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167 Comments
- inactive, on 06/28/2009, -0/+49There's a been a movement to make everybody go to college that really has to stop-it's just not for everyone,and maybe this is the beginning of a backlash against it. I think a lot of young people would be better of if we resurrecting the whole notion of apprenticeship, and let them study a skill and learn a vocation under a professional.
- BDOUG, on 06/27/2009, -5/+42Also, Colleges and Universities have gotten so expensive it's hard to justify paying for them. Takes many years to pay those loans off and get any kind of return on that investment. If I had it to do it all over again, I'd definitely consider a blue collar career path. They can't use the internet to off-shore a car mechanic, plumber, welder, etc.
The downside of blue collar jobs should be known, however: unions (in many, not all cases) are a problem. Sometimes there are also macho meathead coworkers to deal with, too. Guys in their 30's and 40's who still think drinking until they pass out is cool, dangerous pranks are funny, etc. It can be hard to deal with that sort of crap at work 5 days a week. So, if you go for blue collar be sure to shop around for a more mature place to work if you can find it....or better yet work for yourself as an independent. - reddikilowatt, on 06/27/2009, -0/+35I went from managing people and budgets to building and fixing things. I'll never go back. There's something very satisfying about looking at a completed job that started out as a mess and is now purring like a kitten, although getting there can be very stressful.
- gdog05, on 06/28/2009, -0/+31You mean you don't need 8 managers for every one employee? This madness must not be allowed to take hold! This country wasn't built on people working hard and making things. Oh wait...
- gigi52, on 06/27/2009, -1/+31An honest days work for an honest days pay is right for any profession.
- inactive, on 06/28/2009, -0/+28I'm just waiting for the college bubble to finally burst.
It's way overpriced, the education itself is often shallow, so in the end, all it manages to do is foster ignorance and debt-sort of the opposite of it's intended purpose.
It may be good for fields like law, medicine, engineering and hard sciences, but other than that, you don't need to blow a hundred grand to get an education. You need a library card and a wifi connection, and a sense or curiosity. - WordsnCollision, on 06/27/2009, -8/+32Didn't Manual Labor play shortstop for the '73 Phillies?
- orangefly, on 06/28/2009, -1/+19too many chiefs, not enough indians....
- gharding, on 06/28/2009, -0/+18Yeah, I used to be a Java developer. Now I build, repair, and sell bikes! Even though I make a fraction of the money I used to, I love my job way more. Doing something physical rocks (and no more soft programmer hands!)
- DrDragun, on 06/28/2009, -0/+17College is a huge waste of money on a lot of people, and many come out of it having less academic intensity than a rigorous high school. I won't say it's a waste of time though; it was a blast. What needs to disappear is the stigma of people who didn't go to college feeling like failures. There are a lot of 24 years olds out there lamenting the $400 a month they have to pay for the next 15 years for a bachelors degree that didn't get them anywhere.
- artwhite, on 06/27/2009, -6/+23Like cops beating up people?
- KingGorilla, on 06/28/2009, -0/+17Why beat them when you can let the taser do all the work
- yerdaddy, on 06/28/2009, -2/+18What's worse is when you wind up at a company with eight levels of management between you and the guy with all the ideas, every one of them are lined up nose to ass, and you can't move up unless you get in line. If you start seeing that flee for your life. The buttsuckle corporate culture in USA is ***** sick and Rampant.
- svartgotik, on 06/28/2009, -0/+14I've worked with my hands for the last 15 years as a welder/fabricator/mechanic, and my hobbies are all tech-related. I remember for how many years people would ask "Why didn't you go to school and become a _____ or a ______, you're just wasting your talents." I've been called "uneducated", even though I immerse myself into whatever interests me like literature and the arts for my enjoyment, not because it's a required course. And yes, I've envied those people able to make their own schedules, people able to afford really nice houses that only come with an investment in higher education. However, I'm doing fairly well, and I know that I at least have a real skillset that is employable. I'd love to get to wear slacks and a button-down shirt to work and be able to go out for drinks wearing the same clothes, but there's an indescribable sense of satisfaction knowing you actually created something tangible that will make a real difference - and how well it works will speak of your skill.
- marx2k, on 06/28/2009, -3/+17Musician... NOT manual labor
- fiatjustitia, on 06/28/2009, -1/+15Bring the manufacturing back within our borders, stop the outsourcing, and have Americans actually creating things again.
If we do this, I can tell you right now you'd see a dramatic change in our economy. - Pinkertinkle, on 06/28/2009, -0/+13Is being a surgeon considered manual labor?
