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Bloomberg To HS Grads: Be a Plumber
An anonymous reader writes "This being college graduation season, the insights provided by commencement speakers should be familiar by now: find work in a field you're passionate about, don't underestimate your own abilities, aim high, learn to communicate and collaborate with others, give something back to your community. Billionaire Mike Bloomberg, whose current job is Mayor of New York City, evidently decided to break the mold by advising less academically adept youngsters to consider a career in plumbing. High wages, constant demand, no offshore competition. 'Compare a plumber to going to Harvard College — being a plumber, actually for the average person, probably would be a better deal'. Ouch! And hey, like a lawyer, a plumber can always dabble in politics."
Plumbers don't have to put up with as much shit as most IT workers
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As much as we need competent programmers, DBAs, network administrators, etc., we also need plumbers, carpenters and electricians. Not everyone has the talent or desire for college, and I think we as a society ought to recognize that. Of course, that means less income for colleges and bankers providing student loans, so I'm not surprised that this is being billed as a radical idea.
Go on, citizen, stamp the vote card. R or D, your choice.
People with skills and trades will almost always find work even in shitty economies. If you know how to make something, build something, or fix something that everyone uses, then someone is probably going to pay you to do that.
My advice to kids, whether family or kids I mentor, is to finish school with a skill. Doesn't matter if it's programming or plumbing.
If you love working on cars and want to be a mechanic, you don't go to college for engineering, you go to trade school and get certified. If you want to work on planes, you go get your A&P, you don't get a degree in aeronautical engineering. We need people to fix our cars, unclog our pipes, weld stuff, etc. These jobs aren't glamorous, but they are stable, pay much better than you think, and can be obtained by attending a much cheaper trade school than going to a university. I currently work part-time doing unskilled labor, and one guy I work with, after only being there 7 years, makes over 70k a year working no more overtime than many salaried employees. When he tops out in 3 more years he will probably be making close to, if not more than $100k. And this is in a job that requires no more than a high school diploma.
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There is nothing wrong with becoming a Tradesman. Plumber, Electrician, Welder or Mechanic, etc
Just as we need Engineers, Nurses and Lawyers (I can't believe I'm including Lawyers!), we need the folks that keep our machines running. Just as not everyone has the money, or the aptitude to become a Doctor, I know many people who do not have the abilities to become a carpenter or metal worker.
I don't much care for the way some look down on the tradesmen that keep things running. Where I live there is a shortage of plumbers and electricians. Out west there is a shortage of carpenters. As a resul the ones that do exist command high wages, and are busy with lots of work. All this without the debilitating school loans that many University Graduates have.
From my perspective, it sounds like good advice
The most insulting part of his statement is that a hands on trades type job is just for the less academically adept.
While I am partial to electrician work, a trades type job is great for just about anyone.
I am actually getting out of software development full time and working toward becoming a professional electrician because I am very into renewable energy and would love to work outside installing solar and wind equipment.
Electrician, plumber, carpenter, mechanic, heavy equipment operator, landscaper, etc are all great jobs for a person who wants to do them, academically adept or not. Suggesting they are only for "less"er people is insulting, stigmatizing and shameful.
Wax on, wax off baby!
When I hear people complaining that they can't find skilled people, the part they usually leave off is "I can't find skilled people....for the amount of money I want to pay."
If there's a shortage in the market, then the value goes up, attracting more people, so there shouldn't be a problem in the long term.
The mayor did have a valid point that there's nothing that makes a lawyer worth more respect than a plumber, other than class behaviors.
I'm not sure how much respect of a profession matters in attracting people. Lawyers don't get a lot of respect but many people want to become lawyers for the money. No reason that shouldn't work for plumbers.
-- Everything is wonderful until you know something about it.
In European countries where people go to school until the age of 19 or 20, and where trade school pupils have their own track, a university degree programme still lasts five or six years (because an M.A. is considered the basic degree, not a B.A. like in the US). So, longer high school wouldn't necessary lead to shorter university studies.
Funny, that's not what I was thinking when I had to hire a plumber because my main line out of the house got clogged with "flushable" wipes. (I was so glad that I wasn't the one dealing with that literal shit. I was totally happy to pay him for his work.)
Did you know 80 to 90% of the moderators on slashdot wouldn't recognize a troll even if one dragged them under a bridge.
Bloomberg made his money off the finance industry and he's in politics.
Trust him when he says that the world will never run out of assholes.
Guys who went to business school are running most companies.
Are they? I don't know any business owners who went to business school. I do know a lot of successful business owners from diverse backgrounds who are tough, resourceful, resilient, charming, lucky, and upon occasion ruthless, which are not qualities you are taught in school.
I teach engineering at a maritime academy and it dazzles me that so many students pay through the nose and suffer through 4+ years of regimented academics for a license that they could get by just sailing as a paid vessel assistant for a few years after high school and taking a Coast Guard examination. This is a practice called hawsepiping and used to be the norm for the profession. Marine engineers are really (for the most part) mechanics, and much simpler vocational school would be more than adequate for these jobs.
