Yeah, I miss that too. I had to get out because my body was beat up.

It's like we made a bad deal with a devil.

Oh you want to be fireproof? Sure. Here's the catch: cancer.

As an engineer, you’re gonna be stressed a lot. But you have a wide range of what kind of stress you get and how much time you spend in an office. I’m industrial and I spend some days on my feet building shit, some days sitting in front of a spreadsheet until my soul hurts, and most days doing a bit of this and a bit of that with good balance of sitting and standing.

I work in municipal development and our civil engineers get to do a fair amount of site inspections.

CNC machining and particularly programming. Be careful, there are lots of boring jobs out there (mostly labeled "operator", and lower paid), but if you can get a programming position they're pretty cushy. It's in a shop, but also on a computer, since you have to set up the machine too (usually, again it depends on the company).

Until your back and joints don't work at 35, and you need to work for another 30 years.

Nooo it's different!

How often I end up pasting stuff into excel to help me organize data and figure out how I want it to look before writing a query is irrelevant!

SQL is just Excel with Friends.

Statistically speaking, if you sit for 8h a day, you’re 50% more likely do die of everything. Sitting, staring at a screen is death, just a slow one.

Idk plumbers, electricians, contractors, etc make a lot around here. I'm sure they usually have business overhead that factors into their hourly rates (like $100+ an hour here in Seattle). Or if they work independently, they'd still need to pay taxes, insurance, health insurance, licensing, etc., but assuming they make $60/hr after all that, that's pretty good.

Both UA and IBEW have a higher pay scale than the Ironworkers local where I live.

honestly that last part is kinda capitalist propaganda, the real solution is to unionize.

What do you mean by cutting off connections? To escape this hellhole we need connections more than ever, some people can manage to survive on their own off the land but humanity works better together. Our economies and societal structures are enforced by parasites but there are many people that want to build positive things.

I know electricians in their 60's that are insanely fit. Like run up and down flights of stairs all day no issue fit. They take care of themselves and always have, and never stopped moving. I think manual labour with a proper diet and sleep schedule is one of the best things you can do for your body.