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/diy/ - Do It Yourself

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1697535 No.1697535 [Reply] [Original]

What's it like being a construction laborer? How's the pay? Do you enjoy your job?

>> No.1697536

shit, shit, no.

>> No.1697539

what's it like? its manual work. how's the pay? it's better than none. enjoy? everything is relative, on with right company it's a good gig. I might enjoy a good gig with honest work... you might not..

>> No.1697559
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1697559

>>1697535
>What's it like being a construction laborer?
You work in the heat in the summer and out in the cold in the winter. Lots of heavy lifting and shitty things like digging, even as an electrician. Every so often you get stuck with the short end of the stick because a guy working in another trade fucked up or hes just slacking off. Sometimes you get to take it easy for a couple hours in a day and everyone from the superintendent on down encourages it (rare but it happens). Occasionally you have to come to terms with the fact that most normalshits and both right and left wing faggots will look down on you because you're a "dirty construction worker". Operating heavy machinery/equipment is fun. Some guys will take advantage of your work ethic/initiative and offload all their work on you. Theres always work/pay if you're willing to work hard and learn, though.
>How's the pay?
I'm a 2nd year apprentice and in my district/city/county the pay sucks absolute dick unless you're doing scale work. I basically make $1350 a month; I think wages at mcdonalds and walmart make more than I do for less intensive/rigorous/skilled work. I almost always look forward to coming to work, though.
>Do you enjoy your job?
At times. I have a lot of days where I feel oddly satisfied at the end of the day knowing I got something done (especially when it was tough) and/or knowing I learned something that'll help me continue learning my chosen trade.

The pay does suck though, and I basically have to proverbially suck dick for the next 3 years until I hopefully become licensed as a journeyman electrician. Even then, the pay will still kind of suck.

>> No.1697563

>>1697536
honesty

>> No.1697593

>>1697535
Horrible
Amazingly good for no degree
Every day is a new and fresh hell come winter time

>> No.1697617

>>1697559
>1350/month
nigger where do you live, mexico? i make more than that in a week.

>> No.1697636

>>1697617
Texas. Did you read the part where I'm a 2nd year?

>> No.1697643

>>1697559

>Occasionally you have to come to terms with the fact that most normalshits and both right and left wing faggots will look down on you because you're a "dirty construction worker"

this. it's weird how you can make as much if not more than many office drones, yet you're the low class one

>> No.1697644

>>1697636

a second year apprentice should be making way more than like 10 or 11 an hour

>> No.1697645

>>1697535
Laborers do concrete pours. I think they finish as well, among other things. LiUNA is their union. They earn roughly $35/hr after a 2 year apprenticeship.

Ironworkers tie together rebar, and assemble.

>> No.1697657

>>1697644
Not in my part of Tex-ass. I know 2nd years are making 20-something out in Houston but I cant transfer to another local easily in the middle of my apprenticeship.

>> No.1697687

>>1697535
Dope if you love, I mean really love being outside and working with your hands. Pay is better than anything else a high school diploma can get around here. Yes.

>> No.1697688

>>1697687
OP here. Where do you live anon? I currently live in Ohio

>> No.1697764

>>1697535
go into some sort of skilled trade so that hopefully your mind is still working and you can move to a desk job or even the guy who is more paperwork/organization oriented on the job and just tells people what to do.

You can be a laborer into your 50's but at that point you are pretty much used up and some 20 year old is able to do exactly what you are doing, better and cheaper.

Daddy he once told me
"Son, you be hard workin' man"
And momma she once told me
"Son, you do the best you can"
Then one day I met a man
He came to me and said
"Hard work good and hard work fine
But first take care of head"

-sublime

>> No.1698540

>>1697535
I was a labourer for 2 years in bongland. Most of my work was mixing up concrete and mortar. Basically shoveling 15 tonnes of ballast every day for about £80/day. I was a kid so the money was alright for me. Though you have to eat twice as much, wash for twice as long etc which makes a big dent in your paycheck. Really i would want twice the money if i was going back to it, but you are competing with illegals that will happily take £50 a day.

>> No.1698745

>>1697535
You won’t be in good shape because you will be an alcohol. And you will eat shitty food while living in a hotel, unless you choose to commute 3 hours each way

>> No.1699944

>>1697535
Hard
Good
No

>> No.1700113

It amazes me that people even fuck with construction as a career anymore. No one seems to like it and unless you get into a one in a million "great" union, you'll spend 10 years or more getting to where I got in 3 years of residential HVAC.
I make $50/hr plus spiffs and bonuses as well as commission off any sales.
I cleared $20,000 off commission alone last year.
Not to sound like an elitist faggot but I just truly want to see people succeed and be happy, if you aren't happy doing construction try out a HVAC or being an electrician

>> No.1700157

>>1697535
my girlfriend is a 2nd year laborer apprentice, she essentially works as a diversity hire on public works projects and spends most of her days directing traffic around a jobsite. flaggers generally get a lower payscale but since she is a full laborer with a flagger's card she gets paid $29.50/hr, $44+ with overtime to stand around and point.

>> No.1700202

>>1700113
Electricians still do construction work, anon. Unless you take the /industrialpill/ but in my area the only place that offers work like that is the oil/gas refinery

>> No.1700260

>>1700157

that's fucking ridiculous

>> No.1700262

>>1700260
It isnt if you're blackpilled. Women float through life on easy mode, ESPECIALLY in construction/building trades. Even moreso if they're actually anywhere near attractive.

