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Comment by huijzer | Hacker News Reader

I recently switched to being an electrician in ship construction after a MSc in Computer Science and PhD in Data Science with heavy focus on writing software/services.

So far, I like it a lot. The work is physically demanding but the colleagues are nice, down to earth and come up with good jokes (I also see this a lot when I watch trades videos on YouTube). Also nice is the feeling of having made something at the end of the day and the lack of office politics. I didn’t do any extra education, they say I’m picking it up fast so it seems I can go without. I think that would hold for most programmers since it’s a very similar mindset that you use especially when you start troubleshooting.

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The issue is "physically demanding", look at the guys that are 50+ in the trades, they have all sorts of physical issues from working in the trades. I say this as someone who has two JM qualifications.

Serious injuries which will nag for the rest of your life do happen, but they're extremely rare. All things being equal, physical work is vastly better for your body than sitting at a desk for 8 hours a day. Desk work is associated with increased chances of heart disease, obesity, mental health issues, and much more. We're not meant to be sedentary, but desk work basically requires that.

The confounding factor is lifestyle. Kicking back after a hard day of physical work with a huge meal and a few beers feels amazing, but that's going to wreck somebody's health if that turns into a lifestyle. And similarly, a gym rat who works a desk job is going to probably be in excellent shape.

Gym rat + desk job hints at passable cardiovascular health though. An overall healthy body in the modern age is very tough* and time-consuming when you consider all aspects..

*Edit : though/tough, not native

I think the issue in physical work are mainly repeated strain on joints and back. Human body was not built to endure so much repeated strain.

Obviously.

I know 5 people closely that have had long careers in the trades.

They are all physically damaged in ways I am not from sitting at a desk.

What I notice about the trades is that the conversation from the inside is mostly about retirement because the work is not fun the way I find my white collar work to be fun.

Well okay you have your anecdotal evidence while I have mine, and they seem to be opposed to each other so I guess the truth lies somewhere in the middle. Some like it and some don't. Some hurt their bodies and some don't. It also matters a lot which trade exactly. Painting ship tanks is not good for the lungs it seems to me.

I'm not so sure about that. I think there are things you can do in either case, but you do not want to be in roofing for 40 years. I would take a 100% sedentary job over roofing 10/10 times

All things are relative. As I'm sure you know, roofing is one of the deadliest professions there is with an on-the-job mortality rate of about 50/100k per year. Do it for 40 years and your risk of dying on the job is almost 2%. That seems high, but the interesting thing is, about 17% of men who celebrate their 18th birthday won't make it to their 60th birthday. [1] So even if you do roofing for 40 years, your odds of dying on the job are much less than your odds of dying due to something else. Life's short - often said, but often only realized much too late in life for it to matter.

You also have to appreciate one other thing about health. 30-40 years ago digital work was a very small part of the labor force. Today it's a large part. So we're only starting to see the long-term consequences of sedentary work, on a large scale in relatively recent times. Then you also need to pair this with the emergence of endless entertainment of the internet to also create the possibility of sedentary work paired with sedentary lifestyles. I expect we'll find that the aggregate health outcomes of this are going to dwarf even smoking.

[1] - https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr74/nvsr74-02.pdf

You can get jobs and have a career without education, certification and licensing?

> lack of office politics

Why is there any less?

> ship construction

Your story is interesting. I read articles by Gary Kim about Kim's theory of why the US has a shortage of workers for well-paying shipbuilding jobs - it's a dangerous job and the pay doesn't per Kim, compensate enough. [0] I wonder what your experience is?

https://garykim0505.substack.com/p/the-brutal-reality-of-bui...

> You can get jobs and have a career without education, certification and licensing?

Yes.

> Why is there any less?

Smaller company and down to earth attitude.

> I wonder what your experience is?

It's less safe than an office that's for sure. But the biggest accident in the company of 100 people has been due to arc flash and not due to walking across the shipyard. In general, the older colleagues seem physically as healthy if not healthier than average for their age; some having worked there for more than 20 years. I'm also surprised by this. The shipyard looks very dangerous but somehow not much happens to the electricians it seems from what I hear and see in the older colleagues.

Would you say your decision to switch careers is based on your evolving interests, or economics?

I am not this person but in some segments of the market there is significant demand for people who can build ships. The US and Canada are both about to throw dozens of billions of dollars at new domestic military shipbuilding programs, for instance. Somebody with his educational qualifications who can do something electrical in large/complex ships might be able to command quite a high salary.

Perhaps over time doing complex things yes but for now I’m definitely a rookie I can tell you making many rookie mistakes like loosing tools xD

I always wanted to help people and realized more and more that nobody ever needs a programmer apart from the medium to big corporations. I’d rather help individuals. That plays a big role.

Financially, it doesn’t matter that much. In the Netherlands salaries are much lower than compared to the US while taxation is very high. So I personally don’t care whether I get paid 5200 euro per month or 3200 per month since after correcting for taxes and government benefits the difference is a lot less. I also don’t need much anyway. I don’t mind living in a cheapish house with a cheap car and I also don’t like vacations (I don’t like change). Compared to programmer the salary isn’t that much lower anyway. I could go build my way through management positions in government or so for more bucks but then I would need to spend it on useless things to make me happy again so seems like a net loss too.

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