All the men in my family are in trades and they all hate it. I’m in pool service at the moment and I hate it. I’ve done plumbing and construction in the past and hate it. I love being outside and working with ny hands, but hate feeling ran down and tired every day to no end. I took 5 years off after high school. My parents had/have no money and neither did I. Theu never valued school at all. Even if I never use my degree or my CPT, I’m happy I do not have to be a day laborer for the rest of my life.
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I had this thought as well, instead of playing baseball. Although, baseball was a tad more fun and I was accepted to a prettier school. I also didn’t feel like being hit and all the conditioning.
Enjoy it, savor it. It was great. I love my life now, it’s not nearly as monotonous and white collar as suburban life I might make it sound. I was free in college, but trapped in my mind for most of it. Now, I have responsibilities.
It’s great when you are under 30, then 35 hits and most of the guys I talk to start to hate it. I’m in the management/consultant side of construction so I don’t have to beat my body like those guys. If I did go the trade route, I’d choose a trade that propelled me into a 50/50 desk/field oversight job.
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Great conversation here gents.
It’s nice to see other’s views on the subject. Finding my ‘dream job’ is still an end goal of mine, but I’m far from knowing what the hell that might be.
My dad tells me a dream job is an easy thing to figure out.
1st - Think of something you would love to do 24/7 that you don’t need to get paid to do.
2nd - Now figure out a way to do that thing but get paid for it.
That is a dream job haha!
I’m on the same boat though. I’m only 30, so I figure I got a few more years to figure out exactly what I want to do.
I have always stayed away from this thought process. I want to enjoy what I do for a living, but what I’m passionate about is always outside of the work realm. I’ve found that it’s not unusual to stop enjoying your dream job, once you’re dependent on it for a pay check.
I like my job, it’s great, I never dread going. In my free time, I pursue what I love to do.
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I would be satisfied with this. I’m still at the bottom of a big “shit rolls down hill” scenario at work. I am stuck with the work that nobody else wants to do.
It is temporary, I know, but I dread going to work and it does hurt my overall mood/attitude/quality of life. Some weeks are worse than others. I am switching departments in a week or two, once my current project goes out for tender, and I’m hoping this is the change I’ve been looking for.
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oh my god I can relate to this so much.
I was having lunch with my mum the other day and bitching about how much of a failure I am, like “it’s your fault - you told me I should go to uni!”
She was laughing her ass off like “sorry! That’s what our parents told us we should tell you!”
In hindsight I definitely should’ve just gotten a trade, rather than a degree…
…in fucking psychology!
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Slap!
That’s the sound of me high fiving you on this, which is significant as I fucking hate to high five.
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Haha thanks. It’s encouraging to know that I’m not the only one in this situation!
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What do you do, specifically? I’ve assumed it was aProject Engineer?
When I first started doing this, my job was to drive project managers around my state. Literally, that is it. I sat in all their meetings, but the thought was they could pay me a bit to drive them, allowing them to bill their hourly fee to clients. The alternative was for them to spend 6 hours a day driving, missing out on billing clients, then getting to a two hour meeting and driving back. Basically 12 hours on company time, 2 billable.
When I was driving, I was scanning project files into my computer, then filing electronically… SHITTY!
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I already told you… move to Florida. You’ll love it!
Never been hahaha!
That sounds like an interesting program. So… you’ll be an engineer… which leads me over to the flame free thread.
you move to Edinburgh!
I tried to.
04/27/2017
Yesterday’s Nutrition:
Totals Cals 2,226 Carbs 44 Fat 129 Protein 238
Today’s weight:
Well I woke up feeling a little bloated. Then chugged my 1/2 serving of Plazma and realized I didn’t weigh myself yet.
206.6lbs
I’m not going to look into this too much. I only got about 4hrs of sleep last night as I was out at a friend’s place for cards night. I didn’t have a sip of alcohol, or any snacks, so that isn’t the issue here. My weight fluctuates like crazy, I’m assuming we have an outlier here.
Despite the lack of sleep I’m up and atter for a morning workout.
Nutrition
Plazma pre-workout, proatmeal post-workout.
##Week 1 - 5/3/1 - 5’s PRO, BBB
Warmup/Giant Set: 5 Rounds
50 jump rope
5 burpees
Barbell Rows (135lbs x 10, 185 x 8, (add straps) 225 x 8 x 3)
10/10/10 Band pullaparts/dislocates/facepulls
These weights were very manageable. Feeling good getting back to the basics for some short, efficient morning workouts (<40mins).
Finally made it to the bottom of your log! Between yours and @MarkKO log there has been some heavy reading 
That giant set in itself would have me buggered haha
Yeah… I don’t really have anything constructive and/or intelligent to say just uh keep up the good work!
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How are you liking keeping the “conditioning” before your training? It looks like your conditioning is at all time high now.
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@Irishman92 - Haha, thanks for tuning in! I hope some of that heavy reading was at least mildly entertaining/helpful in one way or another. I appreciate you popping in; It’s an open discussion here so feel free to post away with any questions/comments you might have!
@oldbeancam - I really enjoyed that aspect of Brian’s programs. It isn’t anything crazy, but I’m used to going into my workouts relatively cold. These little circuits/giant sets get my primed, warmed up and have seemingly helped reduce my aches and pains (shoulders, knee and lower back specifically). No noticeable reduction in overall strength for my main sets, so I don’t see a reason to ditch them at this point.
You are correct. My conditioning is one of the biggest improvements I’ve made in 2017.
I switched to a bodybuilding split for 1 month which pushed my conditioning a bit with higher reps/lower rests/longer workouts. Then moved into Brian’s daily workouts for 1 month which had a specific conditioning portion and everything is superset/giant set.
I would like to hold on to this level of conditioning, so I’m going to keep this aspect in my training (even if it isn’t quite as crazy as Brian’s usual circuits).
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So many feels here, college for a degree, loved the idea of psychology, worked directly in the field for a couple years (at risk/juvenile delinquents) ended up being basically the “enforcer” at the facility I worked at due to my size and ability to regulate emotions, ended up really affecting my mental health (how much negativity can you deal with before it comes home with you?) and now I help manage a gym for not enough money, ha, while my buddy from HS who hated academics is making 30+ an hour as a foreman because he learned a trade and was willing to move. Go books!
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That’s the million dollar question for my profession as well. All day long I deal with people’s problems–usually their inability to participate in a functional relationship. I see anger, violence, depression, etc at nearly every call. It’s damn near impossible to be surrounded by the darkness of the world and not let it seep in. It’s not really surprising that most cops and EMS crews are jaded, cynical, and have warped senses of humor. I mean, really, how the hell do you deal with seeing a 16 year old girl with half of her face blown off? (she was playing with a shotgun, looked down the barrel and boom) That was my job a week before Christmas last year and as you can see it’s still very fresh in my mind.
It’s very difficult to process and compartmentalize. Some days I want to tell my wife all about my day. Most days I’m just quiet. A lot of days I have a beer.
That’s another reason I’m hoping to gain some ground with an officer wellness program here. I’m hoping to finagle my way to a full-time spot at our Training Academy.
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