Admittedly the students also get a "marine engineering degree" over and above the training for the license that is transferrable to a lot of shore-side professions, but most of that is lost on the students. All they care about is getting the license and many whine and cry about having to read, write, do math, and take engineering coursework. I do think that degree is worth what they pay, but it really a form of insurance so they can remain employed after they come ashore, and getting 20 year old boys who aspire to be sailors to think about what they are going to do later in life (hell, later in the *day*) is hard.
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Is the end goal of life a high salary?
I understand his advice, if followed, and if you work your way, either through trade school or apprenticeship, to journeyman, and then to master, you can expect a $80K+ a year income.
Is this the end-all, be-all of human existence?
A high salary is not why I went into the sciences - I went in with a passion for knowledge and knowing how things work, and why, and how to build things that, because they were barely within the boundaries of the rules, did amazing and astonishing things. A high salary resulted because I was successful at pursuing this passion.
I would instead advise people to try to find three things for which they feel passion, and are good at, and then find someone willing to pay you to do one of them.
If you can only find one thing for which you have passion, if you can still find someone to pay you to do it, then you are ahead of the game, compared to what Bloomberg suggest, if it happens that none of your objects of passion include plumbing.
There are plenty of people who look at the top end paychecks available in a profession, and choose a profession on that basis. Those who do will never reach the top end of that pay range if they do not posses a passion for the profession; they will always be middle tier, and they will watch the clock until it is time to check out from their job, and "get back to their 'real' life". This is where a lot of unemployed IT "professionals" come from.
For those clock watching 8 hours of their day, they will be miserable, working at something for which they have no passion, having intentionally turned their soul off for those eight hours in exchange for money. They will sell half their waking life into misery to benefit the other half of their waking life. And at the end of the day in their "real life", they will find they can not take joy in their "real life", as they anticipate, after sleeping, returning to their job for the next 8 soulless hours of work.
Do something you love, and for which you have passion; reclaim your soul for those lost 8 hours of your life.
Even 40+ years ago, when I got my BS in engineering, any sort of hands on experience was disappearing from the requirements. Even the lab instructors often didn't know how to use some of the instruments (Oscilloscopes, signal generators, etc.) or how to troubleshoot a circuit that wasn't doing what the design said it should.
Engineering is really a combination of Art and Science and no one can learn to be an Artist from a book. Technology needs both and both are required to keep the modern world working. I am in awe and have utmost respect for a skilled craftsman/artisan and our world needs more of them.
I am a third generation engineer, and many decades ago my Father often told me that I should be a plumber or an auto mechanic and there were many times during my working career that I realized just how right he probably was.
there has been too much of an emphasis in the last 10-20 years for EVERYONE to go to college, whether they were really qualified or not, that the technical trades have been neglected.
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Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
This argument starts up every time somebody had to pay their plumber 80 bucks an hour to fix the toilet, their fility stinking filled with shit toilet. They then think the plumber doing a job they never ever want to do themselves, is rolling in it and the IT being their shit but piles of money.
As if that 80 bucks is pure profit. Meanwhile the daddy plumber knows just how much of that costs goes to cover unpaid hours, taxes, insurance, tool costs etc etc. And he also knows how much Mr Doctor and Mr Lawyer charged him for his children's delivery and to deal with that frivolous lawsuit.
So... what is he going to want for his kids? The same as himself in a world where just getting by is the same as being a loser OR to aim for the top?
And don't for a second think that Bloomberg is interested in the fortunes of the public. He just wants more plumbers so he can pay less, same reason his kind wants immigrants to bust unions and high wages. Sure kids, all become plumbers and wave bye bye to 80 bucks as the competition sky rockets. And then you look longingly at IT graduates making high wages because nobody learned how to code anymore.
Simple piece of advice for live: NEVER listen to a billionaire, they didn't get rich by looking out for other peoples interest.
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You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
A plumber goes to a doctor's house to fix a leak.
He works for 15 minutes and then asks the doctor for $200
The doctor says "I don't even make close to that!!"
The plumber replies: "When I was a doctor, I didn't either"
The Trades have been overlooked as a viable career choice for quite awhile. And there's great money in it. My mechanic, being one of the few truly honest ones in the area, is turning business away he's so booked (Yes he is expanding to meet demand).
The trouble with trades these days is you often get the bottom of the barrel guys without many other options available (One could say the same for police, but that's a whole other story). So your mechanics, plumbers, electricians often won't give a crap about the client and only the pay-cheque. When you find an honest trades person you are loyal to a fault and become their greatest advertisement.
So yeah push those who might not the top of the heap academically but aren't the bottom by any means into trades.
Over 100 posts and not a single Super Mario reference...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Being a plumber is the only reliable way of getting the benefits of trickle down from a plutocrat.
