I Want to be a Plumber When I Grow Up!

If you ask the average 5 year old what they want to be when they grow up, you will probably never get "Plumber" as an answer. As I was working on this article I thought back to my childhood. The first thing that I ever wanted to be was a marine biologist. Then I wanted to be an accountant, then an architect, then an electrician. I guess the older I got the more realistic my career goals became.
The other day I was reading an article online (I can't remember where) that said that many of the people who found themselves booted out of corporate America due to the recent bad economy, were learning trades, like plumbing. I couldn't help but laugh at this. Why? Because it seems that corporate America, for all of their brains, has taken years to figure out something that us contractors already knew: Being a plumber, or an electrician, or an HVAC tech IS a good job!
This fact is something that they don't teach you in grade school. But the fact of the matter is, while a doctor makes good money, so does the guy that unclogs his toilet. A kid can take some community college courses and be working for a plumbing company by the age of 19 making 20-25 dollars per hour if he is ambitious and good at what he does. That means that by the time the doctor finishes med school, the kid who became a plumber will have made about $500,000.00 and will have only spent about $1000.00 on school where as the kid who became a doctor will owe hundreds of thousands in student loans and won't have made a dime.
I'm not saying that being a plumber is better than being a doctor. However, here are a couple of reasons why it is good to be a plumber, especially in today's economy:

1. With many of the oldschool plumbers retiring and not many young people pursuing the career, you will have no trouble finding a job in this field.
2. You don't need that much schooling to get started. You can work as an apprentice with no experience and learn on the job while you get paid or you can take a 1 year course at a community college and be ready to go to work. Of course it will take some time for you to learn to be a master plumber but you will get paid while you learn.
3. Speaking of getting paid, in most places with only 1 year of schooling you can start between $13 and $20. Once you get a year or two experience under your belt you are looking at $20-$25 per hour. Do a little extra studying and get your plumbing contractors license and you can write your own checks.
4. No matter how bad the economy gets people will still need to flush, and you can't outsource unstopping toilets!

I didn't become a marine biologist or an architect but I did install an expansion tank on a guys hot water heater yesterday. It took all of 30 mins and I made $100 even after I gave him a 50% discount for being a repeat customer. That's enough to make a doctor jealous.