/diy/ not sure how many threads you get like this, but...
I'm tired of my career. I went to school to be an English teacher and it turned into a solid dead end. Graduated with my Master's in English Education in 2008 into the height of the recession and housing crisis. I hacked it out as an Adjunct professor at a local Community College making peanuts and wouldn't have been able to survive had my parents not made up the slack in my pay.
I later went on to work at the family business in insurance because the money got so bad and there were few if any opportunities to be had. I've worked for the last 4 years as an Insurance Consultant, and I've done a huge variety of work beyond advising clients on health insurance - worker's comp adjuster, paralegal, risk manager, and more.
At the end of the day though, it's all smoke. I give the client advice, they pay the firm, the firm pays me about $15 an hour. Every now and then my dad tries to slip me some money under the table to make up the difference, but living on the charity of my father has gotten old as I've crossed 30 years old. I see peers in law and similar professions making double or triple what I am, and moreover: enjoying their work. Me? I'm no slouch at what I do (important clients wouldn't have stuck around if I didn't do good work) but getting paid a pittance in comparison to the market and working for dad has long since worn on me.
So I want to make a change - before it's too late. Before I truly get too old and there's no turning back. I'm 31 right now.
Always wanted to make something with my hands - something useful using a body of technical knowledge. I've looked into stuff like welding, or a similar trade in fabrication. Something where I can use my skill to create a useful, practical product. In insurance it's all too often the sum of your work just winds up being a piece of paper or words in a contract that people gloss over.
This a pipedream? Any advice?
Check out the options for trades training in your area. Welding, from what I know is the easiest to get certified. A friend of mine makes $25 an hour for it.
You may have to look hard for info though. It took me forever to find info on a electrician apprenticeship program in my area.
welcome to the new 'merika my friend.
This thread is relevant to my interests. I'm in a very similar position at 30. In Europe, but I don't think it makes much of a difference.
I've been in welding class for about a year at a private non profit trade school. Welding isn't hard, it just takes practice. You could teach yourself to weld in your garage with an old AC stick welder and youtube. The reason that you go to a welding program is to be in a shop with experienced instructors who know a million and one tricks that aren't in the books. If you want to get into welding, tour some schools and get to know the instructors. There are some very shitty welding schools run by glorified bead layers, if your instructor is no good then you're wasting your time. The book work is easy if you can do basic math. It covers the different welding processes, positions/joints, how to set up and use the machines, safety, diagram reading and weld testing. Prepare to spend some money on safety gear and your own hand tools. Also accept that you will be working in the summer wearing leathers and in the winter wearing unlined gloves and you will get burns.
>>952993
Sup OP
I'm 32 just finished a welding course
Also just got paid £200 for making a 7foot compass what cost me £15 to make.
Also started making grave surrounds, I've posted in other threads but selling for £300, profit of £130.
I gota say from what i've seen basic welding jobs are fucking boring. You have to get a good two, three year education and experience to be on £30,000 upto £200,000 a year.
TIG is where the money is if you like being indoors in the same seat every day.
Oil rigs if you have no family, kids and what not.
Never to old to go to college.
There was a bloke on my course 41 years old, he now has his own car restoration company and enough work to take him to the end of this year already.
>>952993
In the same boat but I'm only 22, I'm thinking about getting into cnc machining programing and operating, anyone know anything about it?
Hey op. Im a commercial gas engineer and would reccomend the job. Either domestic or commercial. Its hard to get the quals but once you do its decent work,good pay and if you live somewhere cold great job security. Heating and hot water is something people wont go without. Plus in the uk at least the trade is well protected from unqualified competition.
English Major who's now in the electrical trade for 3~ months here.
I'm ready to get out; it's not for me. I dick around with arduino in my spare time and I'm good with my hands, plus I didn't want to just go back to school after earning my degree so I looked into electrical work. Good pay, job security, active work environment, I thought it would be a good fit. I went in to be a low volt journeyman since I'm more interested in communication systems/computer inferfacing. Turns out the low volt guys top out at 25/hr (which isn't awful, but that's the top) and pretty much just run cables back and forth all day long with essentially no system interaction. Found out IT doesn't require a technical degree so I'm working towards getting into that ASAP. Help desk isn't some land of milk and honey but it's a step towards other better paying, less obnoxious IT roles plus there would be a jump in pay; I make 13.50 at the moment which is not enough.
For the guys that like this kind of work, it's a good job. But you gotta remember they earn the money they do because it's also manual labor in a loud, dirty, hot/cold environment. The lion's share of the work is also kinda boring. Run conduit, run wires, put up fixtures in a drop ceiling, repeat. It also doesn't help that some of my coworkers are going on two+ years without getting into the apprenticeship--and they're good workers too; it's not encouraging and I'm not going to waste my time at 26 with more hoping and praying.
