As a maintenance technician in the beverage industry I thoroughly enjoyed your story. My first and only experience in HVAC came when I remarried and her truck AC wasn't cold. I watched hours of "HVAC SCHOOL" on Utube. Bought some gauges and fixed it! Have you ever watched the HVAC SCHOOL episode called, "Head Trash"? I recommend it for anyone in the trades.
I have thought of writing a book about my decades of experience is a mechanic/ weldor/ machinist. The theme would be the attitude of management not wanting to do preventive maintenance. How that costs them more downtime and more money. I have a great title that is to the point. But lately I've changed my mind. Why would I spend an hour of my retirement dwelling on the past. More importantly WHO WILL READ IT!?!
I will read it. There’s a romantic notion that manual labor is the “escape” from the AI threat, but from what I’ve seen its dependency on white-collar decision-making (which is under AI threat) might not make the notion so rosy. So I’m personally very interested in hearing your opinions on management. If management makes the decisions, and management is subject to AI-risk, it follows that AI will make the decisions.
Understood - I really loved your piece. As someone who is very interested in endeavors like the College of St. Joseph the Work in Steubenville Ohio - a tradeschool that teaches both the liberal arts and offsets tuition through paid apprenticeships - but really has no insight in the nature of the trades, I found your piece to be sobering and insightful.
While the job security is apparent, I have two major concerns (not against your position, just in general):
1. I worry that a lot of the waste from poorly implemented work management solutions will trickle down onto the workers heads, just like poorly designed production systems manifest on the shoulders of the laborers. If office administration doesn't improve - who pays for it? AI promises this won't happen, but without extreme competence and alignment it's likely to exacerbate problems just like anything else.
2. If a job is taken as a hedge against scarcity, and that scarcity doesn't manifest, then one could miss their calling.
I pray and think about this often. Thanks for the excellent article.
I took an unusual route, electrical engineering degree, got hired into the role of "regulatory engineer" which means reading through various product standards (mostly UL and a little bit of CSA and IEC) and then figuring whether a product complies with the construction and test requirements and arguing with design engineers if anything needs to change; after nine years of that I moved back to the family farm to live with my parents and for about eight years I worked very part time as a repair technician at a local sewing machine store.
I've done a little bit of welding helping my dad and brother, mostly stick and wire feed, but I loved listening to the Welding Tips and Tricks podcast when it was still running.
What really interests me is how the real world actually works. Engineering degrees teach a lot of theory and it seems like in the corporate world there's a huge divide between different divisions, design engineers don't always talk to manufacturing engineers and maybe neither talk that much to the people actually doing the manufacturing, regulatory compliance might be included at the start or might only be brought in as the last step before product release (bad times ahead in almost all cases but especially bad when the testing includes electromagnetic compatibility and interference testing), and then what seems to be really terra incognito is where does this stuff actually go and what does this stuff look like 5 or 10 years out?
I’m not sure id consider writing a book about your experience “dwelling on the past”… is not experience and wisdom earned in all those years? It wouldn’t be a best-seller, but you could find readers. You should write it!
I say I have to consult with my wife before deciding just as a counter to any.pressure sales tactics/to give me time to shop around for different quotes.
This was an interesting read. I think you made the right decision going into a trade. It takes guts and perseverance for someone with no “handyman” type skills to go into it in your mid 30s and humility for someone with a college degree. The skill set and base of knowledge is so far removed from the world you had been living in. I grew up knowing nothing at all about tools or how to fix or build anything. I went to college, I worked various desk jobs until I was in my mid 40s when I entered the irrigation trade. Same kind of thing, working with specialized parts and tools and doing maintainence, repairs, installs, at private homes businesses and new construction projects of office and/or apartment complexes…every day something new and different, crawling under porches, digging ditches, wiring control boxes, fitting pipes, and dozens of other various tasks, problems, solutions. This is a whole other kind of education and it will serve you well, especially as a husband and a homeowner. It's important to know how the stuff in your home works and important to know how tradesmen work so you don't get hustled when you need to hire an electrician or contactor to do work on your home. Good job, sir.
I ran my own HVAC/appliance repair business for years.
I will add this: you should be looking to eventually move into a role where you do not need to be doing any physical work anymore.
