Switching to the Trades...

September 21, 2005 6:58 AM

Are there any MeFites out there who have made the leap from a career in IT to one in the Skilled Trades? Specifically Machinists......

I have had my fill of the corporate thing, and given that I no longer need the money that I once did, I beleieve that I am in a position to do something that I love rather than something that just pays the bills.
I have picked up 'What Color is your Parachute' and feel that I am ready to make the change. My questions to all of you are:
1. If you have done this before, did you come to regret it later?
2. Do you find that people are more critical of you now for choosing a life that requires less in the way of formal education?
3. Do you have any tips or anecdotes for someone who is just getting started?
4. Is there interesting and challenging work for Machinists out there, or is it just a lot of repeditive work standing at a CNC machine all day?

posted by TheFeatheredMullet to work & money (9 comments total)

Hmm. Interesting proposition you're looking at, TheFeatheredMullet. I did the opposite; started out in a machine shop and ended up (after many twists and turns) in IT. I'll give you my opinionated 2¢. Take it for what it's worth.

The thing I'm wondering is what, exactly, do you love about machine work? As a career, I found it was really grunt work...if you'll excuse the expression, it's a "grind". The only exception to that would be if you get hooked up with a boutique operation that does one-off work for prototyping or clients with other unique needs. That could be fun.

As sick as I get of the corporate shenanigans that I see every day in big-business-IT, I'm not inclined to trade it for a shift on a perforated rubber mat in a non-air conditioned cinder block building at the back of an industrial park, breathing in aerated cutting fluid. The best guys in that environment can do the work in their sleep, and do so. It is seriously non-taxing after you ramp up.

I think ditching the corporate world for a skilled trade is a great idea, but since you have the luxury of time, you should try very hard to hook up with a shop that does interesting work. Most shops don't like interesting work. Interesting work has high business risk. Profitable shops like regular, recurring jobs that they can tool up for once, and then pull off the shelf to make easy money on each time it returns. This kind of work gets boring very quickly. Take the time to find a strange place.

Find a place that does work for artists. Work for Richard Serra's mill or something. Then you'd be golden.

Godspeed mefite. Following your love is never a bad thing, just make sure that love leads somewhere you want to live.
posted by Pliskie at 7:47 AM on September 21, 2005

I've not managed to obtain a "skilled" job outside of the IT/deskjob world despite much effort. Whenever I interview for non-IT jobs people look at me (and my resume) askew and seem to think my attempt to escape the deskjob is just a phase or something. Honestly, I don't know what they are thinking. I've gotten nearly every deskjob I've ever interviewed for and only 2 of maybe a dozen non-deskjobs (skilled/semi-skilled/manual labour) i've applied/interviewed for (despite being skilled and a hard worker, etc.). There's also a bit of class discrimination, I believe*.

Best of luck escaping. I've been trying for years. I get sucked back to the desk despite all efforts to the contrary.

*One guy I interviewed with flat out told me I'd get bored of the CNC work (something about a trained monkey) and alluded to the fact that I was probably too creative / too intelligent for the position. Very frustrating.
posted by shoepal at 8:01 AM on September 21, 2005

I've also traded my blue collar in for a white one, though my jobs as a printer and railroad worker involved more wrench-spinning mechanics than machining, and were never boring.

I can offer an angle that you might not have though of, however. Maybe you need to get out of the corporate grind and into a smaller company. I found my tenure at BigCompany was a fine transition into the white collar workplace, but was stifling from a growth and creativity point of view. My last 3 jobs, however, have been made progressivly more interesting by the fact that I'm the lone IT guy at the place. Jobs like these offer the opportunity to expand your skills from IT into learning more about a company's core business. This dovetails into being offered to accept more responsibility in a general business sense. You should be aware that companies like these don't always put the same financial value on an IT job, so odds are you'll be making less money, but for a more satisfying position.

