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Comment by corodra | Hacker News Reader

You're arguing with people who have never been on a real job site. Here, they think job site means monster.com or indeed.com.

I spent about a week at a natural gas power plant in Oregon being built to work on some telecom. Welders there ranged from 80k-120k that I knew. To be fair, I don't know of any welder above water that could make 150k. I only know the 150 range to be for deep sea oil guys. But that's just my experience. Either way, it's not like you get out of the gate being that class of welder. It's getting cert'd in difference environments, tolerances and types of welding, along with experience that get you to that level. And I don't know a single career blue-collar that thinks otherwise. Unless they're really stupid and anything above 30k a year is unbelievable to them.

"You mean you have to develop extra skills that separate you from the herd to get paid more? No! Really?" Same goes for programming too if we're all being honest.

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Yeah, I grew up in a very rural area with a major natural gas pipeline running through it. I know a lot of folks who work on pipelines. Welders who have all of the certifications/etc needed for that job do quite well. ~$100k is pretty standard for someone who meets the qualifications, and that's in an area with a dirt cheap cost of living.

It takes a lot of work experience and education to meet those qualifications, though. You're welding specialized alloys and need to make absolutely airtight welds in weird orientations and tight spaces. Mistakes get expensive fast. These folks aren't just out of tech school. They're mid-late career professionals who are _really damned good_ at what they do.

Saturation divers (i.e. "deep sea oil guys") and even some salvage divers can all make significantly more, but that's an additional, hard-to-find skillset tacked on top of the welding certifications and it's often contract work instead of full-time. It's also a lot more physically demanding and damned dangerous. The $150-200k/year welders exist, but an awful lot are ex-Navy folks with a decade or so of experience working in very extreme environments.

I was also told that you got excellent pay working on welding for chemical plant. But all welds are checked, and one serious mistake meant you lost your job at that level permanently (no one would hire you anywhere for that job). Anecdotal of course...

Well, that's the one downside to becoming the "best" in a field. There's fewer and fewer at your caliber. Thus, your name technically has more meaning. That goes outside blue collar too.

That's the funny part when you mention specialized alloys. There's a whole bunch of people out there, even though they don't have a college degree, who have an amazingly keen sense and in-depth knowledge of these specialized alloys and how to manipulate them in the real world. These are the folks that get the high range salaries, for very good reason. Now, it may be unfair that I say no college degree. They do take classes and other courses. But that's where we try to make a difference between trade/vocational school and college.

While I do see the value in theoretical and academic knowledge. I really do. There's zero fucking reason to assume it's grander than practical/vocational knowledge. One of the few jokes I like out of the Big Bang Theory (fucking hate that show but my ex loved it), the group was driving out somewhere for some reason, but the car breaks down. Whoever the main guy was says "Who knows anything about internal combustion engines?". All of them start saying they know plenty, yada yada. "Who knows how to fix one?" Silence.

Both sides need each other, academic and vocational. Neither side can advance without the other. But I'll gladly be the one to rag on academics if they act superior to the tradesmen until that stupidity ends.

The Navy has drydocks and whatnot, they regularly commission and decommission boats. Why do they need relavitively so many more specialists?

> I only know the 150 range to be for deep sea oil guys.

I've read about these "saturation divers". Guys that go down inside a diving bell for weeks at a time and breath a mix of helium. Only highly skilled divers can do this (ie, lots of experience), and if I remember correctly, have to stop by age 40(ish). So there's this narrow window of time where they can make that kind of money. But these guys could make $175-$200k.

Obviously this is a tiny, tiny fraction of welders for only a portion of there career. I just found it really fascinating how the whole process works. Living down there for days or weeks at a time.

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