>>953212
I looked into CNC stuff a while back since I have one myself and I thought it could be interesting work. All the advice I see says that it doesn't pay much unless you're a designer and that the hours suck. You get stuck with low pay or long hours and eventually top out at a meh salary. You're basically just the monkey that runs the machine that does all your hard work for you. Kinda of dispiriting to hear.
OP Here.
Appreciate the stories. Before I started the thread I was dedicated (and still am) to at least taking one welding course at the local trade school to see if it's something I think I can hack out. I've spent plenty of time assembling and painting miniatures so I know what it means to have a steady hand.
Again, I do appreciate the feedback.
>>953259
Find a sugar mama.
>>953259
Specialization pays. I do facilities maintenance for one of the largest real estate firms in the U.S. The jacks of all, general maintenance, make half what I do and their turnover is insane. Anyone can patch drywall, wire ballasts, and do other light maintenance.
HVAC, carpenter, electrician, plumber, etc. Fuck working construction or for a small business, get on with a huge company like CBRE, JLL, etc. For their properties that aren't large enough to support individual trades then they look for general maintenance types that know HVAC more than the average bear.
Why should you work for one of these companies? They pay better than the industry average and, with 10, 20, 30k employees, the benefits are incredible.
I have two life insurance policies in excess of $150,000, extended disability, a 401k 100% match up to the first 5% I contribute and 50% for anything beyond that, and an HSA health care plan with a $2500 deductible that costs me $100 a month for me and my wife. The insurance is fucking great - my wife has gone to the Minute Clinic twice this year and we didn't pay shit because it was covered care, no out of pocket. Also my HSA invests into mutual funds after $1,000 saved.
What I'm trying to say is find one of these jobs and never let it go.
i might be late to the thread but i can tell you that i took 2 night courses in welding that spanned 7 months and i was able to get a sweet job by the end of the first class.
op you can do it. i would suggest learning how to do a more popular process like MIG/GMAW job wise instead of trying to get cert/ticket. after my first class was done i could run a bead decent and my current boss said if you can run a pass right now in front of me you can start tomorrow.
boom I'm in my first 10 months of welding for a living. i can do stick, i use mig for work and my boss lets me practise with his tig machine every now and then.
its fulfilling
>>953277
>>953578
>i took 2 night courses in welding that spanned 7 months and i was able to get a sweet job by the end of the first class.
That's pretty compelling.
Part of the reason I'm so fed up with my current profession is I can't tell you how insane the pressure is to be perfect. The kind of scrutiny you endure at all times is punishing. I work with insurers and federal / state agencies who audit me constantly, and a single fuck up means they bail or penalize you and the client is left hanging without an insurer next year or something like a fucking OSHA violation - which of course means nothing but immense pain and suffering on a level I can't even begin to get into with the character limit.
You spend the majority of your life apologizing for things you had no control over and waiting for lighting to strike. Clients always want to spend less on insurance. Insurers always want to charge more. People are constantly suing your client for a myriad of liabilities - and you're the one who's supposed to protect them.
When I stop to think about it, it makes me all the more frustrated I spend about $1.5+ million dollars of corporate money for 2 different clients and my take home is about $15/hr. That, on top of all the other legal and risk management work, both of which come with immense personal liability to remain constantly vigilant.
Tired of the bullshit. Tired of the runaround. Tired of working for the family and getting peanuts for the time and effort I put in doing the jobs of 3 people. Just want to go to work doing something I want to do - not something I'm forced to do.
>>953616
White collar guy here too. It blows.
Every Thursday, I look out my cubicle window to the gardeners and feel jealous.
These guys tend landscapes but at the end of the day, they can point to an actual physical representation of their work.
I could print out a stack of paper or point to the enormous number of emails I send and receive but it is not the same. My 'labor' only exists in some electronic form.
I think i need a career change too.
>>953628
>was going to go into programming. Fun hobby. I'm gonna love this shit.
>In college, work for IT crew
>Actually sit down to try and code something on the clock for 8 hours
>Jesus Christ the tedium and horror of it all.
---
Switched to history. Literally could not pass the teaching exams because I'm not enough of a liberal wonk.
>Which of these 5 paragraphs best represents feelings of sadness.
>5 equally sad paragraphs.
Fuck you!
>get job digging ditches. Chill as fuck.
>Switch to cable technician, then fiber optic splicer.
>Even more chill as fuck.
Worst part is going to people's offices where all their wiring is done by a hack or some DIYer and it's a big pile of shit, and all I can do is add to it, because the customer obviously ain't gonna pay me for like 4 hours of straightening out his wiring.
>>953192
>How's the job outlook?
