# builders (even bank clerks want to be one)



## Unregistered (9 May 2005)

Check out this link on the independent site

http://www.unison.ie/irish_independent/stories.php3?ca=9&si=1392715&issue_id=12448

Its getting eerily like the IT consultants of the late 90s, everyone wants to be one


----------



## Unregistered (9 May 2005)

Sorry Ill include the full article here


"Bob the Builder new model for a healthier, wealthier lifestyle 

White-collar workers desert their desks to take up apprenticeships

BOB the Builder is proving a more popular role model for many young professionals than traditional figures in banking, teaching or the civil service. 

Growing numbers of white-collar workers are leaving their desks for the healthy and less stressful life on a building site. 

Building workers can earn as much as marketing managers in a medium-sized company, a conference has heard. 

But if Bob's the job, the message doesn't seem to be reaching parents, career guidance counsellors and the media who are still focusing on expensive third-level education, when traditional apprenticeships would lead to well-paid employment from the very beginning of school leaving, the Irish Home Builders Association heard in Killarney. 

Bank clerks were among those switching careers and opting for the less stressful job of a builder. Most were taking up the option to start an apprenticeship while working, a career path that would enable them to start their own business. 

There was also a growing number of girls taking up apprenticeships in areas such as specialised painting and the construction industry needed to promote apprenticeships in girls' schools. 

Parents were "pushing" their children into college and third-level education "whereas they should be looking at things in a more sensible way" when good-quality practical employment was available, said Kevin Gilna, public affairs executive with the Construction Industry Federation. "An apprentice starts earning from the beginning and the rates increase each year during the training period," he said. 

Weekly rates for the final year apprentice were almost €580, and travelling allowance could bring weekly earnings to more than €600, he said. Working conditions had improved dramatically in the sector and there was now "a very strong emphasis" on health and safety. 

"Career guidance counsellors at second level would be well advised to highlight the advantages of apprenticeships. And the media should moderate their fixation with points and college places and give fairer coverage to the full range of careers available to school leavers," Mr Gilna said. 

An estimated 8pc of the 227,000 workers on building sites were foreign, said Hubert Fitzpatrick, director of the IHBA. 

For the first four months of 2005 the final number of those employed in construction was expected to rise further, in response to stronger than expected demand. Unlike the hotel and catering industry, there was no shortage of young Irish people willing to take up employment in construction, Liam Kelleher, director general of CIF, said. 

"The construction industry is continuing to hold young Irish people - the money is good," Mr Kelleher said. "


----------



## Unregistered (9 May 2005)

I always wish I did a trade. 

Over the last two or three years, I've been renovating a house, which I've thoroughly enjoyed. This has included everything to laying a concrete floor to putting up shelves.

I now hate working at a desk. I'm 33 at the moment, and am  considering a career change. I used to love computers, now I hate them.


----------



## extopia (9 May 2005)

Easy to spot the article was written by a white-collar guy, keeps mentioning the supposed low stress of building site life as opposed to bank clerking. What planet is he on?


----------



## Unregistered (9 May 2005)

yea waiting around for a load of concrete to arrive at 7pm on a December night before you can go home because job has to be finished. Building isn't about DIY programmes its about hard work, hard hands, long hours, heavy drinking.


----------



## Unregistered (10 May 2005)

> yea waiting around for a load of concrete to arrive at 7pm on a December night before you can go home because job has to be finished.



That would be luxury compared to my current position. I'd rather be waiting around at 7pm than slogging my stress-filled guts out struggling with a finnicky computer (and not getting home until 10:00pm)


----------



## Unregistered (10 May 2005)

Gosh this really is like the move to IT during the technology bubble !
Making a career change to construction doesn't seem like a good medium or long-term move. At least not according to the Central Bank:

Quote:
"The second warning concerns the construction sector. The bank says that at the moment this sector accounts for 12% of total employment in Ireland, but that this is about 50% higher than in most other developed countries.

The report says that at some point this proportion will inevitably be reduced, and it will require significant retraining efforts and the maintenance of a good business environment to absorb those workers elsewhere in the economy in the future"

http://www.rte.ie/business/2005/0504/economy.html


----------



## Unregistered (10 May 2005)

Building stressful? - give me a break!


----------



## Gabriel (10 May 2005)

Unregistered said:
			
		

> Building stressful? - give me a break!



Have you ever worked as a builder? How would you know how stressful the job may or may not be?

Every job has different types of stress. Stress is all relative. As a lowly paid junior accountant, I'm sure you can be just as 'stressed' in your job as a high flying senior executive.
Stress is something you create yourself.


----------



## extopia (10 May 2005)

You can die on a building site. Much riskier than a desk job.


----------



## Bob (10 May 2005)

> You can die on a building site. Much riskier than a desk job.



Do builders feel stressed out each day, that this could be their last day alive?

Which would be worse? - worrying about a sand delivery, or worrying about an update to a live database that could screw up all the European orders for a company? One mistake (such as forgetting to reset a flag or something) and you're screwed. Oh, and your boss wants this done yesterday, and it's 9:30pm.

Give me the building site!


----------



## Unregistered (10 May 2005)

I've actually done both, labour on a building site, and also IT. Working on a building site is very hard work, physically tough, the IT stuff is very mentally stressful.

I much prefer the physical stress. I hate having stress induced headaches every day (which also can't be good for health)


----------



## Gabriel (10 May 2005)

Bob said:
			
		

> Do builders feel stressed out each day, that this could be their last day alive?
> 
> Which would be worse? - worrying about a sand delivery, or worrying about an update to a live database that could screw up all the European orders for a company? One mistake (such as forgetting to reset a flag or something) and you're screwed. Oh, and your boss wants this done yesterday, and it's 9:30pm.
> 
> Give me the building site!



