Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire What Blue Collar Trade Would You Consider?

The Millwrights has been good to me for the last 28 years.
Used to spend most of my time in the power houses and car plants.
Haven't set foot in either for over 3 years.
Spend my time in the food plants and soap plants now.
Kinda miss a good major rebuild on a turbine once in a while,
but not enough to go back to living out of a suitcase.

Dentist…

I could work at Goodwill, run an Ebay side business.

Alert my fams about good shît coming in.

Pretend to be a half-wit.I already have papers and a right to work slip. Progressive Directions could set it up for me. Fugg it.

Spend my afternoons looking for Depression Glass, vintage denim, Rogers silverware, Merle Haggard t-shirts

I don't know. I never really considered myself talented enough to be any good at most.

Welder. I like being burnt by the splashing bacon grease.

Come on mehn.

My pick would be construction worker, they make a tone of money.

Equipment operator

Welder.

The guy who inspects those welds has a better job.

We always joked that a NDT tech was a welder that couldn't handle the heat. Haha.

Tons of great NDT dudes out there.

I depends on the local market. Refinery operators are the best paid "blue collar" workers around here. Most of them average $150k per year with little, or no, education and no heavy lifting.

Lots of people along the gulf coast work in plants. I worked in them some fitting pipe, welding, plumbing. All that creaking and groaning made me nervous as hell. Worked at Shell and Dow mostly. I was thankful when those jobs were over!!!!

NDT = Not Doing That or Not Done Today.

We get into some hot spots fairly often while doing inspections on running equipment. There is one big U-bend pipe we inspect that is 600deg F while running. I hate that job in the summer. Lots of piping, exchangers and furnaces are over 300deg.

I'm happy it all worked out well for ya man. I'm glad I learned the trade, but I guess it just wasn't my cup of tea.

I'm a retired union electrician, IBEW #3, NYC. I loved what I did, and given the choice, I'd do it all over again for another 38 years.

If forced to choose another trade, operating engineer, steamfitter and machinist/gunsmith would be my top three choices.

You most certainly can make good money as a FF/medic, but its not big money compared to some of the other skills listed on here. I made just short of $80k last year, but working the same hours as a good electrician, plumber or something like that would probably bring in twice as much.

This! Both the wife and I have received substantial raises over the last few years, and other than food and my wife's fuel our cost of living hasn't increased substantially. Every time we get a raise, we leave our bring home pay just about the same with the new income going into investments.

Don't follow your passions; follow your opportunities. Think and work hard. Folks are always paid well for what others can't or won't do, or better yet, both. I always wanted to be a professional pheasant shooter, but the pay was terrible. ;-{>8

While not exactly blue collar I’d choose to be an airplane pilot or vessel pilot. With the short demand of pilots most companies no longer require a degree and after you get the flight hours you can get on with someone like a major air carrier or airlines and see the world.

Another one that requires training, it not a degree a vessel pilot. My neighbor’s FIL makes a very good living brining ships into port all around SC Alaska.