To think some people are really snobby about tradespeople?

[Loveheart13]

I’ve noticed that a lot of people really look down on tradespeople/jobs with practical skills.

Dh works in a trade and he earns very well. Obviously I don’t talk about it. I’ve noticed that people make a lot of assumptions that it’s poorly paid, that you must be a bit thick.

I’ve got friends ds and work colleagues who think that university is the only way. I know someone whose nearly adult child is not very academic at all but they are determined to push on as they are certain that anything less than a degree is complete failure.

Why are people so snobby about it?

lot of stuff that tradespeople have to do today is quite detailed and complex, especially electrics, gas and plumbing so dont knock the level of education needed.

My ex wife was very snobbish about nurses - she was from a family of teachers.

Must have miffed her when I dated one after she split and then married a nurse!

I think it's resentment. Lots of people still servicing their uni loans, stuck doing long hours in their middle management jobs, not keeping up with the lives their parents gave them, convincing themselves that they are still middle class because they listen to classic radio while they are eating their beans.

And then here comes a tradie, one who choses their own working hours, with scarce skills so they choose which jobs they do and can leave the tricky customers for less experienced or skilled competition, one who is unsaddled with uni debt and got on the housing ladder long before they did....and now, despite them doing everything 'right' - this working class skilled worker is now more economically settled than they could ever hope to be.

Snobbery is all they have left to soothe their fragile ego.

I don't think most of us think tradespeople are thick, should have gone to uni, are low earning. IMO, most of us think tradespeople are raking it in!

However, we also think there are a lot of tradies that are cowboys and do poor quality work.

GOOD tradies are worth their weight in gold as far as a lot of us are concerned. I once paid my favourite plumber almost twice as much as other quotes to fit a new bath, because I knew he'd do a great job. And did. Worth every penny.

I'd also like to see much easier access to apprenticeships. I think part of the reason tradespeople earn so well, is because access to these skills is so hard to access and train in.

I teach at a private school, and we have many students who would be better suited to a trade. Their parents won’t hear of it. It’s university or nothing for them, so they end up in useless degrees with no real job prospects at the end.

Im so thankful for the school I attended as a student. It was private, single-sex, but encouraged all the girls to follow whatever career they wanted. 15 years later, we are hairdressers, makeup artists, lawyers, doctors, teachers, musical theatre performers… everyone felt encouraged to pursue their dream careers.

I will encourage my own DC to do whatever they want. I will be very proud if they end up in a trade. But I’ve had friends who told me they’d be ‘horrified’ if their DS ended up as a carpenter. Very sad.

This is interesting. I went to a private school in the 80/90s....we were basically given no choice other than uni. I was desperate to become a chef but because of this attitude, it genuinely never occurred to me that it was a viable option. We often hear of how working class kids in state schools should be encouraged to attend top unis and I applaud that if it suits them, but equally I think it's a crying shame that private school pupils aren't always given the opportunity to learn vocational subjects.

Same. I went to private school in the 90s and it was Uni or nothing. Throughout school I wanted to be a makeup artist. Mum basically told me that was for thick girls.
I could have been self employed with a great career as a makeup artist now. Instead I'm in a - granted - well paid corporate desk job, which is fine but brings me no joy and has definitely never been great for my mental health. I'm someone who needs to use my hands.
I'm just grateful I went to uni when the costs were less. I came out with only £17k of debt (now paid off), unlike the £55k of debt people graduate with now.

We’ve had a series of snobby tradespeople recently, weirdly. Really struggled to get work done on an old house, where they might need to do some jobs by hand. New ones coming through seem to be wary of hard work. One said he only likes doing new builds.

Yup. I noticed this when I took a career break and did pet sitting for a few years when the kids were little. TBH it made me miss the automatic status I didn't realise was there as a lawyer.

Surely it should be if they want to.

We all needs trades, I'd rather call a plumber when I need them, over someone that has a masters in water courses.

Yes I agree OP. One of my friends is a judge in the High Court. He had the audacity to complain that builders want to charge £300 per day. I’m absolutely sure that is what he would charge to read a short letter.
The builder can read; the judge can’t lay bricks though🤣

I’d rather my plumber was as educated as he wanted to be. University isn’t the same as learning a trade.

But, that's pretty much what I said. My point was, people should have the choice and neither is lesser. We need Tradespeople and graduates.

I have complete respect for tradespeople who do things I couldn’t possibly do. Our electrician is excellent and we’ve used him a lot recently.

I don’t think everyone should go to university and I certainly don’t think it should be an expectation. I think it was a mistake when Tony Blair decided that the aim should be for 50% of young people to go. I think it devalues both the university experience and the apprenticeship type choices that people make. People who are practical will always be needed.

