Chapter 1

1. What Are the Skilled Trades?

On the surface, the skilled trades are self-explanatory. They are occupations that require the use of specialized skills. Put another way, they are all the jobs that require some sort of formalized training or education that is not college.

Once you begin to dig beneath the surface definition, though, things get a little more complicated. Public opinion of the trades has shifted over the years, muddying the waters and resulting in some outright falsehoods about the trades.

The story of the handyman’s invoice cuts through the misperceptions and shows what the trades are really all about.

The Handyman’s Invoice

Two weeks before a giant ship was set to embark on its maiden voyage, its engine failed. The ship’s owners brought in one engineer after another, but none of them could figure out how to fix the engine. The owners were running out of time and getting desperate. Just as they were about to give up hope, they brought in an old man one of the engineers had recommended.

The old man didn’t have a college education, but he had been fixing ships since he was a boy. He arrived with a large bag of tools and immediately went to work. He inspected the engine very carefully, top to bottom. So far, he hadn’t done much more than look at things.

Finally, the old man reached into his bag, pulled out a small hammer, and gently tapped something. Instantly, the engine lurched to life. It was fixed! The ship’s owners were thrilled and thanked the old man profusely. The man carefully put his hammer away and left.

A week later, the owners received a bill from the old man for $10,000. “What?” the owners exclaimed. “All he did was tap something!” So they wrote the old man a note, requesting an itemized bill.

The man happily obliged and sent a bill that read:

Tapping with a hammer ………………… $2.00

Knowing where to tap …………………… $9,998.00

Negative Perception of the Trades

For the majority of our country’s history, the trades were coveted professions. They were a reliable, stable career path. Plus, it was considered an honor to learn skills that provided value to others.

Around the 1960s and 1970s, common perception of the skilled trades started to shift. Colleges began to be run as businesses. Educators pushed the idea of college, encouraging more and more students—all students, really—to pursue this path. Simultaneously, media portrayals of tradespeople reinforced negative stereotypes. In magazines, on TV, and in the movies, tradespeople were depicted as average Joes—unsuccessful, dirty, and not bright. It’s like movie producers decided that viewers were so stupid they wouldn’t be able to recognize a mechanic as a mechanic unless he had grease smeared all over his clothes, face, and hands.

Because of these changes, people began to see the trades as something inferior, even something to be ashamed of. To more and more people, a college education became the only measure of success. The trades were relegated to low-level, low-income, blue-collar work. They began to be treated the same way I was as a stuntman—like crash test dummies, if you will, for careers deemed more prosperous and desirable than them.

That negative, inaccurate perception has grown more and more abundant over time. When you imagine a plumber, what do you see? Probably a dirty, smelly roughneck with his ass halfway out of his unwashed jeans. He probably can’t even spell nickel, let alone have two to rub together.

Mike Rowe, host of Dirty Jobs and advocate of the trades, has talked about a poster hung in his guidance counselor’s office. The poster showed a smiling, clean-cut college graduate in cap and gown on one side and a sad-looking mechanic in a dirty jumpsuit on the other side. Underneath was the caption “Work smart NOT hard.”

Rhetoric like this, along with poor media portrayals of tradespeople, has resulted in four common misconceptions about the trades that are flat-out wrong.

Misconception 1: The Trades Don’t Pay Well

The biggest misconception about the trades is that they are low-paying jobs. Nothing could be further from the truth. Tradespeople are some of the highest-paid people in the country. I have technicians who make $35-plus an hour. Many of them frequently work more than forty hours a week, meaning that $35 an hour quickly turns into $52 an hour with overtime pay. That translates to over $100,000 per year faster than you can say “bachelor’s degree.”

Part of the low-pay misconception stems from the stereotypical image of tradespeople as dirty, sweaty laborers. When most people think about wealth, they think of Armani suits, Rolex watches, and Bugattis. But money is not biased—it doesn’t care how you earn it. Whether you wear a suit or jeans to work, the only thing that matters is the comfort that money can provide in the long run.

Another contributor to this misconception is misleading statistics. The salaries of college graduates are often compared to the salaries of everyone who didn’t go to college. Nonskilled jobs are grouped with skilled trade jobs, resulting in a lower median salary. Other times, the lower pay of apprentices is grouped with that of experienced tradespeople. This again results in a median salary that doesn’t reflect the true earning potential of the trades.

One of the best aspects of the trades is that there’s really no cap on salary. The more experienced you are, the more you can earn. Really think about that for a second and let it sink in. I’ve known many, many people, myself included, who have turned careers in the trades into six-figure salaries simply by refusing to stop learning.

Misconception 2: The Trades Are Too Dirty

Obviously, yes, sometimes the work is dirty. But I’d argue that there’s nothing wrong with that. Getting your hands dirty can be incredibly satisfying. Some might even say that coming home dirty and tired makes you feel confident, accomplished, and proud. We all grew up happily playing in the mud, and a career in the trades may mean you finally get paid to do it!

And for those who hate dirty work, don’t discount the trades just yet. There are countless trade jobs that don’t require you to get dirty. Ultrasound technician, paralegal, architectural drafter, real estate agent (yes, those are all technically trades)—the possibilities are endless.

Even in the trades that are traditionally “dirty,” the dirty work is often temporary. I got dirty for a long time. I still remember some of those less-than-pleasant restaurant kitchens. I’ve found seven-year-old chicken wings behind fryers, and I’ve slipped around in a half-inch puddle of grease like a fish out of water. One time, I was working on the bottom conveyor oven in a stack of three. Someone forgot to stop the top oven, and a piping-hot pizza flipped upside down on top of me. Melted cheese and sauce dripped all down my uniform and into my tool bag. I was pretty pissed because my life was in that tool bag. But you know what I did? I moved on. I cleaned out my bag, washed my uniform, and took a shower. Just like that, I was clean again and back to the grind.

My greasy, grimy days are far behind me now. I get far dirtier at home trying to feed my daughters (who seem to think food belongs anywhere but their mouths) than I ever do at work. The reason I am where I am today is undoubtedly because I was willing to do what needed to be done to succeed, even if that meant never eating chicken wings again. Remember, no matter what career you choose, true success is only earned by putting in hard work, getting up after countless failures, and doing shit you don’t want to do.

Misconception 3: The Trades Are for Dumb People

For all the Seinfeld fans, you probably remember Puddy—the big, dumb “grease monkey.” Puddy himself objected to that term, saying, “I don’t know too many monkeys who could take apart a fuel injector.”

The skilled trades are called that for a reason—they take skill. Knowing where to tap that hammer is very valuable. But somewhere along the line, people decided that only smart people can do calculus and that any schmuck can repair an engine. Those who understand and study the theoretical side of things are seen as more intelligent than those who work in the practical application of knowledge. However, the Merriam-Webster dictionary defines intelligence as “the ability to apply knowledge to manipulate one’s environment.” Based on that definition, I’d say that tradespeople are some of the most intelligent people in the country!

People may think any idiot can be a plumber or electrician, but tradespeople can do...