To be a Carpenter/Handyman or a Computer expert

[TheRedHare]

I'm wondering if it's a better idea to work as a entry level handyman- meaning, carpenter, electrician, plumber, mechanic or be a computer expert- coding, cyber security, networking.

After reading the "Myths and the future" blog post, it got me thinking that all my hard work and studies in computer technology seems to just be a waste since we won't have any thing to power it...unless we find some type of solution (mass solar power?) It makes more sense that the handyman skills will be much more valuable in the future than computer work.

I don't really have much experience with handy work so I feel pretty vulnerable in that sense. This would also make things a bit difficult because I don't have any prior experience therefore making job hunting difficult for that line of work.

I've considered just staying to what I'm doing now, earn a decent salary, and retire. Then start doing the hard labor skills when I have the time and money, and wouldn't mind being an unpaid apprentice for someone.

Thoughts?

[Papers of Indenture]

The world isn't going to run out of energy between now and the 10 years or so it will take to reach ERE. Whatever you do...dont let that be the deciding factor.

[BRUTE]

why not both? learning handyman skills on the side should be very doable, fixing some plumbing, making some chairs, doing the oil changes..

[FBeyer]

To be a handyman you have to be first be handy, which requires learning and experience...

This. Being a good Carpenter is not so much about how to handle tools well, but about a surprisingly large amount of planning and small infrastructural Things on the Construction site. There is a reason that crafts are taught on the spot, not from books.

You might learn how to make a plaster ceiling as a DIY'er but I'll guarantee that it's not how it's done on the real job where time is tight like you wouldn't believe. The crafts have been made more and more effective over the last couple of hundred years. You can gauge, almost Down to the hour, how long it takes to tear off a roof and build a completely new one, which is very different from more mentally challenging disciplines like programming and science.

Being handy and not-afraid of picking up tools to fix something at home is vastly different from a carpenter's on-site piecework.

If crafts are 'easy', it's most likely because you're not very good at them yet.

I'm a Carpenter and PhD STEM student, I know both Worlds, and both require an actual skill set that takes time to learn.

[vexed87]

The world isn't going to run out of energy between now and the 10 years or so it will take to reach ERE. Whatever you do...dont let that be the deciding factor.

That's certainly true, but the high-tech economy could suffer considerably if the economy falters during the energy descent. I suspect one of the first things to go will be high-tech consumer goods, services and R&D... alway which draw heavily on coders. From the carpenter's perspective, construction will likely cease for the most part, declining population will mean there's little sense in building much new, instead we'll be left maintaining our large stock of buildings and retrofitting properties to the realities of life without abundant energy.

That said, even in an energy decent scenario, there's going to be a lot of old tech lying around and very little in the way of out of the box solutions for every day problems, given that a laptop can easily be powered by solar PV or DIY wind turbines, no doubt some people will be making do with the current tech for some time. People who can programme will still find themselves in demand, albeit on a smaller scale than before and in ever decreasing numbers as hardware fails and cannot be replaced as industrial manufacturing becomes impossible.

However, as brute says, why not both? One of the beautiful things about ERE is that you can pursue both paths, simultaneously, one as a hobby and the other as a career. Or you could buck the trend and take two part time roles.

I do a bit of carpentry as a hobby and now know enough to be dangerous. I have built a workstation, a bookcase and have a couple other unfinished projects which I'll pick up when the outdoor garage gets tolerably warmer. I have refurbed an antique hand plane, sharpened an old rip saw and built some DIY clamps. I have completed a number of small projects (which I'm quite proud of) and now understand the different types of jointing and where their applications are appropriate, but I need to practice the more advanced ones for fine furniture/better finishing.

My advice would be stick to hand tools and avoid electricity like the plague, remember, you want relevant skills for the future if it's just a hobby! I would never be commercially competitive unless I spent an order of magnitude of more time on carpentry and/or bought power tools etc.

Luckily, if SHTF, you won't have to worry about power tools or being competitive in a market economy (i.e. getting the job done in minimal time possible) because you'll be relying on inefficient community reciprocity to meet your needs instead of exchange of fiat currency which we are all used to. If you get a jump on everyone else having to re-skill, no doubt you'll be more efficient than most and can make your hobby relevant in a new world. Perhaps you'd even do better than most 'professionals' who never picked up a hand tool in their life, believe it or not some 'carpenters' specialise in a factory/repetitive factory line like assembly of projects using power tools, and wouldn't know the first thing about building a cabinet from rough stock using simply a chisel, saw and hand plane.