It varies person to person, but you will destroy your body doing this work, the heavier the equipment and the more time you spend outside on a roof, the higher the toll.
Have a plan to be the guy in the truck or in the office within 20 years. You don't want to be a gray-hair crawling underneath a house
I did gas service work for 28 years. I got a 2 AM call out for a no heat in February. Worst time for a call as the bars just closed and people are coming home. My employer did free diagnostics that were included in the cost of the gas.
I crawled across a river rock covered crawl space in a 18 month old house to find the cheapest installer in town had put a filter in the crawl space. Naturally the filter was plugged and the furnace off on high limit. I pulled the filter, reset the furnace as it was below freezing and brought the filter up to tell the owner to replace it . I also explained that without a filter the furnace in his new home would not last a year.
The next month I put in for a transfer having decided at age 50, 2:00 AM callouts and crawling across rock was no longer worth it.
I enjoyed this read; I am married to a “tradesman; self taught OJT carpenter who spent years reading Readers Digest “How to” books and laying awake at night mapping the build sequence and listing materials, and over the course of decades, he has become an amazing troubleshooter and sounding board for others to talk through how to do assorted ide . I think this is foundational to male friendships…solving problems. True at times he might have made more flipping burgers at McDonald’s, but he is wired to be self employed and stand on his own feet.
Your insights on the HVAC trade are fascinating and consistent with his own experiences in other peoples homes …and I would love to create a collection of “trade secrets” of the hilarious situations tradesmen find themselves in…like the cat climbing into the furnace you’re servicing…anyway…I can tell that a human wrote this essay and I will share it with my grandson who is considering OJT or trade school. Thanks
Was a Commercial HVAC Installer from Australia, supermarkets, fish mongers, abbatoirs etc for 10 years. Had a blast honestly was some of my favourite times through my youth. Highly recommend it for any young lads.
Most professionals, from journalist to mechanic or factory worker relied on the model you’re describing: Starting out seeeping the floor and bringing coffee to the experienced workers, slowly learning practical skills and soaking up knowledge, gradually becoming a professional.
I have been running crews building things for people, mostly my own design, for fifty four years. I have personally done it all a one point. Will not try HVAC again however. I have a great company that helps me with that one. Everything you said checks out. I personally am honest to a fault. My bills zero out to the penny. Run to hundreds of entries. I have a particular hatred for those that lie or do half-ass or sloppy work.
This was a very interesting article. I grew up in the commercial fishing industry but today I work in Finance. I'm familiar with what life is like in both arenas. When I was 20 I thought it would be good to get out of blue collar work so I could have a more stable life with more consistent work that was easier on the body. At the time the country was just beginning to recover from the 08/09 financial crisis. A lot of the trades didn't appear to be as reliable as they are now. I think people in the trades often discount the toll that stress and anxiety can take on the mind and body when you're staring at numbers all day. These days I often find it relaxing to help my Dad with his business doing physically demanding work.
Interesting stories. We had a new HVAC system installed. The company used a large crew of Hispanics for the ductwork installation. Then a smaller crew of Caucasians for installing the new units and lines. It was okay experience. The company did damage the front steps, then tried to deny it. Then “fixed” the damage. It one room, we installed a mini-split. This seems to work better than central air. It’s probably the way to go if a person can afford it.
Mini splits definitely have their place, depending on the home and the project. Glad they took care of the damage to the steps, to whatever degree it seems they did. These things do happen unfortunately.
My brother! I retired from corporate world one year ago at 57 and decided to resurrect my long-dormant career (well, I worked for my dad in high school) in HVAC by starting my own HVAC company totally from scratch. I greatly enjoyed your essay and look forward to reading more of your stuff.
As a maintenance technician in the beverage industry I thoroughly enjoyed your story. My first and only experience in HVAC came when I remarried and her truck AC wasn't cold. I watched hours of "HVAC SCHOOL" on Utube. Bought some gauges and fixed it! Have you ever watched the HVAC SCHOOL episode called, "Head Trash"? I recommend it for anyone in the trades.
