Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Just curious about vocational skills

Wow, millwrights here are between $50-80 per hour.

Doug is 4 years licensed as a truck & coach technician & I'm paying him paying him $38.50 + full benefits !

Plumbers do really well if you work for yourself. Working for someone else can be alright too if you’re not an idiot and prove to be an asset.

I can't believe we have people who think it's okay to have NO skills whatsoever. I was "college track" but took a couple of Vo-Tech classes because my Dad had power tools and the high school had BETTER power tools. So today I am skilled enough to recognize those who DO have real skills and can do stuff right. But can they find warm bodies capable of taking the skills passed down? The answer seems to be mostly, no, and that rips my heart out.

Jack of all trades!
Master of none! 😉👍
That's me!
I learned a lot in 73 years.
I'm a pretty fair rough carpenter. Built our home.
So-so on the finish work, but it looks okay. We're happy and house payment free! 😉👍
Know "how" to shoe a horse, but that's about it. Guess I could in an emergency!🤷‍♂️
Learned to weld in high school. Acetylene and arc.
Shade tree gunsmith. I know just enough to say, "I ain't touching that!"
Assemble my own AR's.
Done computer entry.
Ran a SCADA system.
Know how to treat water from farm pond water to drinking water.
Residential electrical work.
Residential plumbing work.
Recently got into beekeeping! THAT is alot of fun!
Build my own hive boxes.
Build my own turkey calls.
So-so gardener.
Grow our own grapes and blackberries and make our own wine.
Sprouted the 5 pecan trees, 4 black walnut trees and 3 burr oak trees in our yard from the nut! Still growing! Should get our first, albeit small, pecan harvest this fall.
Done some railroading.
Ran a locomotive.
Drove spikes by hand.
Pulled pins and laced air.
Billed cars.
Handed up train orders.
Probably done some other stuff, but it's been awhile.
Again, Jack of all trades. Master of none!

I'm about at the point where I'm going to kick myself for not starting my own plumbing business 10 years ago. I like who I work for and he treats me well, but I think about the increased risk/reward possibilities a lot.

I got conned into current job 21 yrs ago own the company now 3rd generation

Got 2 boys that graduated in 22
One welder
One machinist


Both trades have demand in our areas and surrounding.

Both making over 21$ an hour not even a full year out of HS..
401k benefits and vacation.. no debt living at home.

Not glamorous but not 60-100k in debt going to college either

I'll put it this way, we never stop learning,

After flunking out of nursing school right out of high school, I spent many years in various parts of the retail industry. At 41 years old, I studied HVAC-R at the local tech school at night.

Before I finished, I landed a job in commercial food service repair. I enjoyed the field, but not my boss. My current company great to work for. I have a huge territory (Cleveland to Buffalo to Pittsburgh). Half of my lunch breaks are at gun shops and tackle stores. No two days are ever the same, and I make more than the average college graduate in my area.

Going to trade school changed my life.

Had a kid that lived down the road from us.
Boy was a prime candidate to be the next "village idiot"!
Hisxdad was always working on some sort of car.
When the kid hit high school, he just couldn't cut it.
The school gave him a choice of a vocational class. He signed up for an auto mechanics class.
When the boy graduated, he had NASCAR crews knocking on his door!
His mother, bless her little black, redneck, stupid heart proclaimed, "He cain't be runnin' all over the country! We gotta have him here to help pay bills!" Last I heard, he was working in a John Deere shop near his home.
The neighbors who knew what was going on tried to intervene. "Maw" wasn't having none of it!

Trade schools are a good deal for those who are self-motivation and have common sense. You have to work for a union or be self-employed, the local contractors take advantage of someone who isn't willing to travel and wants to be home every night.

Ag science
Biotechnology
Cosmetology
Auto Diesel
Metal fab
Building Construction
Culinary


Pretty much oriented to local jobs.
Some are widespread, metal fab and poltruded composites are our main industries with multiple factories doing both. There is some big ag lab that's always hiring.

This is traditionally a wage depressed area.
Very depressed.

Talking tonight with someone familiar with a poltruding plant.
5 or 6 years ago they were paying $10-12/hrs for established guys $14 was top.
Now, starting is $19.

Local Detroit Dealer has opened a trailer shop refurbishing trailers.
$28/hrs to start. 2 weeks vacation. Gotta pay to hire, everyone is trying to
hire.

Used to be every new facility would be doing wage surveys trying to decide
how little they needed to pay. Hundreds of applicants.

We have had 1 or 2 open jobs for over a year.
Hired at least 3, they didn't like the shift, got fired for cause, last quit to go
work for the Detroit Dealer. (Dont blame him)
Used to call the job service with a list of people whose apps they wanted, ignoring
the rest. Now, we have a Now Hiring sign at the road.

But what is the cost of loving up there?

Sorry Mate !

More expensive than you, for sure, but not big city expensive, either !

It's actually, way cheaper here, than in Australia, too.

Can't believe how little, we payed for our 80 acres of rural Paradise.

What is poltruding?

Thinking this;

https://www.tencom.com/whats-pultrusion

I'm a hydromechanic at the biggest dam in the US. We just fired back up apprenticeships. Our craft requires about 30 different trades to get by....and the talent pool is pretty shallow.

Son of mine is 16 this summer eating his options on what he wants to do in life.I told him what ever it is make sure it’s essential keep trying to lure into mine but he ain’t grabbed yet.

Many folks with a college degree are working outside of that field.