Blue Collar and Proud of It: The All-In-One Resource for Finding Freedom, Financial Success, and Security Outside the Cubicle by Joe Lamacchia, Bridget Samburg Page A

that each job offered its own challenges.
    I knew that I wanted to be outside. I knew that I couldn’t be in a factory. Some people can. The idea of building something and completing one piece of the puzzle on a factory floor is very rewarding. But for me, I needed to be outside and I needed to bemoving around a lot. It’s hard for me to sit still and it’s hard for me to stand in one place or focus on one thing. I know welders need to have total concentration, honing in on what they’re doing without moving, lest they get burned, or fall or lose their place. But with landscaping I amalways on themove, whether driving between jobs or out of my truck racing around yards, always with different equipment. This suits me. I love it. But it’s not for everyone. That’s just the point.Not everyone is cut out to eat the same things, to listen to the same music, or to do the same jobs.

Chapter 3

Show Me My Options!
The A-Z Guide to Becoming a . . .
    N ow that you’re thinking about your own skills and passions, I want to introduce you to what I think are some of the most interesting and challenging jobs out there. This chapter is designed to help you better understand how you can go about getting your blue-collar credentials. We’ll first walk you through what each of these blue-collar jobs or industries entail, while trying to give you the nitty-gritty on what it means to be a carpenter or trucker, for example. We’ll tell you what kind of training you need for these jobs and what the jobmarket is expected to look like between now and 2016. We’ll also give you a sense of howmuchmoney you canmake.This is by nomeans a list of every single job out there, but what you’ll find below is a list of twenty of themore popular, interesting, or, simply put, higher-paying blue-collar careers.
    We’ll answer some commonly asked questions about these trades: What is required to get these jobs? Howdo I get trained? Where do I start? How much can I make? We have not listed every job since there are just somany—frompainter, electrician, landscaper, logger, and fabricator to heavy equipment operator, mason, cement layer, miner, and trucker.The list is nearly endless. I encourage you to use the Internet as a research tool. If you’re interested in an industry, poke around online and check out some of the blogs and industry association websites for more. A wealth of information is out there. I hope you will do your own research aswell, especially if you don’t find anything belowthat appeals to you, but we’re definitely going to get you started.
    A lot of our information, facts, and figures come fromtheU.S.Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). They have a comprehensive list of job descriptions, training requirements, and even salary scales for every type of job registered by the Bureau of Labor. We relied heavily on the BLS’s Occu-pationalHandbook to help guide you through some of the opportunities that are available. You can access much of this information from www.bls.gov and while I haven’t attributed every section to BLS, we use this resource to getmany of the basics andmost of the data.
    As you go through this chapter and read about the various opportunities out there, think back to the last chapter and to all of the questions you answered about your own skills and personal preferences. I guarantee some of your traits willmatch up with what is required of the jobs in this chapter.Be on the lookout for things that interest you, appeal to you, or even totally turn you off as you read through this material. After all, narrowing down your list of options can be a good thing, too.
    You’ll see from what you’re about to read that most—although not all—of these jobs do require postsecondary training or apprenticeships, and some of the industries that don’t require it will highly recommend it. It’s away to get ahead, to become better prepared, and to join the group of skilled workers who are at an advantage when looking for