alt Hacker NewsI hate to be the bearer of bad news, but as a recent white->blue collar convert, (union metalworker,) tech workers are usually far less qualified than your average vocational high school graduate, way less physically capable, and waaaaay less tolerant of the sort of workplace unpleasantries in these types of jobs at the entry level. Your tech experience gets you pretty much zero advantage, and there are lots of very smart people outside of the software world that have put a whole lot more thought into that industry than you have. Consistently high labor demand meant companies had to comparatively treat tech workers with kid gloves, and as a result, most don’t realize how much smoke has been blown up our assess for decades. They start as soft, arrogant, maladroit noobs who will cosplay as working class for a couple weeks and either eat crow and stick with it long enough for their boss to not want to throw them off a bridge, or give up/get fired and try to pay the bills doing zero-entry-barrier gig work. I was fortunate enough to have been a blue-> white collar covert a couple of decades ago so I knew what I was getting into. The fantasy that a tech worker landing in a blue collar field will naturally rise above the rabble and shoot to the top is a workplace version of the fantasy where a white person finds themselves in some jungle full of “savages” and is so inherently impressive and sophisticated that they’re immediately made king.
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I agree. I am not naive! I would not be doing it as a lifestyle choice though. I'd do it because I need to. I have worked in a factory before so culture shock wont be there at least. I get my pay would half (luckily I am not on the US West Coast monster TC so merely it would half).
yeah. there absolutely are lots of very smart and capable people outside of tech. as someone who has seen the blue collar world "up close" (family businesses), its a different breed... the culture and attitude gap is enormous. shockingly so. most tech workers I know couldn't hang (don't hustle as hard, risk averse, liberal), but some skills may transfer, like problem solving and diagnosis, i.e. debugging.
This made me laugh. “We’ll computerize it and get filthy rich! They’re stuck in 2015!”
I’m guilty of this type of thinking and occasionally get reminded when I’m way out of my lane.
Agree having made the switch from construction -> Tech job. Having sat around at least 25,000 tech related meetings until now worked with thousands of people in various roles in tech, i could count on my one hand the number of people from each tech company I worked that could qualify to survive the real blue collar world.
Hate to see you in gray, I went from dropout waiter to Google via my own startup in between. And you nailed e v e r y t h i n g, I am screenshotting this and reading it over and over again for years to come. Great writing too. Cheers.
Blue collar guy here who started working construction at 13 years of age. I concur that many white collar people won’t have an easy time adjusting to blue collar jobs. Some people do switch and thrive. Many however don’t have the mental fortitude to push through the misery of a non stimulating brain numbing endless job that could kill somebody if you stop paying attention.
There are also a lot of geniuses who might barely know how to read but can do incredible work and figure out some really difficult problems.
I consider myself blue collar even though I am a school teacher currently. It’s in my blood. I don’t especially like the work but I can do it and I am skilled at it.
My advice to anyone moving in to the blue collar world is to be respectful. If you are educated Don’t ever let on that your education makes you superior somehow. You will make a lot of enemies by being that person.
You will likely run in to people who really are quite unintelligent just be considerate and don’t get into debates with them. A lot of people come from poverty or really tough backgrounds and many are quite sensitive about it so don’t make a big deal about it.
On the other side there are many people who are quite intelligent and have the skills and knowledge of engineers even though they do not have any formal training or education.