Looking forward to seeing some interesting jobs I haven’t really thought about. Bonus points if it’s an IT job.
I cant comment on the ubiquity of these jobs. But I work for a (non us) national government organisation with a union. Pay is the same the country round so living in a relatively major city with significantly lower cost of living than the majors means I get a pretty damn good quality of life, better cost of living and job security out of less money than some jobs.
Its not just the dollar figure but what it gets you and where.
Trades. Become an electrician or a plumber or any number of other skilled contractor position. Financially you’ll be set for life.
Well, idk about set for life. Most trades I know spend all their money on toys, and get too old physically before realizing that maybe they should’ve been saving for retirement all those years.
I had a travel job broadly under the umbrella of trades, we were pulling like 85k+ between overtime and per diem working 6 days a week. Maybe 2 months into this job we were having some meeting about the upcoming 2 week break for Christmas and one of the younger guys makes some comment about missing out on hours and says ‘man we’re broke’.
I’m just sitting there like ??? I thought you guys were exaggerating about the $1k+ nights at strip clubs.
An Arborist I knew made bank, but threw it down the sink with every paycheck.
Be sure to learn how to invest kids, compound interests pays well and you don’t have to work doing something you hate if your money works for you.
This is not a universal truth. I am a union electrician and I make decent money but I am most certainly not set for life. It takes some significant overtime but it’s not uncommon for guys to take home 6 figures.
Union trades. That’s where the money is, unfortunately for this conversation few areas have full union coverage.
I’ve worked in NYC. You can not do much in commercial buildings without union help.
Helped change a water heater at my parents place. Got quoted 1k in labor. Took us a little less than 2 hrs of actual work to do it. Had to buy new flexible connectors and Teflon tape. Possible fire or water damage is no joke so i understand the hesitation to DIY, but the work is pretty straight forward.
Trades are absolutely a viable option. There will always be a need.
The difference between what you did and what a licensed plumber will do is liability insurance. If you somehow accidentally broke a pipe or something, home owner insurance might decide you’re the one to foot the bill for repairs, flood damage included.
It is totally worth it. That being said, I did the same thing a month ago.
Honestly, some of the trades sound great. I really do miss back in the day when Discovery wasn’t complete trash and Mike Rowe wasn’t a complete loser, Dirty Jobs gave me a lot of respect to the often shit upon working class.
https://80000hours.org/ probably has information relevant to you, and they do have specific comments about IT roles, and many careers they talk about are related to computers in some way.
Teach yourself cad. Get a 3d printer. Print a portfolio you designed yourself.
I’ve taught myself CAD and am getting pretty competent at it. I’ve been 3d printing since 2014 so I’m getting really good at that. I’ve designed lots of functional parts to solve problems for myself, and I’m getting more into doing pieces for costume design.
What type of 3d printed stuff is actually profitable to sell? Every time I consider trying to monetize it a bit I go shopping around and think that there is no way I can design something that is a better quality or at a lower price than what is already available. Then I think about the hassle of having to manage printing and shipping and dealing with customers on top of my normal job and I think that it isn’t worth it.
You are correct, it isn’t. Even doing custom prints for people comes with way more hassle then it is worth.
If you really want IT. Then telecom
Most people in telecom are old and are analog phone people, they don’t know ip/sip and don’t want to learn.
It’s basically a small networking job that you never get calls on nights and weekends about and if you do it’s a system you can reboot remotely. If it’s not the system it’s a switch and its someone else’s job.
Telecom isn’t sexy but it’s still needed, no one’s going into it as it’s not ‘sexy’ and to be honest it’s easy AF.
How would you prepare for telecom? I’ve got a background in IT and have been trying to switch to Software Engineering by learning React and TypeScript. Would the skills compare at all?
No idea if those skills would be transferable. I was on the small to mid sized biz side. Never worked for a provider or anything. Mainly managing, installing and configuring systems.
