'My life is a million times better': A man who quit his desk job to be an electrician shares his takeaways from the switch.
(Source: Business Insider - Christine Ji)"If your Sunday evenings are tainted by the thought of clocking into work the next morning, you're not alone".
Dustin Snyder used to be one of those people. He worked a slew of jobs but wasn't satisfied with any of them.
"I worked in retail for quite a while," Snyder told Business Insider. "Then I ended up working in a call center for a big cellphone company." There, he climbed the ladder until he became a corporate account manager, supervising business projects for large clients.
The office environment became tedious to Snyder. He disliked the formal dress code and the inability to unplug from work. He switched jobs, this time to an e-commerce startup. However, Snyder still wasn't satisfied with the work, which felt incredibly similar to his previous job. Snyder was taking his laptop on vacation, and his phone was constantly blown up with emails.
That was until Snyder talked to a friend of a friend who happened to be an electrician. Snyder, now 43 years old, has been an electrician for the last six years, and he's never looked back.
"As a union electrician, my life is a million times better," he said. "Six years in, and I'm still learning all the time, making more than I did before, and often have fun at work."
A four-year college degree isn't necessary. "if someone came out of high school and went into being a commercial electrician, they could potentially be making $73 an hour at age 22 with zero debt," he added.
Electricians are a fast-growing job category, so there's definitely no shortage of jobs. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the profession is projected to grow 11% in the next decade — well above the 4% average growth for all occupations.
Snyder is a member of a labor union called the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW). The union provides benefits, job security, collective bargaining, and a sense of community.
"Excellent," was Snyder's response when asked to describe his pay and benefits as a union member.
[Si eres un boomer y ya estás calculando los años que te quedan para jubilarte, sabiendo lo que sabes de tu vida como 'oficinista white collar' trabajando de 9 a 6 (en el mejor de los casos, ya sabes que lo ideal es entre 80 y 100 horas a la semana para cambiar el mundo) y pasándote la jornada laboral sentado en una silla mirando la pantalla de un ordenador, llenando hojas de excel, preparando presentaciones en power point y asistiendo a cientos de aburridas y anti productivas reuniones, ¿en otra vida elegirías un white collar job o un blue collar job?]
