Yeah, I think I’ll side with the military veteran that was born no where near a silver spoon.
Son of a career public school teacher (before teachers starting making decent money) and a part-time desk clerk at a motel that mainly served truckers.
And yet for a few years you chose a job where you have to lug around 40 pounds of gear, crawl through mud and whatever crap happens to be on the ground, march in the rain, and potentially have someone blow you into a million pieces.
how many employees did your dad employ for his HVAC business?
Son of a fur trapper, grew up on a 500 acre farm
I agree with Greenman, too many here are romanticizing working in a trade while comfortably ensconced in privileged white collar jobs.
Yah, my dad works in a refinery as an electrician. In the past, there were days when he was working 7 days a week, 12 hours a day, in nomex coveralls, climbing burning hot ladders that have been sitting in the sun day next to burning hot equipment, pulling wire through conduit and other tough task, sometimes in the rain, sometimes in 100+ degree heat. I’ll take my 12 hrs a day in the office and wear my ferregamo drivers vs steel toe boots any day and he’d slap me if I didn’t!
I loved every day I landscaped 12 hour days, 100 degree heat, best job I had. Even while I was doing it and loved bailing hay. Then again, some of my friends hated it. Personal preference. Some people love farming, some people love doing math.
I never argued against the qualitative preference aspect. Then again, I also was arguing for small business proprietorship which somehow got morphed into being a plumber at a refinery or an hvac technician.
I had a friend work for me one day landscaping. He walked off the job and said it wasn’t worth it when he could be working indoors. Baffled me at the time but people are clearly different. I like to take my vacations in winter climates, some prefer the carribean. My only point was that the risks and npv aspects are often twisted.
I’m thinking the romance of manual labor goes as one ages and the joints stiffen. That age was about twelve for me.
I know older guys that are still into it. You’re ignoring the myriad of health issues that come with a lifetime of desk work (eyes, digestive, weak pelvic floor, obesity, etc)
I think after all this it’s safe to say:
“Different strokes for different folks”
Don’t get me wrong, I can totally geek out and have a great time doing a project like this. But would I want to do it for a living? The first time would be facinating, second time would still be interesting, but after the first few times? Doing this same project (more or less, I know technology changes and the specifics would be different) over and over again? No thanks.
^ What do you think the vast majority of people in finance do? People in corporate finance run the same reports month after month, quarter after quarter, year after year. Research analysts listen to the same earnings calls, look at the same industry date, and update the same models quarter after quarter. Even guys M&A’in on the buyside do basically the same deal over and over again.
This is the #1 biggest downfall of my job. It’s 100% sedentary. The only reason I ever get up out of my chair is to get coffee or pee.
I must say–I’m glad my boss lets me go to the gym at lunch, or I might weigh almost 250 lbs. I’m glad I’m not that hacksaw.
^ (to higgs) I know nothing about corporate finance gigs, but you’re short selling sell-side research analysts. Following a company through it’s business life-cycle can be facinating as new challenges always arise and exogenous risks are always prevalent. Moreover, macro risks are always evolving and almost always impact the companies you follow, so there’s something new to think about on a daily basis.
agree, after almost 10 years of doing the same deal over and over it got pretty lame. I could basically underwrite a deal in my head in one day towards the end. you start to realize how insignificant your job ison a grander scale and how you’re not really making a positive difference in other people’s lives other than to make the partners of your firm richer. or worse you may actually be hurting some people affected by the deals you do in the real world. not very fulfilling.
Could always donate most of your earnings to charity…
Yaaawn. Depends on who you ask. Anyways, talk to a SS analyst covering the insurance sector. Personally, I think the SS analysts (dieing breed BTW) are funny. They spend 90 hours a week in many cases churning out detailed models pouring over SEC filings just to wind up comically wrong 9 times out of 10 and then send them out to a user base that rarely reads past the first four bullet points on a 20 page document. Show me one buy side analyst that treats the SS recommendations as better than TP and I’ll show you a bad buy side analyst.
There are many people that find what you just described to be hideously boring. People are really struggling with the idea that other people can be different. Might be the industry narcisism. Some people think securities law is fascinating. No thank you. Some people simply aren’t academic and hate reading, it’s just not that interesting to them. SS works for you, taxes work for Greenie, I’d rather be back on the farm, this is the world we live in.
Beyond that, you’re cherry picking SS research as a great career. I get requests for info calls from forlorn MBA grads weekly asking how to get out of their dead end BO job. Not everyone makes it. So using SS ER or PM as the benchmark in the white collar vs blue collar debate against the standard plumber is just dirt poor analysis. In a similar vein, I’d rather be an actor or the front man of a famous band for the work / lifestyle balance but I’m not going to use that as the benchmark for high school and college drop outs.
My point was simply that from a strictly NPV perspective, there is a strong argument for proprietorship in trade related businesses for smart guys if they value that lifestyle (and there are some that do).
^ I don’t disagree with anything you said, and I’m not a SS research analyst, but I was just taking issue with the way Higgs described the job. Of course everyone has their own personal preferences. I was just generalizing and saying that for the average ambitious and educated adult male, a research analyst job would be more intellectually stimulating than a trade job.
Sure. Managing a small business isn’t too boring though. From what I saw its constant problem solving and you are leading a firm through its life cycle. But yes, I agree with you and that’s one of the reasons I’m here and not on the farm.