My understanding is that there isn't a high demand for welders in my area, so I'll probably be relocating after I finish school. I've only had one serious offer and that was 58 hours a week running a dual shielded flux core. I would've had to drop out of school so I passed on that one.
>>952998
Contact your local unions.
plumbling, electrical, what ever. They pay for you to get your license and on top you get hands on experience but be warned. Pay will be less then 15 or equal to that starting out.
You will also do a lot of traveling from job site. If you have the means to go to school knock it out instead of going through the unions go for it.
Ive been in a similar position/mindset. What i can say is easy - read about how to start your own business, then go and do shit. Whether its welding or programming or dropshipping or whatever floats your boat, i found happiness only in work i do for myself, my family and my own goddamn company. Everyone else can suck me. Read Kiyosaki or Ferriss or smth like that, its only general stuff but you gotta start somewhere. If you dont go fully for your dreams doing what you like to do, someone else will pay you crap money to do it for them. God that does sound cheesy, but i found it to be true. Good luck and have fun :)
Goos thread. I am 5 months away from graduating law and 7 from starting my internship, but I envy everyone who works with their hands and get to "build" stuff. I'm still young so I guess I will ride the law train to create a fund and then go learn trades.
Do Power Engineering or you will regret it the rest of your life.
>>953212
Do not become a machinist. I'm 24 I was a machinist for the past 4 years and it is a shitty job. The best I made was 16/hr and are going to basically be doing the same thing every day for the rest of your life. The guys above me that have been doing this for 30+ years were only making about 26/hr and like most older machinist iv meet you get the pleasure of missing half your fingers before you retire.
I actually recently quit and started going back to school for video production. While I might not make the same money right out of school for it, it is somthing I really enjoy and want to pursue. And worst come to worse for me I gi back to some shitty machinist job.
>>952993
Hey, I'm a TIG pipe welder of 4 years now. I strongly recommend this career if you have the talent. I'm a do-er so at the end of the day stepping back to see what I've made is rewarding itself. Coworkers of mine admire how uniform and consistent my beads are, as I pour all of my pride into my work. Being capable of the highest quality has earned me the honor of representing the company to its high profile clients. I've built pipes for Pepsi, US Engineering, and none other than NASA itself.
Welding has certainly given me the sense of purpose that I couldn't find elsewhere. When mistakes are made my supervisor turns to me to fix the problem during the evening shift.
Love my job. I'd be happy to lend advice and answer any questions or problems those interested have.
I've also been wanting to go into welding as a career after nursing didn't pay out as much as I wanted it to.
I've already enrolled to be in a trade school in the fall but the main problem is is that I'm 4'11. I can weld and I've been welding for the past 4-5 months but being a smidge away from being a midget I worry that people won't hire me because of that. I'm decent at stick and ok at mig, Haven't been able to do tig yet though.Honestly how fucked am I and will I be able to survive in the workforce? I have a family that I need to support so my will/determination is out of the question but I just need some honest answers here.
>>953856
>I'd be happy to lend advice and answer any questions or problems those interested have.
OP here. I am interested in the liability involved with the work (since this is part of what I do right now). I'm guessing you carry some kind of contractors / completed ops insurance policy should something go wrong: IE - a weld that you made breaks and results in some kind of damage.
Moreover, I'm guessing you're long past the stage where you're totally confident in your work that it will stand up to whatever scrutiny someone can throw at it. The saying in corporate insurance goes: "If the barber messes up, your hair will look bad for a few weeks. If your insurance broker messes up, you lose your business." So that said, it comes with a huge amount of responsibility to watch after a corp's insurance to make sure everything is 100% covered.
What I'm getting at is: At what point did you feel like you were 100% confident that you had done your job as good as you possibly could? More specifically this question would be: At what point did you become confident the weld was as strong and perfect as it could possibly be? I'm sure you know already: a lot is riding on those joints staying together. One breaking could mean millions of dollars in property damage, or death if someone's leaning on a railing or something.
Second: What kind of wear and tear does this have on your body? Easy for me to wish from a desk all day to want to do something more engaging - entirely different to undertake a career in what is effectively skilled manual labor. I'm 31, in good shape, I lift, etc. But just wondering if it's really punishing some days or what? What kind of pace does the job site move at? People expect you to be hustling all the time or do people give you the time you need to go as slow as you need to in order to get it done right?
>>953856
That TIG welding is not worthy of NASA.
Go watch a video on how anal they are about soldering, then you'll see why they wouldn't give your welding the time of day.
Don't get me wrong, your welding isn't bad, but it's not super consistent at all, and I've seen a lot better, on a regular basis too.
>>953881
>liability, a weld that you made breaks and results in some kind of damage
Most jobs will have certified welding inspectors that test your welds and will either approve or reject it based on whatever standardized safety code you're welding to. If something goes wrong then the heat will be on the company that you work for and as it trickles down to you, the inspector who signed of on a bad weld that resulted in an injury is going to be in a much worse spot than you.
