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I finally looked up the numbers on how many of my trade school classmates are still in the field 5 years out
My old instructor said only 3 of the 14 guys who graduated with me in 2019 still turn wrenches full time, and I found out he was right when I ran into two of them managing a parts counter at a supply house in Spokane, so now I'm wondering if anyone else in the trades saw attrition like that and what actually keeps people in.
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perry.jesse19h ago
Does it seem like we treat jobs in the trades as a stepping stone instead of a real career? I see this same thing everywhere, not just with wrenches. People get into a field, then life happens, the body wears down, the pay stalls out, and pretty soon they're doing something next to the job instead of the job itself. Run into enough guys from your old crew and you start to see the pattern, the ones who stay usually got a reason beyond the paycheck, whether that's a union pension, their own shop, or just plain loving the work. The ones who leave mostly hit a wall nobody warned them about, like the toll it takes on your knees or the fact that the money doesn't climb the way you thought it would.
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