I don’t agree that people have been snobbish here though. I think some have expressed frustration at some of the practices of the minority of tradesmen they’ve had poor experiences with. The majority recognise the skill and expertise of carpenters, plumbers, electricians, plasterers etc.

One of my children went to university, the other didn’t. I don’t regard one more highly than the other because of it.

I used to be married to a carpenter and one of my exes is a plumber. I quite like a man who can put up a shelf or install a kitchen. The relationships didn't work out because they were the wrong people for me not because they weren't skilled at there jobs or that I didn't respect the work they did.

I have a computer science degree and work in IT for a large 250ftse company. I'm not pushing my children in to uni unless its what they want. I would be more than happy with my son doing a trade and currently my daughter is planning to carry on working with horses for a couple of years after school until she knows what she wants to do.

But ‘those kids’ you say are labourer material aren’t going to be rising through the ranks and retiring in their 50s before their bodies wear out from a physical job. So surely it makes sense for people to direct them away from physically demanding trades jobs and into something where they literally won’t be able to work after a certain age, and have to try and find a whole new type of job in middle?

I’m from a long line of men and women who spent their entire working lives in poorly-paid, physically demanding jobs, and whose bodies are giving them serious grief in later years. (The women are all office/hospital cleaners.) It’s easy for @carrotsandtomatoes to say that if they manage their finances right, they can retire in their 50s. That’s not my experience with family members now in their late 50s and above. They can’t afford to retire early, are frequently dealing with chronic pain, and, once they’re unable to do their ‘original’ job, they’re working as delivery drivers, street sweepers and the like. My 58 year old SIL is on her second knee replacement after nearly 40 years cleaning for the local authority, and has had years of agonising plantar fasciitis. No, she’s not a ‘tradesperson’, but she has the same wear and tear issues as a tradesperson who, for whatever reason, didn’t make a lot of money.

I knew university was my way out of that, and I’ve never for a moment regretted it.

Yup exactly. I grew up in NZ where being a tradie is actually a very desirable job. They are paid extremely well and also respected.

The misogyny is still rampant in the industry in NZ but I did notice that on the whole much more pride was taken in the work and the people were more professional. They really treated it as their desired career and wanted a good reputation.

I was shocked coming to the UK and trying to find good people and seeing the state of my friends and in laws houses after tradesmen had left. I'd never seen anything like it.

No pride, bare minimum effort, if they show up at all... All whilst treating women terribly.

A tradesman will always be in demand and have regular work. They’re essential workers really and we couldn’t do without them. I couldn’t have got my flat looking the way it does without them.

Wait until a tradesperson working in your house asks to use the toilet! That always sets MN absolutely ablaze with batshittery and pearl clutching! 😲🙄

My point was more graduates and trade are not mutually exclusive.

Except if I'm paying for your day then you should work that day. You should use a different day for admin/quoting. If that means you can only take on 4 days a week and use the 5th for admin/invoices/quotes. If I'm paying you for a 4 day job, and you use the equivalent of 3 days doing the job and the other quarter of the time popping round places to price up then surely you can see why i'd be pissed off and definitely be wanting a discount. I think the best self employed people allow enough free time in their schedules to complete things like quotes and invoices when they aren't 'on the job' for another customer. The bad ones ones cram every possible job in to try and eek out as much cash as possible but ultimately end up delivering badly on a lot of the things as they are now stretched too thin, turning up late because other jobs over-ran, because they started late because they didn't leave enough time to get materials and knock on and knock on.

I think people aren't so snobby about tradespeople in my country (Finland), going to vocational school to learn a trade (that includes traditional trades and other things like hospitality, health care, catering etc.) instead of high school is popular, about half of 16 year olds choose it and when I was in vocational school last year (training in aircraft maintenance because I decided I wanted a complete change in direction) I saw a lot of women and girls studying the traditional trades too.

My bloke is an electrician and his customers are generally pleased with him. Whenever he finishes a job he comes home with little presents his customers have given him, like chocolates and biscuits.

Wow, I would far far rather employ a woman to come and do work. I wish there were more women as I know plenty of women who don't want to keep inviting strange men into their homes while they are home alone.

You don’t get to dictate what a day is though.

You’re paying for the job not the day.

You don’t pay your electrician/plumber/carpenter/plaster an hourly rate. You pay for the job.

It’s not always possible to fit a job into 9-5 hours. Because the job doesn’t work like that. They will need to finish what they’ve started and start again the next day.

It’s quite funny how all these people will little practical skills and nightmare tradespeople are telling tradespeople how they should do their job.

You don’t get this in the same way with other jobs.

I don't get that. So you'd complain if they don't get back to you in 4 days but you'd complain if they leave in the afternoon to spend time doing the admin?