I started my career as a plumber (exterior - digging up water mains), and currently I am a corporate IT security engineer.
While the plumbing part was absolutely harder physically, the work was overall more enjoyable and much less stressful. I was outside a lot of the time, I got to play with heavy equipment, and most of the time there wasn’t much urgency to the tasks. I never stared at the ceiling at 2 am worrying what tomorrow would bring.
In corporate IT security? There are days I don’t leave my desk for 6-8 hours straight. I feel a constant need to be connected, and I’m always planning, strategizing and worrying about the next project.
Everyone talks about the sitting at the desk thing, which is an issue, but corporate life is also much more mentally taxing. And that crap adds up over 10-20 years.
There is something about manual labor that office workers cannot simply understand. Sure it’s hard and often times dangerous. But at the end of the day, you feel tired than drained.
I went the career firefighter route.
Pros: tons of time off, rewarding, never boring, great pay and benefits. Will actually be able to retire at 55.
Cons: pretty much guaranteed to get cancer and it’s not even the expected stuff from fires. The AFFF foam we used for years had PFAS – a carcinogen. Even better, it turns out even brand new, unused turnout gear is absolutely saturated in PFAS too.
Oh and stress, cumulative injuries, etc.
It’s like we made a bad deal with a devil.
Oh you want to be fireproof? Sure. Here’s the catch: cancer.
I’m interested in STEM (I very much have an engineers brain) but I’d like to avoid the office lifestyle and constant stress that you mentioned. Do you have any recommendations about what I shoukd look into?
As an engineer, you’re gonna be stressed a lot. But you have a wide range of what kind of stress you get and how much time you spend in an office. I’m industrial and I spend some days on my feet building shit, some days sitting in front of a spreadsheet until my soul hurts, and most days doing a bit of this and a bit of that with good balance of sitting and standing.
CNC machining and particularly programming. Be careful, there are lots of boring jobs out there (mostly labeled “operator”, and lower paid), but if you can get a programming position they’re pretty cushy. It’s in a shop, but also on a computer, since you have to set up the machine too (usually, again it depends on the company).
Wow, seems life is easier with the job you wouldn’t expect it from, right?