I have thought of writing a book about my decades of experience is a mechanic/ weldor/ machinist. The theme would be the attitude of management not wanting to do preventive maintenance. How that costs them more downtime and more money. I have a great title that is to the point. But lately I've changed my mind. Why would I spend an hour of my retirement dwelling on the past. More importantly WHO WILL READ IT!?!
But I enjoyed your story?
Blessings!
🙏🏻
I will read it. There’s a romantic notion that manual labor is the “escape” from the AI threat, but from what I’ve seen its dependency on white-collar decision-making (which is under AI threat) might not make the notion so rosy. So I’m personally very interested in hearing your opinions on management. If management makes the decisions, and management is subject to AI-risk, it follows that AI will make the decisions.
The office administration is always the worst part, and yes — they do use AI to both answer the phone and dispatch calls sometimes.
Understood - I really loved your piece. As someone who is very interested in endeavors like the College of St. Joseph the Work in Steubenville Ohio - a tradeschool that teaches both the liberal arts and offsets tuition through paid apprenticeships - but really has no insight in the nature of the trades, I found your piece to be sobering and insightful.
While the job security is apparent, I have two major concerns (not against your position, just in general):
1. I worry that a lot of the waste from poorly implemented work management solutions will trickle down onto the workers heads, just like poorly designed production systems manifest on the shoulders of the laborers. If office administration doesn't improve - who pays for it? AI promises this won't happen, but without extreme competence and alignment it's likely to exacerbate problems just like anything else.
2. If a job is taken as a hedge against scarcity, and that scarcity doesn't manifest, then one could miss their calling.
I pray and think about this often. Thanks for the excellent article.
I would read it!
I took an unusual route, electrical engineering degree, got hired into the role of "regulatory engineer" which means reading through various product standards (mostly UL and a little bit of CSA and IEC) and then figuring whether a product complies with the construction and test requirements and arguing with design engineers if anything needs to change; after nine years of that I moved back to the family farm to live with my parents and for about eight years I worked very part time as a repair technician at a local sewing machine store.
I've done a little bit of welding helping my dad and brother, mostly stick and wire feed, but I loved listening to the Welding Tips and Tricks podcast when it was still running.
What really interests me is how the real world actually works. Engineering degrees teach a lot of theory and it seems like in the corporate world there's a huge divide between different divisions, design engineers don't always talk to manufacturing engineers and maybe neither talk that much to the people actually doing the manufacturing, regulatory compliance might be included at the start or might only be brought in as the last step before product release (bad times ahead in almost all cases but especially bad when the testing includes electromagnetic compatibility and interference testing), and then what seems to be really terra incognito is where does this stuff actually go and what does this stuff look like 5 or 10 years out?
I’m not sure id consider writing a book about your experience “dwelling on the past”… is not experience and wisdom earned in all those years? It wouldn’t be a best-seller, but you could find readers. You should write it!
I say I have to consult with my wife before deciding just as a counter to any.pressure sales tactics/to give me time to shop around for different quotes.
Many such cases! It can be difficult to tell sometimes whether it’s real or a smokescreen.
This was an interesting read. I think you made the right decision going into a trade. It takes guts and perseverance for someone with no “handyman” type skills to go into it in your mid 30s and humility for someone with a college degree. The skill set and base of knowledge is so far removed from the world you had been living in. I grew up knowing nothing at all about tools or how to fix or build anything. I went to college, I worked various desk jobs until I was in my mid 40s when I entered the irrigation trade. Same kind of thing, working with specialized parts and tools and doing maintainence, repairs, installs, at private homes businesses and new construction projects of office and/or apartment complexes…every day something new and different, crawling under porches, digging ditches, wiring control boxes, fitting pipes, and dozens of other various tasks, problems, solutions. This is a whole other kind of education and it will serve you well, especially as a husband and a homeowner. It's important to know how the stuff in your home works and important to know how tradesmen work so you don't get hustled when you need to hire an electrician or contactor to do work on your home. Good job, sir.
🙏🏻
I ran my own HVAC/appliance repair business for years.
I will add this: you should be looking to eventually move into a role where you do not need to be doing any physical work anymore.
It varies person to person, but you will destroy your body doing this work, the heavier the equipment and the more time you spend outside on a roof, the higher the toll.