>>953903
Not him but let's see yours.
>>952993
Your parents can write you off as a tax deductible until your like 26 or something.
>>953868
two words bro: confined spaces
>>953939
>Oh yea, if that movie sucks so bad why don't you make one!?!?
>>953991
What? Apples to oranges. If you can do better, and have done better, you shouldn't have a problem showing your work.
I mean shit, I take pictures of my work for monthly report presentations, technical articles, and to show buddies in the trade.
And besides, he said for NASA. That could be for shit that isn't going to space. I've been contracted by the CDC, IRS, and nuclear facilities. Doesn't mean the work I did was for use in disease research or tax auditing - it just means they were customers.
But really, get off your fucking high horse. In my experience, the first people to harp on the experience of others is those that are insecure with their own. I've been doing this long enough that I don't have to waive my dick around to prove shit or feel better. The fact that you do speaks volumes.
>>953903
>i swear ive seen better and all the time too!!
>>954016
It's the exact same.
>I'm just playing devils advocate here, and while the other guy may be full of shit, that comeback is retarded.
>>953939
Strawman.
>>954016
Blah blah, show me some of your work...
And although I'm not the guy you're responding to, you do realise that you can be critical of somebody's work without being better than them, right?
Or are you just a complete fucking retard?
>>954027
Sure you can but it doesn't make you look any less fucking retarded.
>looks bad bro
>well do better
>uhh actually I can't but I know it's bad based on what I've read and seen and what I assume is the right way
Monday morning quarterbacks, those who can do those who can't teach, etc.
>>953977
Shit man, I actually forgot about that. I guess I don't need to worry after all too much. Any advice for shorties while I'm at it?
>>953881
protect your eyes, and your skin, invest in a good hood, and go nuts on the ppe, leather jackets,sleeves, gloves,boots, gloves, this is a trade that can blind you,kill your lungs,or burn the everliving fuck out of you, recognize these dangers and you'll be better off.
>>953903
you asshat, that's robotic welding at this point, learn to use an orbital welding set-up, op could use a year of knowing how to use these
>>954057
You are clearly retard, as suspected.
By your standards, nobody can be a critic of anything unless they're better at it, right? So, no film critics, food critics, no sports commentators, no boxing coaches, fuck all.
You are as thick as pig shit, please stop commenting.
>>954057
No need to get antsy, just because somebody didn't like your welding.
>>954057
>quadriplegic hires man to fix his leaky plumbing
>plumber takes 4 hours to replace angle valve despite it being right there with no obstructions
>charges $50 an hour
By your logic the quadriplegic cannot argue because he cannot do any better.
>>954057
I think you managed to prove to everybody on /diy/ that you are completely and utterly brainless.
Well done, saves the rest of us the hassle.
>>952993
do some research on what trades pay well and which have a lot of job opportunity. its not that easy to find decent jobs in trades these days and as someone currently working in a trade and turning 31 in a few days, consider trades that aren't too hard on the body. going from sitting at a desk to apprentice level shit work is going to be rough on your body.
I dig this post.
>>953634
How do you get into the fiber optics industry? Or even cable technician?
>>953698
You have to already have your license and be working for a company to join. Yes, they can provide additional training, but you have to pay for it on top of paying union fees. Unions are criminal.
At least on the west coast.
OP here.
Today I applied and was accepted to the local community college in all of about 30 minutes. I guess the degrees turned out to be useful at least once after all. Admissions was a little surprised when I produced sealed transcripts with two degrees.
I start night classes in about 2 months. Going to see what I can learn while keeping the 8-5. Classes run from 6pm-8pm Mon-Thurs, so I should be able to make it work.
A lot of people around me got differing opinions. Some very supportive. Some not so much. I don't care. Too old to care at this point. Too old to worry about what other people think. I'm going to see this through, one way or another. It's something I've always wanted to do. I'm glad I have enough freedom to go for it.
Once again I appreciate all the advice in the thread. Might post back in a few months with some pics from class.
>>954928
You will have large fun because you already know how to learn. I retired from the Air Force and took welding and machine shop college courses to further my gearhead hobbies. Ended up working as an adjunct for a while and many staff there are former students.
You may very well end up as an educator. College schedules in vo-tech are great and a state government retirement is nice to have.
>>954928
There will be haters. Ignore them
Does anyone know anything about biomedical equipment technicians. I work I a clinical laboratory but I have a humanities degree not science. Should I go to a trade school to learn how to repair medical equipment?
This might not be the right thread for this but how do you feel about females in the workforce? ex female welders?
What about farming, mainly organic and SPIN style stuff?
