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Plumber guy

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i'm curious how things work in the Union -- what kind of jobs do ya'll typically get? i imagine its a lot of industrial.
Mostly larger commercial jobs, I’ve done prisons, Omni hotel downtown, schools, but recently I got a service position where I do a little bit of everything commercial wise, no residential
 

Plumber guy

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how are the heights in the commercial jobs?
They aren’t bad, although I’ve been fAirly fortunate to not have experienced anything real crazy so far
 

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cal7.62x39

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Man some (most) of you folks figured it out early enough. I'm 37 and have spent the last 16 years in customer service call centers. No trade, no skill, no opportunity. Burn out is huge I have worked 8 call centers and move on the the next after burnout sets in. The burnout just follows you out one door and into another though. I'm tired of being nice and feigning empathy. I make just enough money to pay mortgage, car payment, and keep my kids dressed nice, have their activities, and keep them well fed. Meanwhile I haven't bought myself a NEW pair of jeans in probably a decade. I can't afford nice clothes so I thrift shop and eBay clothes and shoes for myself while the kids are in the latest trends. My wife is an amazing home maker and doesn't get paid nearly enough (0$) for the chit she puts up with from us. I tried to break away and went and got my EMT-B certification about 6 years ago, but being 100 pounds over weight and having some rough pediatric calls very early on that would give the most seasoned paramedic PTSD I fell back into the only thing I can walk into. So now I sit here reading your amazing experiences and wish I had tried to change things alot earlier. Now I can't afford (time or money) to go back to (trade) school and if I could it would be hard to compete with the 20 something's out there. It's a rut that I'm finding very hard to get out of. Wish I had chosen a different path, but am pushing my children heavily towards trade schools. I have one that wants to go air force and fly A10 warthogs, one that wants to be a nurse, and the youngest just wants to make me go more grey everyday.
 
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Snattlerake

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For me, our shifts were permanent until someone PO’d a Chief or station officer. Then the Fire Chief would pull the dart boards out of their hiding spot. One for shift, one for district and one for the station.

If you REALLY PO’d the Chief they’d look in your personnel file and see where you lived. Then you went to the farthest station away from your house.
Dart boards were too iffy. They could backfire. If that didn't work, then they would call in your tag number and vehicle to the PD and report a speeder.

I was lucky, my office picked me up at the house every day for work.
 

GLGAR

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I enlisted in the Navy out of OMA high school and then used the GI Bill for a BSME degree from TU. The space race was on in the mid sixties and engineers were In high demand, I joined North American Aviation in Tulsa where we designed and built the ground equipment for the Apollo program and then went to the Cape to install and test it. As that phase ended I realized that aero space jobs depending on government contracts were unstable. So I moved up the airport to American Airlines airframe and systems engineering group where I stayed until retirement. Progressed up as engineer, senior engineer, project engineer and finally engineering specialist. Went from the Convair 990, DC6 and Lockheed Electra through the DC10, 747, 757, 767 and the Airbus fleets. Great job, good pay and benefits a very satisfying career.
 

Snattlerake

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Man some (most) of you folks figured it out early enough. I'm 37 and have spent the last 16 years in customer service call centers. No trade, no skill, no opportunity. Burn out is huge I have worked 10+ call centers and move on the the next after burnout sets in. The burnout just follows you out one door and into another though. I'm tired of being nice and feigning empathy. I make just enough money to pay mortgage, car payment, and keep my kids dressed nice, have their activities, and keep them well fed. Meanwhile I haven't bought myself a NEW pair of jeans in probably a decade. I can't afford nice clothes so I thrift shop and eBay clothes and shoes for myself while the kids are in the latest trends. My wife is an amazing home maker and doesn't get paid nearly enough (0$) for the chit she puts up with from us. I tried to break away and went and got my EMT-B certification about 6 years ago, but being 100 pounds over weight and having some rough pediatric calls very early on that would give the most seasoned paramedic PTSD I fell back into the only thing I can walk into. So now I sit here reading your amazing experiences and wish I had tried to change things alot earlier. Now I can't afford (time or money) to go back to (trade) school and if I could it would be hard to compete with the 20 something's out there. It's a rut that I'm finding very hard to get out of. Wish I had chosen a different path, but am pushing my children heavily towards trade schools. I have one that wants to go air force and fly A10 warthogs, one that wants to be a nurse, and the youngest just wants to make me go more grey everyday.
For your future fighter pilot, and you, read this.

https://sofrep.com/fightersweep/make-them-tell-you-no/
Article written by C.W. Lemoine
former F-16 & F/A-18 pilot. It was originally published in 2017.
 

Snattlerake

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how are the heights in the commercial jobs?
Scaffolding scares me more than ladders. Self-propelled lifts are a blast and fun to drive around. Snorkle lifts and bucket trucks are a pain but work. They just have an envelope they can operate in and you have to be careful. Funny, the heights really never bothered me. You could stick me on a 1,500 ft tower and with the right harnesses and lanyards, I'm fine. It was those damn adjustable ladders I rode down three times and the sudden stop at the end of the ride.

I was on a ladder once about 10 foot up and was gigged for not having my 15 foot lanyard tied off at ten feet.
 

Snattlerake

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Mostly larger commercial jobs, I’ve done prisons, Omni hotel downtown, schools, but recently I got a service position where I do a little bit of everything commercial wise, no residential
I hated residential. I'd only go to a residential service call when no one else could figure out the problem. One house took me about ten hours just to diagnose all the problems with wiring and the routing of the wires but I had it fixed the next day. A bunch of contacts were fused and some wiring was blown up by lightning. They were even getting an FM station coming out of their siren speaker.
 

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