Once you understand the basics of telephony it’s pretty easy. It’s getting more complex now since it’s all ip/sip based but because that’s a skill that is lacking because everyone who does know that wants to be a network or security guy, not the phone guy/gal.
If you are working it now. Figure out who’s doing your phones and express interest in learning. It’s how everyone I know got into it.
Telecom seems fantastic except it’s really hard to get into At&T or Verizon at the moment
You don’t need to work with the big guys.
Small businesses, managed service, utilities, hospitals all need telecom guys. Ive been out of telecom for years and I still have recruiters occasionally reaching out to me.
All of this is true. I work with telcom and it is needed in all these areas. I’d add schools, government, anywhere with lots of phones.
Ones I’ve experienced because of healthcare and would’ve otherwise not really known about—
US tech CT Tech Xray Tech Medical Simulation Tech/Actor (this varies, can also be IT. Med sim centers need a ton of IT) ECMO Perfusionist
[off topic]
Try this book. “Discover What You Are Best At.” Linda Gail. First half of the book is a series of self administered tests to see what you are good at. Things like math, mechanical problem solving, interpersonal skills etc. Second part is a listing of jobs that use those skills.
I’m curious about tests like this. I took a couple when I was younger and it pointed me a lot of places that had nothing to do with my current job. So I’m not sure how much value I place on them, but if it helps people point themselves in the general direction they want to go I guess that’s good.
Pretty cool suggestion! Thanks! :)
It actually changed my life, so I love letting folks know about it. Good luck.
I can relate. Many books have changed my life in more or less strong ways. Simplify your life and 7 habits of highly effective people were two of them. I‘ll check it out. Have a good one.
Database Administrator (DBA) can be a lucrative position with a low barrier to entry. Can bridge nicely into data science/AI if you want to go that route. Data is the new oil, and AI/LLMs are the refineries.
In Norway, fishing has the reputation of being a good fit for many who struggles with more theoretical professions while being very, very well paid. Like highly paid IT consulatant sallary.
Industrial PLC is probably good money. Building and maintaining all the industrial automation.
I have been working in power plants for over ten years. Entry level plant operators can make six figures with a high school diploma. At a decent plant, you’ll be balls to the wall busy on 5-10% of your shifts, pretty steady with general routine stuff that’s mostly just confirming that shit is normal 80% of the time, and the remaining 10% is in outages which can vary between busting your ass and waiting around but it’s rough either way because you might be working every day for a few weeks. Every plant I’ve been to does 12 hour shifts with pretty frequent changes between days and nights, which is by far the worst part. You’ll have an easier time getting in and moving up if you are pretty good with STEM stuff, but you’re fine if you passed honors physics in high school. V=IR and PV=nRT will get you really far. Spatial reasoning skills are also really helpful.
I’m at a combined cycle natural gas plant where I started as an outside operator almost 3 years ago at $39.80/hour and am now a ZLD water treatment operator in the same plant at $52/hour; control room operators start at about $60/hour here. I had a really shitty 12 hour shift today so I earned every dime of that wage, but sometimes it’s only like 4-6 hours of work in a 12 hour shift and a bunch of reading or YouTube in between while monitoring everything. Even the tough shifts are kinda good sometimes because I get to work the puzzle part of my brain.
Not gonna lie: When I started reading your comment, I was fairly sure this was gonna be some kind of Simpsons joke.
The real Simpsons joke is affording a big house with a garage, two cars, three kids, pets, and vacations on a single income from a high school education. My wife and I are a DINK couple each with associates degrees in a two bedroom apartment with no pets.
D’oh indeed, Homer. D’oh indeed…
It was doable back in the day, especially if nuclear plant workers make as much as the OP says.
My family was exactly like the Simpsons in terms of what we could afford growing up and who was working. Although my dad worked in an auto factory as opposed to a nuclear plant. He was first a line worker but then managed to be trained to repair machinery.