- ZooMigo, on 06/28/2009, -0/+13I used to work in a high tech field, sat behind a desk and pushed a mouse around, air conditioning, thought I had it pretty good until I got tired of all the micro-managing and micro-brains in management.
For my entire life, everyone had told me education was the way to riches and in order to get anywhere I had to have a good education, so I worked hard, saved and finally paid my way though college with cash from savings. I wish I had it all back.
About 7 years ago I threw it all out and went into a field that was manual labor (Im now a contractor). I feel much better at the end of each day, actually tired from work, lost about 30 lbs not sitting on my ass all day, and oh yeah, also DOUBLED my income. Sad to think that I can earn more with my body than my mind, but I truly wish I had learned this lesson at 20 instead of 40. - inactive, on 06/28/2009, -0/+13this is why the australian government a couple of years ago started making a huge push towards getting kids to do trades (mechanic, carpenter, plumber, welder etc etc) rather than go to uni, because there is a massive skill shortage for it. in the end the riches of a country come down to making stuff
- kefkaantakrist, on 06/28/2009, -1/+13Different strokes for different folks. People should do what they like and/or excel at, not what they think will pay the most. If you are really good at what you do, the money will come.
- inactive, on 06/28/2009, -0/+11No *****. When I was growing up, I was given the impression that those were just *****, low-paying blue collar jobs. Turns out those guys are making money hand over fist.
- LenBaird, on 06/28/2009, -0/+10I feel the same way. That is the feeling you get when you do something real, and useful. People who look down on blue collar work have lost touch with what doing real useful things is like.
I know people who work at white collar jobs. I have realized that some of them know how to do NOTHING of any real value. When they are at home, they will pay someone to do the simplest things, because it never even enters their thought process to look at a problem with the goal of solving it. Their first reaction is to have someone else do it. - TheGreatZarquon, on 06/28/2009, -0/+10Mike Rowe seen nodding in approval.
- Brandoskey, on 06/28/2009, -1/+11i'm a union carpenter, i make around 40 an hour, plus another 15 for benefits that my boss pays. non union carpenters make less than half that with no benefits more often than not. now if you can live off 20 bucks an hour with no health insurance or retirement then more power to you. let your boss make all the money off YOUR sweat.
if you want to make a career out of it the union is the way to go. trade unions are all too necessary. hell the only reason the non-union carpenters are making half what we do is because we are so organized. if the union were gone, the 20 bucks would be maybe 15, maybe not even that.
non-union labor owes a lot of what they are paid to the organized labor in the area.
it's soooo sickening to hear you guys whine about how lazy we are. i DARE you to come try and do my job for a day, i bet your soft dainty arse wouldn't make it to lunch. i've seen too many guys to count just walk off the job because they were too coooold, or they got yelled at, or it was too hot. MAN UP!
in an 8.5 hour day i get one paid 15 minute break and an unpaid 30 minute break. the rest of the time i'm busting my ass or getting yelled at and told to work even harder.
i'd sure love to know where this 80 dollar an hour job where i sit around is though. do you seriously live in a fantasy land? no contractor on earth has pockets deep enough to pay someone 80 bucks an hour to sit around. margins are razor thin o just about any job site, especially residential. one guy gets hurt and we just built a house for free. - OnlyGirlOnDigg, on 06/28/2009, -0/+10In my experience, 3/4 of the people in college don't really need to be. The most that the average person needs is maybe an associates degree or trade school. There are so many unqualified people wanting to "buy" a product (schooling) when they are clearly unfit and frankly don't need it. It waters down the education system for those that are academically inclined.
- alvarezg, on 06/28/2009, -0/+9It's a matter of temperament and personality. Some people would hate working in an office and enjoy seeing the things they have made with their hands. They deserve full respect and appreciation. Get to know a toolmaker and the work the does; you will be awed.
- Xeller, on 06/28/2009, -0/+9I'm an aircraft mechanic. We're called A&P's, and it cost me around 24,000 dollars to take the classes necessary to get certificated and purchase a respectable set of tools.
Yet unless I have a college degree, chances are that I would not be considered for any promotions in an airline beyond directing my own shop.
I'm not exactly complaining yet, because anything like that would be at least 10-20 years down the road for me, and I absolutely love my job. Just saying that even for so-called blue collar employees, there's a certain ceiling that cannot be passed without white collar college education. - yerdaddy, on 06/28/2009, -1/+10Try the first sentence for a thesis, mono.
