Blue Collar and Proud of It: The All-In-One Resource for Finding Freedom, Financial Success, and Security Outside the Cubicle (6 page)

“Plumbing was entirely by accident, ” explains Tyrer, an Oakland, California, resident who spent seven years in a three-man plumbing partnership.He started tagging along with a self-taught friend and then the rest fell into place. Twenty-five years ago he started his own business, Mallard Plumbing, and now has eight employees who work with him. “As a plumber you are relating to people about issues that matter to them, ” he says. Tyrer found that while academia was incredibly interesting, there was no immediate relevancy.

But with plumbing, Tyrer says, “You are providing a very important service and one that is often linked to a real, time-sensitive need. These are bread-and-butter issues.” During the 1970s, Tyrer says there were many people in the Bay Area leaving academic life to go into the trades, so having a plumber or an electrician with a Ph.D. wasn’t as much of a shock as it might be in other parts of the country. Plus, the business has been lucrative. “Plumbing has been good to me, ” he adds. “I would never discourage anyone fromgoing into the trades, ” says Tyrer, whose own son is a plumbing contractor in Denver.

Glenda Campbell was fifty-five when she decided to leave her job in the drafting department of a large company to become a truck driver. She had been working at the same place for twelve years, but when the company was bought out she lost her position. It’s a familiar story. She could have gone looking for a similar job in a similar cubicle, but really she thought it was a good opportunity for a change.

Her twenty-one-year-old daughter had always wanted to go into trucking, so Campbell thought about it and decided she would give it a try as well. The two women went to trucking school together, which included a five-week training program that combined in-class and onthe-road preparation. They send an experienced trucker and trainer out with you for a few weeks, and then you’re on your own. (Turns out with a young baby at home Campbell’s daughter didn’t want to stick with it.)

“I always liked driving, and I needed to do something to make money, ” says this grandmother and great-grandmother. “I enjoy it, ” she says. “Most truck drivers like the freedom. You don’t have someone hanging over your shoulder.” Divorced with no young children at home, Campbell, who is now fifty-nine, leaves her home in Florida for about two weeks at a time and then she has several days at home before setting out again. She’s been driving for Schneider National for about five years, and she doesn’t miss the office at all.On the road, Campbell gets to see a bit of the country, and if she’s stopped long enough she takes time to do some exploring. Thanks to her long gray hair, Campbell says most of the male truckers she encounters just assume that she’s a longtime driver and never give her grief for being a female.

Finding What Is Right for You

Just because you’re interested in blue-collar work doesn’t mean that every blue-collar job is the one for you. You have to figure out what is right for you, not for your mom, not for your dad, and not for your teacher or guidance counselor.

In the next chapter, we getmore specific about different professions— what it means to become a logger, welder, landscaper, construction worker, andmore. We’ll walk you through what work you do in each of these industries and others. But before we get there, this next section is meant to help you identify your own traits or characteristics, likes or dislikes, that may be either well matched with certain jobs or surefire signs to stay away from others.

While reading through the next few pages, I recommend that you get out some paper and a pen. Write down what you like to do. What puts you in a goodmood? What are you willing to work hard at doing? What are you good at doing? What is your strongest skill? These are questions that may help you start to formulate the preferences you have about jobs. Did you have a summer job that you hated? Why? What was it that didn’t work for you? Maybe you are working part time, on the weekends right now, and really enjoying the work. Jot down what it is exactly that you like. The people? The money? The job sites? The skills you need to do the work? What appeals to youmay not appeal to someone else, and what I like to do may be the last thing you’d enjoy doing for a job.

Here are some questions to get you thinking:

Do you like to be outside?	Yes	No
Do you mind getting dirty?	Yes	No
Do you enjoy interacting with people?	Yes	No
Are you creative?	Yes	No
Do you get seasick?	Yes	No
Do you prefer to follow plans and instructions, or do you prefer to work more freely?	Yes	No
Are you willing to move to a different part of the country?	Yes	No