In fact, if a machine shop interests you, a good way to get in might be in an IT capacity, to see if you would really fit into the environment.
posted by SteveInMaine at 8:12 AM on September 21, 2005

This is an excellent question; It's tough when you've painted yourself with the IT brush; I too have been looking for a way to segue from strictly "IT" to something a little more mainstream (anywhere but strictly IT kind of thing). SteveInMaine has an excellent point; I work for a small place and in running the show, I've been coerced into learning accounting as well as other arms of the business; I'm hoping my responsibilities, outside of keeping everything running, will help reduce the glare from my tech background.
posted by AllesKlar at 9:32 AM on September 21, 2005

Pliskie's comment sounds like great advice...

What educational background do you have, and how IT is IT? What I mean is, if your skill set is mostly web application development type stuff, I think it may be harder to convince one of Pliskie's 'strange places' to take you on. I would guess that the more hardware oriented you are the better your chances - a mechanical engineer who wanted to drop out and be a machinist would probably be highly sought after.

Also, people will look down on you a little, but it won't be too bad. It will effect your relatives/s.o. more because most of the people who are judgmental enough to care won't have the balls to say it to your face. Often these judgmental types are people who don't actually know you, like coworkers of your s.o., or whatever.

It is a great idea if you can live with reduced benefits and income (which most people in North America can do easily if they want to), being ground up by the machine day in and day out is no way to live, much better to be doing the grinding!

Finally, what do others think about the possibilities for TheFeatheredMullet's career path if he wants to move on again after five or six years? I would guess that if you dropped out of IT in 2000 it wouldn't be that hard to get back in today, but in the future...

Finally the real finally... I know an english major who has made a pretty good career for himself as a draftsman/autocad pilot. While it is still a desk job, it is definitely less of a rat race than IT.
posted by Chuckles at 9:52 AM on September 21, 2005

I worked for 10 years as a machinist, putting myself through college. I wanted a better job, not to stop machining, but to be able to do the machining I wanted to do (gunsmithing, hotrod and custom cars, amature science...). You may want to think about doing a gradual switch. I don't know if you have an machinist skills. You could try taking some courses at a local college. If you have a garage, you could get a bridgeport, a lathe and a cut-off saw and try doing some stuff on the side. With no overhead, you can take on "interesting" jobs that normal shops don't want. You could also get some small production machines and try to make a product (if I were to try this myself, I would get a small screw machine and make custom stainless steel acorn nuts for hotrods and choppers, it is very hard to find some sizes or thread pitches). If it doesn't work out, you can sell the machines for about what you paid for them (assuming you bought them used, which I would, old US machines are much better than new, cheap chinese ones). The fact is, if you work for someone else, it may be years before you are trusted with "interesting jobs". I may know of a place that might give you a shot, email me.
posted by 445supermag at 11:12 AM on September 21, 2005

445supermag, has a really good point. A few folks I know have used a hobby/serious interest as a way to eventually escape the deskjob world.
posted by shoepal at 11:43 AM on September 21, 2005

I've got to second that. 445supermag's definitely giving some good advice there. Leverage your currently-higher income by investing a bit.
I worked one summer for a guy running his tiny operation of eight Brown & Sharpe screw machines, each cranking out medium specialty lots for small customers. I'm certainly not connected to the custom rod/chopper movement that 445supermag obviously is, but it sounds like there is real demand there.

Hobby to pro is one of the best ways to go. And the good thing is that 70's era hardware like the B&S linked to above holds its value reasonably well, unless it's horribly abused.

The "guild" model is not unlike IT, too. You'd want to find a screw machine guru to mentor you in the use of these things (cams! cams! cams!), but it's very very learn as you go. I bet you could track down a retired guy who'd love to unlock all the wisdom going to waste in his head.
posted by Pliskie at 11:56 AM on September 21, 2005

I'm another ex-machinist, and what Pliskie and 445supermag are saying is true. The only interesting machinist work is model-shop or prototype work, and it's hard to get into. Even if you do, you're still low-down on some corporate ladder if you are working for someone else. It can be dirty and hazardous, too. Many of those cutting fluids Pliskie mentioned are bad for you when inhaled or applied to your skin, which is mostly unavoidable if you have to use them. Carbon-steel chips in your fingers will eventually rust away; stainless-steel ones won't.

I have known several people who had profitable small shops in their basements. Most of them failed when they tried to expand to stand-alone businesses outside the house; the overhead killed them.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 12:53 PM on September 21, 2005