Too bad for the summary that "Joe the plumber" wasn't actually "Joe," but Sam; wasn't actually a plumber, but an apprentice plumber (not licensed); and at the time of the question that made him a conservative darling, was outright lying (the business wasn't up for sale, he couldn't have afforded it even if it was, nor could he have run it because he wasn't a plumber).
All that aside, we should be reforming out high schools and advanced learning to be more similar to Germany, where people who want to pursue academic careers can get to college, and people who want to pursue vocational careers can get into technical schools. High school is where that really begins, where people start building interests that will stick with them for life.
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In most parts of the USA you have to be a master plumber (~5 yrs on the job and pass your exams) to be a licensed plumber.
The trouble with being a plumber is that most of the work is in building and remodeling. With housing construction way down, most of the people in the building trades are hurting. It's great during a building boom, though.
A related trade is HVAC - heating, ventilating, and air conditioning. There's more electronics and control involved than in plumbing.
Yeah.... I do know those differences.
You talk like someone who's been immersed in academia for too long.
Had you spent some time in the real world, perhaps you would have learned why, in many cases, real world examples are the most accurate predictor of what your experience will be.
Data and analysis are fine, right up to the point where they collide with reality. At that point, I'll take "anecdotal evidence" from someone who has been there and done it over predictions made by someone who knows a lot of fancy math any day of the week.
And THAT is a piece of wisdom that they won't teach you in college. You only pick that one up after a few decades of actually dealing with reality and noticing how little the world cares about what the data, analysis, and models say should happen.
Yes, you can go to college and become successful. What I'm saying is that it's not the college education that made you successful, as much as certain groups would like everyone to believe that. Success comes from skill. Either skill at a particular vocation, or skill at playing corporate politics. Neither of those skills can be mastered in a university setting, mastery comes from actually doing it in the real world.
Based on your defensive posture, I can only draw two possible conclusions.
1.) You are currently a student enrolled in one of those ridiculously priced "leading universities"
or....
2.) You are a professor who either works for one of them, or earned your degree there.
After nearly 3 decades in this line of work, I have never met a coworker or colleague who considered their time in college to be anything other than a gigantic waste of huge sums of money. And that includes colleagues with Masters and Doctorates from "leading universities".
Based on your defensive posture, I can only draw two possible conclusions.
1.) You are currently a student enrolled in one of those ridiculously priced "leading universities"
or....
2.) You are a professor who either works for one of them, or earned your degree there.
After nearly 3 decades in this line of work, I have never met a coworker or colleague who considered their time in college to be anything other than a gigantic waste of huge sums of money. And that includes colleagues with Masters and Doctorates from "leading universities".
Neither of those things are true. In fact, I'm not American, so my university course was not 'ridiculously priced' at all and did not involve 'huge sums of money'. Maybe your line of work doesn't benefit from anything you could learn on a degree course, and all the skills needed can be picked up by spending a few hundred bucks on books from Amazon.com. I'm sure there are plenty of software development jobs that meet that description. That doesn't mean that nobody benefits from university. Your excessive confidence in your conclusions about why people go to university, why people might defend university education or what people might gain from it are just based on wild generalisations from your experiences and those of the people immediately around you. It's an example of the limitations of 'anecdotal evidence'.
As for 'defensive posture'... You didn't finish your degree and it just so happens that your considered position on universities is that they are worthless. At the first sign of criticism your assumption is that I must have a vested interest. Hmmm...
That's a great plan for society. Leave knowledge to the elite; they are they only ones that can afford it. You don't learn anything useful in college, so why bother. Heck, high school is kind of pointless. Why not start a trade at sixteen, that's more money is your pocket. Why not fourteen? That's the ticket. Leave that higher education to those elite know-it-alls.
We don't need to value teachers, educators at all; the internet will fix that with some YouTube videos. After all, you don't understand that stuff, so how can it possibly be worth anything? Let's be honest, not everyone can be educated. You know deep down that you aren't smart Best not to try.
That's a world worth living in. Call it the New Dark Ages. College prices are a concern because they are pricing out people from becoming educated, from having choices. College is not the problem; the cost is. Cheaper loans, more grants and scholarships, more public support all need to be considered alongside cost controls. Sure, it's not for everyone, but it should be a choice for everyone. Everyone can benefit from a higher education, from learning. Smart has nothing to do with it.
An uneducated populous is ripe for exploitation. History (one of those "useless" subjects) teaches us this. Look to the source of this advice, the value of controlling knowledge and the media in this age. Why bother thinking for yourself when you can have somebody do it for you?
There is value in culture, in art, in science that goes beyond money. It is crazy that we are so focused on what it takes to survive these days, not thrive and grow. We don't have to embrace a gold-paved road to a new Dark Age. We can do better.
Ouch! And hey, like a lawyer, a plumber can always dabble in politics."
Unfortunately it didnt go well the first time around, since the unstoppable leaks gave us Watergate.
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