- Brandoskey, on 06/28/2009, -0/+9i make 40 dollars an hour, and my employer pays another 15 for my benefits, i'm just a regular old carpenter too. i hate when people talk about "working your way up" as if showing up, working, and going home and leaving work at work is a bad thing. not all of us wish to "move up"
i'm more content letting someone else run the show while i just do my thing. - artwhite, on 06/28/2009, -0/+8The taser is mostly used before the beating.. and sometimes a lilte bit after too if the frustration level is high... because of cold donuts or something
- alpharaptor, on 06/28/2009, -1/+9a pension and heath care sound great as well, years of manual labor is rough on the bones and working in hazardous conditions has its toll to pay too.
- svartgotik, on 06/28/2009, -6/+14Unions had their place in the beginning of the 20th century, but now they are just corrupt corporate shills that take your money and still have no power to do anything that the Company doesn't want. They just place more hoops for the worker to jump through.
- Rudegar, on 06/28/2009, -0/+8species then as i'm not that aryan to begin with
- ProfessorRiffs, on 06/28/2009, -0/+8I make my living by playing music and nothing else. I also make more in 3 nights of gigging than I have at any 40 hour/week job. The only starving artists are the lazy ones.
- inactive, on 06/28/2009, -0/+7You are correct.
- inactive, on 06/28/2009, -1/+8Sure is easy to appreciate art when you're not the one making it.
- mintedmeadow, on 06/28/2009, -0/+7What's ironic is that a number of people who apprentice under a plumber, mechanic, et cetera, typically end up making more money than a number of college graduates, after learning the trade. Plus, they don't have to deal with over $25,000 of debt.
- Leo21k, on 06/28/2009, -0/+7Anything beats retail.
- relaxeder, on 06/28/2009, -0/+6Not if you can network.
- wezman2k, on 06/28/2009, -0/+6sure feels like it when we're lugging all of that heavy equipment around, driving from state to state to rock out manually on stage! you know ipods don't actually MAKE the music right?
- sulthernao, on 06/28/2009, -0/+6Vocational schools do exist.
- ericthesalmon, on 06/28/2009, -0/+6A lot of people are missing the seem to be missing Crawford's point. They start talking about the decline of American manufacturing, but factory work is just the kind of job he's against: mechanistic, rote and decoupled from the overall goal of the enterprise. An GM worker has an attenuated connection to the final product, to the car, and has no need to exercise judgement at any point in his work.
Crawford is writing in praise of problem solving and doing work that feels meaningful, the talk about manual labor is merely pointing out that society grants less prestige to diagnosing and fixing a busted engine than to donning a tie every day to churn out TPS reports.
It's the difference between an artisan and a clerk, but the factory worker is just a robot arm. - alamedaman, on 06/28/2009, -8/+14Blue collar ftw! as long as you're not one of those unionized ***** who sit around all the time jerkin it and getting paid 80 bucks an hour
- evanft, on 06/28/2009, -1/+7Well that's not sexist at all.
- AnalogAssassin, on 06/28/2009, -0/+6All I can say is I went from being a copy editor making $30K to a marine electronics tech (dynamic positioning) making at least double that in my first year. I love wiring up the system, getting the computers up and running, including the networks, until it finally works, which means it can keep a 300-foot offshore oilfield supply boat in one place, within a meter. This is fun stuff.
I think the traditional four-year college degree is overrated, I mean I'm glad I've got my degree and the experiences I had in college, but I wish I would have been doing this years ago.
I think the headline is misleading, though. I don't consider what I do to be manual labor. When I think of manual labor, I'm thinking of digging ditches, sweeping floors, etc. The money is in skilled labor. - Ghostalker, on 06/28/2009, -2/+7I was in the last class in High School who could substitute a foreign language with 2 tech classes. Funny thing is most of the people I went to school with are unemployed, and I haven't had an issue getting work in 5 years.
You can speak French/Spanish until you're blue in the face, but if you don't know the difference between a phillipshead and a flathead screwdriver (or lefty-loosy, righty-tighty), you're ***** in the real world. - Swivelstick, on 06/28/2009, -0/+5You mentioned those that need to go and not the 90% that could easily do without it and should be getting their training in the work place as they still need to be trained irrespective of education level. Most white collar work is menial crap.
- inactive, on 06/28/2009, -2/+7Speaking a language and understanding the most basic aspects of manual labour are equal skills.
/s - medladam, on 06/28/2009, -1/+6Judging by the interviews at the end of the article, manual labour is strictly for men. You'd think they would ask at least one female musician, hairdresser, set designer (perhaps even a female plumber or mechanic, as rare as those might be) how satisfied they are with their chosen profession, if for no reason other than to provide a better reflection of the workforce.
- ramiro, on 06/28/2009, -1/+6It is also a good safety net for white collar professionals to fall back in times such as these.
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