Have a plan to be the guy in the truck or in the office within 20 years. You don't want to be a gray-hair crawling underneath a house
💯
I did gas service work for 28 years. I got a 2 AM call out for a no heat in February. Worst time for a call as the bars just closed and people are coming home. My employer did free diagnostics that were included in the cost of the gas.
I crawled across a river rock covered crawl space in a 18 month old house to find the cheapest installer in town had put a filter in the crawl space. Naturally the filter was plugged and the furnace off on high limit. I pulled the filter, reset the furnace as it was below freezing and brought the filter up to tell the owner to replace it . I also explained that without a filter the furnace in his new home would not last a year.
The next month I put in for a transfer having decided at age 50, 2:00 AM callouts and crawling across rock was no longer worth it.
💯
great piece.
The only glaring typo was about the macho man with 10 inch arms.
I will confess I didn’t look up what arm size is considered impressive before typing up this essay 🤣
Start with the somatotype of a mesomorph, then add sports and lifting heavy weights. Arnold Schwarzenegger had 22 inch arms at his peak.
I enjoyed this read; I am married to a “tradesman; self taught OJT carpenter who spent years reading Readers Digest “How to” books and laying awake at night mapping the build sequence and listing materials, and over the course of decades, he has become an amazing troubleshooter and sounding board for others to talk through how to do assorted ide . I think this is foundational to male friendships…solving problems. True at times he might have made more flipping burgers at McDonald’s, but he is wired to be self employed and stand on his own feet.
Your insights on the HVAC trade are fascinating and consistent with his own experiences in other peoples homes …and I would love to create a collection of “trade secrets” of the hilarious situations tradesmen find themselves in…like the cat climbing into the furnace you’re servicing…anyway…I can tell that a human wrote this essay and I will share it with my grandson who is considering OJT or trade school. Thanks
Was a Commercial HVAC Installer from Australia, supermarkets, fish mongers, abbatoirs etc for 10 years. Had a blast honestly was some of my favourite times through my youth. Highly recommend it for any young lads.
Great stuff.
Most professionals, from journalist to mechanic or factory worker relied on the model you’re describing: Starting out seeeping the floor and bringing coffee to the experienced workers, slowly learning practical skills and soaking up knowledge, gradually becoming a professional.
🙏🏻💯
Very interesting article. I learned a lot.
I have been running crews building things for people, mostly my own design, for fifty four years. I have personally done it all a one point. Will not try HVAC again however. I have a great company that helps me with that one. Everything you said checks out. I personally am honest to a fault. My bills zero out to the penny. Run to hundreds of entries. I have a particular hatred for those that lie or do half-ass or sloppy work.
I enjoyed your article.
🙏🏻
Perhaps the wife controls the finances and makes the big decisions because the husband is not good at it and she is.
She learned it the hard way, and she said never again.
This was a very interesting article. I grew up in the commercial fishing industry but today I work in Finance. I'm familiar with what life is like in both arenas. When I was 20 I thought it would be good to get out of blue collar work so I could have a more stable life with more consistent work that was easier on the body. At the time the country was just beginning to recover from the 08/09 financial crisis. A lot of the trades didn't appear to be as reliable as they are now. I think people in the trades often discount the toll that stress and anxiety can take on the mind and body when you're staring at numbers all day. These days I often find it relaxing to help my Dad with his business doing physically demanding work.
💯🙏🏻
Interesting stories. We had a new HVAC system installed. The company used a large crew of Hispanics for the ductwork installation. Then a smaller crew of Caucasians for installing the new units and lines. It was okay experience. The company did damage the front steps, then tried to deny it. Then “fixed” the damage. It one room, we installed a mini-split. This seems to work better than central air. It’s probably the way to go if a person can afford it.
Mini splits definitely have their place, depending on the home and the project. Glad they took care of the damage to the steps, to whatever degree it seems they did. These things do happen unfortunately.
Awesome article! I really enjoyed reading this and thank you for your candor.
My brother! I retired from corporate world one year ago at 57 and decided to resurrect my long-dormant career (well, I worked for my dad in high school) in HVAC by starting my own HVAC company totally from scratch. I greatly enjoyed your essay and look forward to reading more of your stuff.
🙏🏻