In the end, people will care more about quality than quantity, so don't spend too much time fretting about being efficient in your hobbies. Efficiency will come with experience and I challenge any one with an ERE mindset to fail to understand how to make work more efficient should the need arise down the line.

[BRUTE]

You can gauge, almost Down to the hour, how long it takes to tear off a roof and build a completely new one, which is very different from more mentally challenging disciplines like programming

this sounds exactly like programming professionally.

[Dragline]

why not both?

+1

Ah, the correct answer to the problem of a false dilemma resurfaces once again.

[ducknalddon]

You can gauge, almost Down to the hour, how long it takes to tear off a roof and build a completely new one, which is very different from more mentally challenging disciplines like programming

this sounds exactly like programming professionally.

Not in my experience, the big difference is programming isn't repeatable, every piece of work is new, if it wasn't you wouldn't do it you would just use the previous code. It also suffers because it isn't very measurable, I can easily see the rate a roofer is putting up tiles and that is a pretty good measure of progress. Try and measure a programmers output by lines of code and see what results you get

[7Wannabe5]

From "Little House in the Big Woods" by Laura Ingalls Wilder. For those of you not familiar with with the series, the books are the memoirs of an 1870s American pioneer girlhood starting in the woods of Wisconsin and moving to the western prairies.

Standing on end in the yard was a tall length cut from the trunk of a big hollow tree.
Pa had driven nails inside as far as he could reach from each end. Then he stood it up, put a little roof over the top, and cut a little door on one side near the bottom. On the piece that he cut out he fastened leather hinges;
then he fitted it into place, and that was the little door, with the bark still on it.
After the deer meat had been salted several days, Pa cut a hole near the end of each
piece and put a string through it. Laura watched him do this, and then she watched him hang
the meat on the nails in the hollow log.

In winter the cream was not yellow as it was in summer, and butter churned from it was white and not so pretty. Ma liked everything on her table to be pretty, so in the wintertime she colored the butter. After she had put the cream in the tall crockery churn and set it near the stove to
warm, she washed and scraped a long orange colored carrot...

...With the paddle Ma packed butter tightly into the mold until it was full. Then she turned it upside down over a plate, and pushed on the handle of the loose bottom. The little, firm pat of golden butter came out, with the strawberry and its leaves molded on the top.

I do believe that we will run out of petroleum etc. Recently, I have been reading some novels based on what life might be like when this happens. Sometimes when people write novels about problems in the future, they are really writing about problems in the present. Resources and energy are needed to maintain civilization, but advanced technology does not equal civilization. Survival in a situation of very low technological infrastructure, such as the woods of Wisconsin in 1870, may require a number of skills, such as the rough carpentry necessary to craft a smokehouse out of a hollow log, as described in the first bit I quoted above. HOWEVER, civilization does not require the maintenance of fiber-optic infrastructure. Civilization is not just about scientific advances. It is also about simply having enough "survival" stocked up in the moment, that you are free to use some of your life energy to exhibit your aesthetic or pass along some memes to others. IOW, it is also about education and the arts. IOW, if your lifestyle does not allow or afford you the leisure to engage in some activities that are analogous to "dying the butter yellow and molding it into pretty little pats with strawberries on top", as described in the second bit I quoted, then you are not living a civilized life. If you are not spending some time engaged in activities such as reading "Goodnight Moon" to a 3 year old cuddled in your lap in a rocking chair, then you are not doing your part to maintain civilization. There are far more verbs available to us as humans than just the narrow dichotomy of "produce" and "consume." You have to learn to recognize when linear efficiency becomes systemic stupidity.

[7Wannabe5]

IOW, to make my point more succinctly, it is not enough to move from "consumption" towards "conservation", you also have to move from "production" towards "creation." Creating something with code would be a better choice than producing something with wood and hand-tools, because then you would be practicing the more general skill set. I disagree with the premise, consider it to be a bit of a cop-out, that the true crossover point for utility comes when you perfect "conservation" in alignment with values system, but you only set the bound on your production at "not morally repugnant." Of course, learning the art of bringing creativity or zen appreciation to the mundane also applies.

