they have to compensate for 2-3 hours of time doing everything else.

Also it sounds like you live in a high cost of living area if you are paying that much for plumbers.

Sure there are a few good jobs plumbing new commercial construction that makes good money, but there is far more need and demand for people to crawl down into some residential crawlspace nobody else has been in for decades to fix and retrofit old garbage and clearing toilets and replacing wax rings or installing faucets or garbage disposals. Those aren't really money making jobs, especially when you have no idea what you might run into once you are down there.

According to that site, the average in California and Oregon is 6 figures for 7+ years of experience, so perhaps not that dismal for HCOL

Who do you think unloads the pipes from the truck, carries them up the stairs or drags them into the crawlspaces on their knees? I've never met a plumber over 50 who didn't have chronic pain in their back, shoulders or knees.

> My opinion is that younger generations have been brought up in a world where they don't need to take personal responsibility or ever get their hands dirty.

An opinion as old as recorded history at least. It wasn't novel or insightful when Horace said it in 40BC and it isn't now.

I see this line about kids wanting to be influencers. Is there a credible source? And is this any different than them wanting to be a rock star, movie star, etc.? Most who have this hairbrained dream can fail quickly and hopefully with minimal cost or embarrassment and move on with their lives.

My 7 year old routinely tells me he is going to be a YouTuber. I routinely remind him about power law distributions. So far he has made 2 YouTube channels with a handful of videos each and even less subscribers. I can't recall if it was for his 6th or 7th birthday but he had been talking a lot about wanting his own "merch", so I asked him what kind of design would he put on his "merch" and he told me what he wanted. I whipped one up on a t-shirt making site and got it for him for his birthday. He still wears it and still refers to it as his "merch".

I think it's mostly harmless and of course most kids will grow out of it. It's definitely like wanting to be a rockstar, but I think the scale is larger and the barrier to entry so much lower that they seem much more convinced it's actually a viable option than what I thought being a rockstar was when I was a kid.

My guess is for many of them it will be a second "wait, Santa isn't real?" moment when they get a bit older and realize that power law distributions are a thing and that's just how it is. Followed by fun times reminiscing about it with each other as adults.

I think this comment is the first time I've realized how out of touch I may have become with the world. I had no idea that kids wants to be influencers and Youtubers instead of say, rock stars or sports stars.

In a way I find it a little sad, as a reminder humans keep getting more isolated with tech. Where 30 years ago we wanted people cheering us on, chanting our name, etc... people now seem to desire views, likes, and whatnot.

I'm not saying one is better than the other, it's just really hard for my brain to process as I don't understand it.

Pipe fitters tend to have really strong hands because the pipes are heavy and awkward.

Working with awkward heavy things tends to wear out your joints

I'd be curious what your generation said they'd want to be when surveyed. I'm sure during the height of beatlemania, many people wanted to be a rockstar too.

There was no one with dreams of being a rockstar or actor before influencers. There have always been a good chunk of kids that want to do as little as possible and then they tend to figure something out or wash out. This isn't new or news.

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