Yeah...I'm sure that's all builders do...worry about sand deliveries!

P.S...does your company not have a test site and testing department or are all updates done live?


----------



## tonka (10 May 2005)

we'll see how stressed out the builders are when there is no work , quite shortly I'd say.

remember that brickies in england were pulling £1 a brick in 1988-1990 , by 1992 in the depths of the slump that was less than 20p a brick . 

after all the no shows, crap , chasing up,  dirt and excuses from them over the past 10 years I say f*** them


----------



## Unregistered (10 May 2005)

> does your company not have a test site and testing department or are all updates done live?



Actually, no. The company in question didn't have a test site etc. The databases were a tangle of access linked databases & SQL Server and 'one off tables' etc.

 It's called 'fire fighting', and it's very stressful.


----------



## tonka (10 May 2005)

Unregistered said:
			
		

> The databases were a tangle of access linked databases & SQL Server and 'one off tables' etc.


Yuk could you not at least port the access tables to foxpro tables, much faster and more reliable and you can run the same updates and queries you have 'kludged' for the access tables .


----------



## Gabriel (10 May 2005)

Unregistered said:
			
		

> Actually, no. The company in question didn't have a test site etc. The databases were a tangle of access linked databases & SQL Server and 'one off tables' etc.
> 
> It's called 'fire fighting', and it's very stressful.



No offence, honestly, but that's called a mess. The stress was caused by poor coding practices as this type of 'fire fighting' is not common.


----------



## Unregistered (10 May 2005)

> No offence, honestly, but that's called a mess.



No offence taken, of course it was a mess. However, a frightenly large number of companies seem to operate like this. I was only in there on a temporary basis, and simply passed the poisoned chalace onto the next poor bastard.

Stuff like that never gets fixed, it just gets worse as more and more stuff is added to the 'system'. As far as the managers are concerned, it works.

I didn't think I should add yet another database (foxpro) into the mix. Much of the data was on SQL server anyway.


----------



## Unregistered (10 May 2005)

I think the most desirable jobs nowadays are jobs that are protected from international trade and the big C (China). First people shyed away from manufacturing jobs because they were too open to competition, then it was from IT as the wonders of technology made it possible for these jobs to be done remotely, now banking and banking services are suffering the same fate. So now its the public service, construction etc that are becoming more desirable because they are not part of the traded sectors. It will be along time before public service jobs are outsourced to China and India, however the way things are going anything is possible.


----------



## Unregistered (10 May 2005)

A lot of people here are equatting being under pressure to perfrom a task and "stress"

Getting a databse up and running (although probably important) not exactly life and death

Balancing a cash till in a bank, not really an issue in the great theme of life

The current generation of 20's seem to think that being under pressure in work is somewhat "fun" and "stressfull" at the same time

It is only work after all

Try feeding a family without having a job, try trying to find a job and there just aren't any, try explaining to a chile that the reason the other kids call them scruffy is not their fault

Thats is stress

Not that I ad to put up with any of these, I'm only 28 and have always had a job, wouldn't know what being unemployed was like (thankfully), but still know what really is important

I've worked in jobs where instead of working from 9am to 5pm staying until 3am and back in at 6am next morning to get ready for a meeting, worked for 6 weeks without a single day off and all of which with no thanks and realised

If you are stupid enough to do it, they will let you be stupid enough to do more

That is not stress it's just lack of baIIs to say it can't be done in nornam hours


----------



## Unregistered (10 May 2005)

> That is not stress it's just lack of baIIs to say it can't be done in nornam hours



What if your personal income depends on whether or not it can be done in normal hours? - if it can't be done, don't bother coming back.


----------



## Unregistered (12 May 2005)

this is an interesting discussion.
I am 32 and was pushed into college and ended up in IT. I have been working as a software tester since I left college and I can see the appeal of having a trade. If I had my time again I would definetly get myself a trade.
I can agree with one of the previous posters that mental stress is worse than physical. I come of of work jaded after a long and very very tedious day, dreaming of doing something else.
I've worked as a labourer for most of my summer jobs in college. I've been bullied by asshole builders for sure but doing labouring is not a trade, its donkey work anyway which I didn't like.
Now I spend my days day dreaming of having my own business and being my own boss and never going bullshit meetings and dealing with emails and spreadsheets and nerds.
Oh well at least the money is average.


----------



## Purple (12 May 2005)

Unregistered said:
			
		

> A lot of people here are equatting being under pressure to perfrom a task and "stress"
> 
> The current generation of 20's seem to think that being under pressure in work is somewhat "fun" and "stressfull" at the same time
> 
> ...



Very good point, A little perspective here is a good thing. Not having a job is generally more stressful than the work related stress that you get when you have one.
If builders screw up and go over budget or over time they can loose money on a job and go out of business. Being self employed is more stressful than working for someone else.
The other thing is that not very many brick layers work into their 60's so their career is considerably shorter than a some class of scrivener.


----------



## Lemurz (12 May 2005)

For the record I have two Brickies working in my estate building walls.  I had a beer with them last week.  One is in his fifties, while the other is in his early twenties.  Both work 8:30 - 4:30 five days a week.  The guy in his fifties grossed over €120k last year, while the guy in his twenties grossed over €80k last year.  Not bad for a stress free 40 hour week!  (It's their boss who has to worry about the bricks & mortar not arriving on time)


----------