>> No.1700267

>>1700157
>>1700262
My state allows gender neutral whatever they mentally ill call it on drivers licences now.
Maybe I should change that to xer and be a non transitioning identifies as female lesbian for the diversity bux.

>> No.1700269

>>1700267
Thats not gonna fly on a jobsite. Unless you were born female and you have an organically natural bagine, they wont give you the ez mode treatment.

>> No.1700270

>>1697535
Depends a lot on where you are and what the company you're working for is like. The work itself isn't as physically demanding as you might expect most of the time, but occasionally you'll have to haul some heavy bullshit around or spend the afternoon attempting to dig a statue out of the ground. It's good to have a couple of basic skills so that you can fill in for tradies on little stuff (small drywall patches, touching up mortar, ect) but it's not essential. On the last laborer job I worked, I ended up helping the site super manage tradies a little bit. Nothing major, just directing people to where they were needed, what they needed to do, and letting them know if there were things they couldn't do in front of clients.

I've always been paid shit for labor work, but I've also only done it through placement agencies. Coworkers of mine who worked directly for the GC got paid considerably better. Again, this depends on location. You can definitely make a living doing it though.

Enjoyment depends heavily on your coworkers. I've had fun jobs and shitty jobs. The last job I did was pretty frustrating, largely because of the site super. He had a bad habit of having me do pointless busy work from 7-12, then deciding that there was some vitally important time and labor intensive thing that needed to be done right after lunch. On the other hand, the super I worked for before him was always pretty good about setting reasonable expectations and didn't give me any trouble, so working for him was pretty enjoyable.

>> No.1700272

Construction workers usually get paid a lot. It's an appealing element that keeps people working in that field. I can't say I know why the pay is so high. If I had to bet, it's obvious, magic, magic is the answer. Alchemy enhances human life by introducing oddly well paying jobs into our market. lol Saving up is easy. In the case where you're working in construction.

>> No.1700524

>>1700260
>>1700267
this is in the Seattle area, im pretty sure all big public projects have diversity requirements now which is why you see so many women as road flaggers now.

>> No.1700636

>>1697535

I've worked a lot of jobs in the commercial construction field over the years but never any one thing for more than a year or so, so I never really got past the entry level paygrades. For the things I was doing, with my lack of experience, the pay was pretty shitty, like a buck or 2 over minimum wage. Maybe gas money if the jobsite was really far.

I enjoyed a lot of the work that I did but I hated how lots of jobs required me to drive really far. Lots of my coworkers were assholes too. I'm pretty fucking autistic and the sad truth is there is a lot of really juvenile junior high bully types in construction, and getting on a crew with guys like that makes your day really suck.

>>1700113

It sounds like you are viewing "construction worker" in the strictest sense, referring to someone who works "construction" for a General Contractor. Other people here seem to be referring to Construction Worker is the very loose sense, meaning anyone in a trade that you will find at a construction site, electricians, painters, framers, unskilled laborers, even HVAC guys.

>> No.1700967

>>1697535
This vid pretty much covers it
https://youtu.be/zQNoZ21vRSg

>> No.1701026

>>1697657
I’m in north Texas with a low voltage controls company and I started higher than that albeit I have a great work ethic and I’m older (22). I’ve been here four and a half months and just yesterday demanded a raise to $15 an hour and got it easily, I should’ve gone for $17.
I guess I’m technically an apprentice electrician but there’s no real “apprenticeship” to it, if you can do the work then they will have you do it. Simple as that.

I’d say look for a smaller company that’s hurting for SKILLED employees and jump on that. If you can’t run and bend pipe or terminate by this time, however, then that’s why you don’t make shit

>> No.1701242

I'm a wage slave to my Uncle for $12 an hour in NJ, the works pretty hard. I'm a laborer but I also do electrical with my Cousin who's an electrician. I make $25 an hour in the winter when its snowing but otherwise I'd say being a construction bro is lame.

>> No.1701322

>>1701242
Kind of in the same boat as you. God I wish I could find something that pays better but it's not like I can get paid to go to college unless I'm gay/a tranny/female/illegal immigrant, so I'd have to work on the jobsite for another 4-6 years (depending on if I wanted to get a grad degree or not) while going to school.

This fucking sucks

>> No.1701354

>>1700269
Well those fucking bigots will need to talk to the cities HR department about this :^)

>> No.1702429

>>1701322

The sad thing is I have two degrees but being a white guy nobody else will even hire me.... I was in sales and got fired from that cuz I talked back to my manager which is dumb I know. That and I was waiting tables. I here yah bro this really sucks, I just want to set some roots for a family and stuff but I can't make a dime even with my side gigs. its rough out there

>> No.1702429,1 [INTERNAL] 

You should never try to build something by yourself if you don't have the right knowledge and experience in this domain. Ten years ago I was building my house. I always wanted to save some money. When my builders said that they need a scaffold tower, I said that I can do it by myself. I built it with my friend and it was very fragile. One of my workers felt down and I felt very bad. After that, I hired a professional scaffold tower. This is like a lesson of life. Never try to do something if you don't know how to do it, and never try to save money on people's lives.