In the year 2024, it’s hard to fathom how that was at all possible to do, but times were different back then. I will say, I’m fairly certain that my parents were also in a ton of debt when I was growing up. It’s just that they used to give loans to everyone (hence the housing market crash in around 2009 or whenever it was).
The year is 2024, and we’re all Frank Grimes now: https://youtu.be/axHoy0hnQy8
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://piped.video/axHoy0hnQy8
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
I don’t know if it was created by the show, but if it is, by mentioning “Dink” you seem to be a fellow Doug enjoyer.
I don’t think Doug invented it, but probably helped popularize it.
Yeah, I like Doug. Killer Tofu is unironically a fucking bop. But now that I’m older, Doug might have had some kind of social disorder or something lol. But he also has a ton of similarities to JD from Scrubs, another show I really liked.
I still blast it out every now and then. That and Banging on a Trash Can
What starting jobs does your plant offer right now? Are they hiring? I’m not interested but I am wondering if your experience is colored at all by a different job market.
Did you have any experience prior to 3 years ago?
My plant in particular has a roster of only about 30 people, only about 5 of which are what I would call entry level. Right now we’re fully staffed, but every couple of years we get a few people who leave. We’ll have probably two retirements in the next couple of years, and who knows who will say fuck this place and go elsewhere. But this is all for in-house stuff. I got into the industry as a contractor with a few different companies making less money and running harder for a long while, so that made me a much more attractive candidate. But really I just carry myself well and know how to sell myself and appear respectable even though I feel like a 10 year old trapped in a 35 year old body most of the time. Idk what I’m doing half the time, but neither does anybody else in this stupid world lol.
A super easy way to get your foot in the door for the industry is to look into companies that support outages. It can be irregular work that requires travel, but companies always need bodies just to be a general laborer. You might just be carrying shit for “skilled” workers for a while but you get familiar with processes and can find advancement opportunities from there. I started with radiological decontamination and radiation protection for nuclear plant refuel outages. Most of those guys seem to have like an 8th grade education, so it’s pretty easy to stand out in a positive way and receive recognition.
Probably the best thing for my career to really get where I am was when I somehow talked my way into a job with a major company as a water treatment FSR to handle water treatment for a big nuclear plant. I learned a lot through that, and I’m still very much learning every day.
There are a lot more jobs in the medical profession than doctor or nurse. It’s indoors so climate controlled. There’s 2 yr programs that start out around 60k a year.
Unit Clerk here is a 4ish month course plus a practicum. GF is union and gets shift premium for working outside business hours.
Dental Hygienist. They make like $40/hour to clean people’s teeth. It only requires an associates degree and you can get it from community college (aka cheap).
That’s actually pretty tempting… I’ve wondered if I could hack it in dentistry before.
Dental hygiene is a pretty awful field for most people though - there’s a lot of depression and heart problems from having to cause people pain (even if you logically know it’s good for them). This is a great option for some people but if you consider yourself empathetic I’d urge some caution.
Some people also don’t brush or just have putrid breath
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Offshore seismic survey. The positions vary in title, but technician, observer, seabed logger, etc are, quite honestly, easy as fuck. If you’re able to display reasonably good troubleshooting skills and adaptability to a “different” kind of job, you’re golden. Pays quite well too. Your background certainly plays a role, but it’s more about being the right kind of well-rounded personality.
Pros: Computers, heavy machinery, robotics, nice people, loads of travel, nice ships (most of them, at least), five weeks at home to do whatever you want, well paid.
Cons: Five weeks offshore gets tiring, you sometimes find yourself in the shittiest shitholes in the world, the work can be really repetitive and boring, and if you’re unlucky you will find yourself on a ship with shitty food.
Source: I used to be one. Now I hold a more specialized supporting role instead. Been in the industry since 2008, and before that I had no fucking clue what I wanted to do with my life. It didn’t take me long after to figure out “what I want to be when I grow up”. I’m now 41, not quite a grownup, but I definitely am happy with my career.
