octobob

Just started wiring houses on the side with an old friend. He works for himself with one apprentice. My electrical career is basically 100% industrial, other than random stuff like this

30/hr cash, I can work nights and weekends, make some extra cash and it helps him out. This is on top of my full time job, which usually requires overtime and traveling around the country to different industrial sites and steel mills.

I enjoy the work. I like being physically active and learning and using my brain.

Our house got broken into while we were home. My roommate chased him down the street with a big hunting knife. No way he's coming back after that. I didn't see the need to report it to the police. For whatever that's worth.

I visited new Zealand and Australia last year. I highly recommend the twelve apostles in Australia. They're similar to this and simply incredible

Man so how about I had to have a soft inquiry of a background / credit check just to get on an industrial site to do my job recently. Like how is that in my control at all lol. Thankfully that's not the norm, most of them just do a piss test, but like what if every time I traveled it was another credit check? Wouldn't that hurt my score if it was a frequent thing?

The "trick" is to only mention you're paying cash at the end. I went through this after hitting a deer and totalling my car last year after I received my settlement. They'll usually offer something small like a few hundred dollars off or whatever when you casually mention your price when test driving. He basically tried to walk it back at the end when we sat down to discuss financing when he found out I was paying cash, which was incredibly shitty, but he had to "go in his boss's office" or whatever to commit to what he said previously

It's all such a stupid song and dance that's pretty much on par with birds mating.

I guess heads up, trades can really further destroy your body, but in a different way. I've worked one for about 10 years and I'm doing fine but some of the older guys absolutely have blown out their knees, backs, etc. Expect to be digging a trench or running up and down flights of steps for tools and materials, lifting the heavy shit etc when you start an apprenticeship.

Fortunately I'm at the point now where I do way less hands on work (for better or worse, I miss it sometimes) unless I'm in the field on industrial sites. Then it's go go go, work 14 hours a day get it done and it's heavy dirty hard electrician work, etc. But when I'm in the shop, all I do now is test our systems and do QA. So I feel way more like an inspector than I do a technician, despite that being in my job title. That's also a love/hate relationship if I'm being honest haha, but it sure beats working at a desk all day.

I'm at the point in my career where I've turned down a promotion to a desk job multiple times for the simple fact that I can't commit to cubicle life and want to be on my feet all day and physically looking and working on things to make sense of them. I also make way more money with overtime pay anyway. Maybe when I get into my 40's I'll consider making the jump.

Trump sucks for a million other reasons but this is objectively such a good thing for my region (Pittsburgh) and the business I work in. US Steel was for sale no matter what and the American companies like Cleveland Cliffs and Nucor that were trying to buy it were offering around half the price per share as Nippon, and probably a quarter of the investment while maintaining US steel's longstanding flippant policy towards environmental concerns and keeping old outdated dangerous machinery and equipment.

Nippon is investing billions into this region and US Steel. The new technology of steel mills is safer, cleaner, and better. There is way more automation taking people out of dangerous and hazardous roles in the mills

Really I'll be busy af with overtime, service calls for installations, our sales will skyrocket resulting in more jobs. Also Japanese companies tend to invest not only in the business, but things like public transit, improving our terrible roads, housing, etc.

I did not understand why Biden blocked the deal for "security concerns" and I don't give a fuck that trump was opposed to the deal on the campaign trail to win votes. I was very happy to hear the news as it will pretty dramatically affect my livelihood and career.

Tons of people dislike Harry Potter. I'm def one of them. Mentioning you're a fan gets an instant eye roll from me.

Transphobia etc aside, it's a shit series. Even for children, there are plenty of better fantasy books to read. I loved things like the Hobbit and Narnia as a small kid. I read things like Lord of the Rings and Dune when I was like 13-15.

I test and do QA on impossibly huge industrial electrical systems for things like steel mills. Some of them are 100 feet long, with individual cabinets all bayed together and fed from buswork which we fabricate ourselves. I also do some field work installing, repairing, etc.

However, the most boring part of my job by far is verifying bills of material during my QA portion. This involves physically looking at every part number of every part in the system (sometimes thousands of parts), and verifying it is the same number. Sometimes it takes days

I live in Pittsburgh and there are literally no cops on duty from like 3-5 AM or something. We haven't had a police chief in years, and I never see cops unless there's a violent crime or a car accident or overdose. You can kinda do whatever you want in terms of traffic laws. I've never even heard of someone getting a traffic ticket in the city, and most times if you're actually goin the speed limit you're a hazard that isn't following the flow of traffic. Completely different story in the suburbs outside the city.

It kinda rules not gonna lie.

There is nowhere in america that $420k is "middle class"

Even in the highest COL states like New York and California, middle class tops out under $200k

https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2025/03/21/income-you-need-to-be-middle-class-in-every-us-state.html