Also, as Ralph Waldo Emerson said "Passion, though a poor regulator, is a powerful spring."

[BRUTE]

the big difference is programming isn't repeatable, every piece of work is new, if it wasn't you wouldn't do it you would just use the previous code

just as every building is (somehow) different - different building codes, location.. there is a ton of repetition in programming where it's still impossible to just re-use the same program or even parts of the code.

[jacob]

I'm wondering if it's a better idea to work as a entry level handyman- meaning, carpenter, electrician, plumber, mechanic or be a computer expert- coding, cyber security, networking.

It's an apples and oranges question on multiple levels.

Entry vs Expert?
Generalist vs Specialist?
Experiental vs Intellectual?
Future vs Now?
Young vs Old?
$ vs $$$?
Robust vs Popular?
Local vs Global?

[Tyler9000]

The world isn't going to run out of energy between now and the 10 years or so it will take to reach ERE. Whatever you do...dont let that be the deciding factor.

+1

Both are valuable skills, so do what you're legitimately good at and enjoy. IMHO, ruling out a tremendously useful skill today because you fear it may be less useful decades from now is the antithesis of the opportunistic mindset that allows ERE-minded people to thrive.

[TheRedHare]

It's an apples and oranges question on multiple levels.

Entry vs Expert?
Generalist vs Specialist?
Experimental vs Intellectual?
Future vs Now?
Young vs Old?
$ vs $$$?
Robust vs Popular?
Local vs Global?

I see what you're saying. Do you think you could elaborate more? "Young vs Old" as in young people go more for computer skills whereas older people are more familiar with handyman work?

[TheRedHare]

This is all very true..and I've failed to realize that it is entirely possible to just do both...duh.
I'm all caught up in trying to compete with those that absorb themselves in one craft or another. Most of the computer nerds I know mostly do things that are computer related..(video games, buying high end tech...whatever). On top of that most employers are wanting young people to get fully involved in something...attend clubs, take up your line of work as a hobby as well (i.e. working is coding and play is coding). I think this is more so with younger, entry level people than it is with senior workers.

[jacob]

@THR - That's a question better answered by those in the business ... but in tech there's a general preference for hiring young people (more energy) and for old (40+) to eventually desire a life-balance that doesn't involve learning new programming languages all the time. Conversely, you hear the same thing in carpentry ... that you're unlikely to be hired as an apprentice when you're 35 because carrying 2x4s up stairs all day is already too hard on the body (compared to an 18 yo).

Which kind of work do you think you'd be better at/more likely to be hired at as a 25yo vs a 50yo? When do you intend to work?

[Scott 2]

If you can cut it, and the work is equal to you, computer expert. Far greater rewards are available.

Nothing wrong with the carpenter route, if it's what you prefer though. That's the benefit of living simply.

[Dragline]

From "Little House in the Big Woods" by Laura Ingalls Wilder. For those of you not familiar with with the series, the books are the memoirs of an 1870s American pioneer girlhood starting in the woods of Wisconsin and moving to the western prairies.

Now, Now, let's not forget "Farmer Boy". I especially enjoyed the part about raising the milk-fed pumpkin, and the suckling pig he bought instead of lemonade like his spoiled cousin.

[7Wannabe5]

@Dragline: Almanzo was pretty cool. Laura is actually a distant cousin of mine, and it seems like she shared the family predilection for the man-candy.



Of course, I have recently had cause to recall the chapter in a later book when he came to Laura's rescue when she couldn't handle the big boys in the one room schoolhouse where she was teaching, since my ability to break up a fight between 3 or 4 sixth grade boys hailing from the projects of Detroit and the villages of Yemen is rather weak, and non-existent once they are in 8th grade.

Circling back around to the question at hand. Let's not forget the side benefit of choosing carpentry apprenticeship.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GL9JoH4Sws

[Dragline]

Circling back around to the question at hand. Let's not forget the side benefit of choosing carpentry apprenticeship.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GL9JoH4Sws

I'm sure that's EXACTLY like what the fair was like in upstate New York in 1880.