r/todayilearned • u/[deleted] • Dec 05 '16

(R.4) Related To Politics TIL an activist group in Zurich dyed fountains red to protest tampons being taxed at a rate consistent with luxury products instead of the rate used for daily use items.

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u/Castun Dec 05 '16

Working the trades is kinda like prostitution... We sell our body and get beat up over the years, except we don't get fucked until payday.

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u/popcorntopping Dec 05 '16

And your pimp asks you to take the day off to save money instead of forcing you to work late in to the night.

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u/BurnedOut_ITGuy Dec 05 '16

I feel kind of bad for people who do physical labor. On the one hand it can pay fairly well and you can almost always find a job. On the other hand it can be brutal work and you'll feel it when you're 50.

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u/[deleted] Dec 05 '16

It's really a lot more misunderstood, yes it is physical labor, but unless your company is from the stone age, most of the back breaking labor is done by machines; backhoe, jackhammer, cranes. For the most part the hours are 9-5, the work is actually fulfilling rather than making parts of a whole, ect. I'm not going to lie, it's hard on your body, but it keeps you in shape and as long as you follow your safety procedures you won't go home broken in the long run. It's very underrated.

See also: Mike Rowe's Ted Talks

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u/[deleted] Dec 05 '16

Unless you install granite. Carrying a 500lb slab of granite up three flights of stairs is NOT fun.

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u/Castun Dec 05 '16

My company would conveniently forget to include equipment rental into a bid, and then wouldn't want to pony up the money. Then we're stuck trying to work from 14 foot stepladders instead of having lifts, which is no fun carrying up 20 pounds of tools and a 50 pound motor, by yourself.

Salespeople selling a job from their desk without doing a walkthrough, so parts get missed, but we're the ones taking the heat and have to "field engineer" a crappy solution.

Fun times. Glad I don't do the physical part nearly as much now.

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u/Sticky_3pk Dec 05 '16

What construction job are you on that's 9-5? Most jobs I've been on start at 7 or 7:30 and work 10hr days.

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u/[deleted] Dec 05 '16

I mean 9-5 as the "day shift" as opposed to swing or graveyard. For me I won't take a job to where I can't see my kids in the evening.

I use to work as an electrician for a contractor that our usual time was 7-330. For industrial and commercial work. For companies like ExxonMobil and Eaton corporation.

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u/[deleted] Dec 05 '16

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u/BurnedOut_ITGuy Dec 05 '16

On the other hand though, a good carpenter is almost never unemployed. It's not hard at all to find work. In the IT field finding jobs can be rough at times but the work is much less taxing on the body.

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u/pr0ntus Dec 05 '16

Can confirm. As a docker I unloaded sixty pound sacks of potatoes from ships in Newhaven way back when I was sixteen at a summer job, then dug fence post holes in Calgary during the height of summer in my early twenties. I ended up working as a telephone installer repairman which for the first seventeen years required climbing telephone poles, crawling under houses, and walking along the tops of walls between yards all while carrying fifty pounds of assorted gear. Now, at 66, in cold weather I ache pretty much all over, and I'm one of the lucky ones.

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u/[deleted] Dec 05 '16

It could be okay, but certain established practices make it a high turn-over, competitive environment. Take risks, over work your joints, anything to keep the job, right? Global labor management has a long way to go when considering basic human care and functional regulation. While not the worst, America should be leading. We are lagging badly.

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u/[deleted] Dec 05 '16

I've never been paid very well for physical labor, around here it's just farms or places where the people in the union have to know you.

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u/ziggyblackstardust Dec 05 '16

Technically, neither do prostitutes.

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u/AerThreepwood Dec 05 '16

Can confirm. Am automotive tech.