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Comment by baroffoos | Hacker News Reader

Pay me enough and I will learn how to replace an escalator.

If there some sort of language barrier because half of you in this sub-thread are talking about escalators and the other half elevators.

It's an uppity-down machine in both case

Once you get a license, it will pay about $125/hour. Four year apprenticeship first, though. There is a general shortage of elevator mechanics, so go for it.

And how many hours of the day can I actually do that. $125/hour sounds real nice until you factor in the fact that most of these jobs have very inconsistent workloads so you could spend 5 hours working one day and then have no work next week or have to spend a day fixing a mistake for free.

Currently in Northern California there is more overtime available for elevator mechanics than people available to work that many hours legally.

> Once you get a license, it will pay about $125/hour.

Billed $125/hr while actively working on a particular job, or a sure $125/hr for 2000 hours a year?

The amount you bill pays for your downtime, too.

So $125/hr is what the tech takes home from the elevator service company. The company is paying for insurance and general overhead, and billing the tech out at around $500/hour. The real money is in starting an independent elevator service company after getting some experience with somebody like KONE or Otis or Schindler.

$125/hr billed or $125/hr employed?

I'll admit I don't know the first thing about escalator repair but I'm confident that a 4 year apprenticeship is absurd. Perhaps that's the real problem. The rules should be amended such that you can get an escalator repair license in 60 days. Problem solved.

> I don't know the first thing about escalator repair

I agree with at least that much of what you said.

It is near or at the top of OSHA's list of most dangerous construction trades. Elevators and escalators have extreme safety requirements for carrying passengers. I have been in enough elevator control rooms with qualified mechanics to be able to assure you that a 60-day wonder would be a very dangerous actor to let loose. After four years, I would not send a guy out on a job alone unless it was pretty simple.

Sending an elevator mechanic with 60 days of training out to work by himself is a death sentence for him, if you are lucky. For the passengers, if you are less lucky.

Are there any building management firms that have full time mechanics? Given that escalators and elevators are transporting people it seems like it would be easy to justify having someone directly responsible with its operation (like a tram driver).

Well, the way it works in practice is that most buildings have a multi-year service agreement with either the service arm of a major manufacturer, or a third-party maintenance firm. A really large property complex would probably have a mechanic who essentially is full time at that complex. But as a practical matter, you need access to spare parts, drawings, etc, so it is hard to be a one-man show. Because of parts access and licensing, I think it would be impractical for most commercial landlords to keep a mechanic on staff.

Usually for any building there is a primary mechanic who is assigned to that site, so that he has familiarity with the quirks of the system, relationships with the landlord's staff, etc. Of course mechanics in the same office cover for and assist each other.

> I'll admit I don't know the first thing about escalator repair

> The rules should be amended such that you can get an escalator repair license in 60 days.

Are you serious? These two statements of yours are only separated by a tiny sentence and obviously don't go well together.

The apprenticeship isn’t really the problem, as that’s pretty common because a newbie can really screw things up including causing deaths. The problem is the basic training. It costs a fair amount of money to setup the basic training facility and to keep it running.

"The rules should be amended such that you can get an escalator repair license in 60 days."

There are real risks fucking up an elevator.

https://www.cnn.com/2015/07/27/china/chinese-mother-killed-e...

Why was there only 1 flimsy panel between the top of the escalator and a deadly downward plunge? Why aren't there any safety layers in between? It doesn't take an expert to know that's poor (even negligent) engineering. Perhaps if escalators were better made, they wouldn't be so deadly and require years long apprenticeships for maintenance workers to not endanger lives.

Skip college, do a 4 year apprenticeship instead - is that really sound?

That depends on the person, doesn't it? I have a nephew that has had issues with ADD. He is an intelligent young man, but not cut out for the kind of butt-in-seat stamina that it takes to get a college degree. He is currently almost done with a commercial electrician apprenticeship, and has finally hit his stride. He is doing well in his job, and acing all the licensing exams. He also has the kind of personality that cultivates good customer relationships, which makes me think that in a few years he could easily set up his own shop.

Not everybody is well-served by college.

At least you get paid in an apprenticeship.

Every technical summer internship I worked at I got paid, roughly at the same rate as a junior engineer entering from college.

Do it right and you can get payed in college too. In Germany you have cooperative study programs for fields that are in high demand (like CS). Your degree takes 2 semesters longer in which you work at a company who pays you from start to finish of your study. Rates are similar to early apprenticeships if i am not mistaken. Also no strings attached, you can tell your company to screw itself after you finished your degree. Not finding enough people is a real issue in some fields.

maybe they should call the apprenticeship 'graduate school' in order to attract more people to it

Or maybe they should pay more to compensate for working odd hours and the increases chance of injury from increased driving and workload.

Guarantee there exists a number such that people want to do the job. Society just doesn’t want to pay that number yet, so it’s complaining about it and dragging their feet.

Sorry, a key aspect to any "labor crisis" is that you can't be paid very much. I mean, do you think that as one of the 10 escalator technicians in your city, you should be paid as well as one of the 500 doctors? Doctors are very important people.

If escalator mechanics are not very important people then how is there a crisis when they are missing?

Do I declare a labor crisis because I can't find senior developers to work on my website for $10 per hour?

The buyer doesn't get to decide that a job is not important so someone else is expected to do it cheaply. Either the job is not important so its no problem if no one takes it or it is important so you will pay whatever it takes to get it done.

Have you or anyone you know been killed or severely injured by an escalator? If not, thank a technician.

The comment you're replying to is clearly in snark, lamenting the low wages of escalator technicians despite high demand for their skills.

I've met with quite a few doctors in my life and many aren't that important or specialized, they simply went through the motions to get there like any profession.

We (society) like to put MDs on pedestals because the relationship to life is direct and obvious, but we often ignore just how resilient the human body is and how in most daily situations, doctors aren't dealing in difficult life or death situations.

We also tend to ignore the indirect effects of other professions' on quality and longevity of life. If a traffic engineer saves tens of thousands of people 10 minutes a day in their commute, that adds up to saving an entire life of time quickly. Just an example of indirect effects on life.

I believe the OP’s comment (about doctors being important) was sarcastic...

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