To think some people are really snobby about tradespeople?

Tbh, I don’t know anyone who looks down on trades. I live in a MC area and have affluent friends (we’re not!) and I’ve never heard snobbishness. In fact, builders around here are pretty respected.

I’m a tradeswoman and come across this attitude regularly.
I chose to go into my trade due to poor mental health leaving me struggling in any other kind of job.
I’m self employed and love the job I do.
I do find some customers can treat me as though I’m beneath them though.
Funny thing is I do actually have a degree, but I chose to work a trade I enjoy as the money is actually better and I get more fulfilment too.
I’m also often encountering misogyny from customers who believe a penis is needed to do a good job in my trade.

As with so much snobbery - it’s often ‘lower middle class’ people being dicks to try and make themselves feel a few rungs higher up the imaginary ladder. At my children’s fancy pre-prep school there are quite a lot of people who started off as brickies / plumbers and now have their own businesses with fleets of vans.

no one is remotely snobby about them - although they’re often plagued for advice about matters practical which seem beyond the average lawyer / accountant!

personally thing the world would be a much nicer place if anyone who used the word ‘common’ to describe other people was politely shipped off to a remote island somewhere

Well I’m in Ireland and I don’t find that people are snobby about it here in my experience. I’d be happy if my dc did a trade. There are so many crappy degrees about that it’s impossible to actually get a job out of.

You took the words right out my mouth 👏

That’s an interesting take on the comments, I would say the general consensus is that they are skilled/ well respected and valued when they work to high standards, and the good ones are worth their weight in gold.
That being said the lack of regulation and poor experiences that posters had addressed are genuine issues within the sector, nothing at all to do with snobbery.
you are just creating your own narrative to suit your viewpoint, and being dismissive of anything that doesn’t fit.
Im glad your husband is a decent and hardworking man, however that doesn’t negate the problems in the industry as a whole.

People who assume tradespeople are poorly paid probably have never employed one. Going through a couple of quotes just now and genuinely wondering, why they didn't arrive in a Ferrari.

DH retrained into a trade from a desk job and now hangs around motorways and railways wearing hi vis and I'm sure some people (tossers) might not think much of him.
I absolutely think my mum (prone to snobbishness and wildly outdated views on the working world) thinks less of him.
But he's on £85k after only 2 years 🤷🏼‍♀️. Not that we share that information with anyone in real life.

I don't understand this attitude at all. I from abroad and was telling Dh how good the system here is with apprenticeships for people who are not academic or not wanting to be. Dh, university professor, agreed and said that they can have their own businesses.

No idea but I hate it. My in laws (SIL and BIL) are like that. Their children both went to RG univ and in their 30s are still on minimum wage in jobs they don't enjoy. SIL and BIL look down on a friend of their son who didn't do well at school but had a mechanical eng apprenticeship and is doing really well in a good job and just bought his first house. They think their children are somehow superior.

Such a lot of snobbery on this thread. People with a trade are not thick, or have failed in life. I don’t know why some people think they are fair game to be taken the pee out of. Not only do they do highly specialised jobs with a lot of science and arts involved, but they run their own businesses requiring maths too. All technologies are moving forward, and contractors must keep up. They have to consider health & safety, and the law. Most contractors I meet are professional people.

People are snobby about apprenticeships too. Why? Apprentices still have to do training courses, still have to attain a qualification. But they can be smart, and get on in life with little or no debt. They can earn very good money. An acquaintance of mine was an IT apprentice and is now on £60k a year, in his 20s.

University doesn’t suit everyone, and we need more tradespeople! We need people who are competent to build, maintain and create!

Totally agree. I am not snobby in the least about any profession, however the vast majority of trades people we have used have done shoddy work/ no communication. It’s not a one off it’s echoed by most people I know so clearly there is an issue with the competence and attitude in this sector. I have had some fantastic trades people who I recommend and use again, but unfortunately they are the minority not the norm from my experience.

I think tradesmen are actually very useful and handy people, and actually they are far more useful to know than say "financial advisors" in real terms.

BUT and this is a big BUT, so many of them fall into the laddy lad stereotype of smoking, swearing and being crude about women, and being all drunk at the weekend. If so many were not like this then it would be different. Meeting one not like this is by far the exception than the rule.

Theyre not just clocking off to go home for a nap.
One of ours left daily at 3pm to go to the pub! DAILY, on the dot.

We've just spent 3yrs renovating a derelict property and used 20+ trades in that time. All but 1 were brilliant and I always recommend them on to friends/family etc.

My only issues have been the mess. We had a massive skip, I put bins all over the place, yet still found cigarette butts and wrappers, cans of energy drink, crips packets shoved into brick holes or in the end of scaffolding poles, smashed glass in plant pots etc! The electrician would snip off the end of wires and these were left all over the floor.

We had a new fence installed and the entire length had easy access, no plants, except for 1 patch, 50cm x 50cm. Despite me asking them to step around these plants- yes, they were ALL trampled and died.

I previously worked in peoples homes. If I'd left someones used pads, or lunch wrappers on the floor or cut their hair and left all the hair on the floor- I'd have been fired!
,

That's the same with any "one man" sole trader type of business, whether a tradesman, cafe owners, shop keeper, guest house, web designer, accountant/solicitor, surveyor etc., if they don't have support staff and have to do it all themselves. Being an employee is completely different in whatever trade/profession as you have a support team around you.

And dealing with customers who want the minimal amount of work as possible done to avoid costs. My DP has vowed never to work for landlords again because they are absolute cheapskates who would rather leave things dangerous than pay someone to fix things properly. He also knows when he’s about to get fucked over and have someone refuse to pay him. They’re normally the people who ask him to make sure his quote is ‘reasonable’ as they’ve got a small budget.

If your business admin takes you an additional 40 hours a week something has gone badly wrong

My lawyer ex-boss was horrified to learn that builder DH went to the same private school his kids are currently at. He said “I bet his dad is pissed off he wasted all that money on him”.

I couldn’t be bothered to tell him his dad is also a builder and sent all 4 of his kids to private school and lives an extremely nice life. DH also earns very well but is also a really decent bloke and does a lot of free charity work for the community when he gets chance.

Not all builders are cowboys - in fact, in my experience most aren’t and are smart, intelligent men.

Assuming your talking about the threads sometimes on here where people vent about the tradesmen shitting in their toilet*, being loud etc.

Well I'm lower down the pyramid of good jobs (right at the bottom) then a tradesman (so no snobbery here) is and I've got to agree some of them just are kinda brutish

• Edited to say leaving his shit skids unashamedly all up the toilet bowl

I think there might be a bit of jealousy there.
They know they need those people and as they don't feel like they are 'like them' or uni educated, middle class etc, they are a bit afraid.
They feel like they don't want to be in a situation where someone they perceived as less educated actually has much more knowledge.