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Career change offer

Texashiker

Texashiker

Lifer
A buddy I went to high school with offered to help get me on at the company he works for.

The job is working on an inland tugboat.

My salary would double from I am currently making.
Health insurance for the family is paid.
Union job.
7 days on / 7 days off.

I am 46 years old and getting tired of this desk job.

Take the job or no?
 
At 46 you want to switch to a manual labor job? Sounds pretty rough if it's 7 days on 7 days off.
 
46 seems a little old to me for manual labor, but if you think you can handle it for the extra $$$ and benefits, go for it.
 
SaurusX said:
At 46 you want to switch to a manual labor job? Sounds pretty rough if it's 7 days on 7 days off.
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Physical labor is better than sitting at a desk. Half of my adult life was spent in physically demanding jobs.

I have been at this job for 9 years. I feel that sitting here is slowly killing me.


z1ggy said:
Will it get you out of P&N?
Click to expand...

For a week at a time. That is unless my wife buys me a smart phone.
 
Texashiker said:
A buddy I went to high school with offered to help get me on at the company he works for.

The job is working on an inland tugboat.

My salary would double from I am currently making.
Health insurance for the family is paid.
Union job.
7 days on / 7 days off.

I am 46 years old and getting tired of this desk job.

Take the job or no?
Click to expand...

What's the rotation? I spent... like 8 months on a coastal tug, pushing grain and gravel barges up and down the east coast, 20 on 10 off if I remember correctly. It gets old, man, but for a young guy it can be an adventure. If you're looking for a permanent career change that's a slightly different evaluation. Also, you should be aware that most tugs are damn dangerous places to work.
 
Might be an economic upgrade but I'd certainly consider whether the new job is more susceptible to layoffs or slow periods where you get little work and how well you think you'll hold up to a more physical job. Desk work may not be exciting, but it's generally stable and doesn't wreck your body like outdoors labor can do.
 
Markbnj said:
What's the rotation?
Click to expand...

Tuesday to Tuesday.


glenn1 said:
Might be an economic upgrade but I'd certainly consider whether the new job is more susceptible to layoffs or slow periods where you get little work and how well you think you'll hold up to a more physical job. Desk work may not be exciting, but it's generally stable and doesn't wreck your body like outdoors labor can do.
Click to expand...

From what my buddy told me they are always looking for people. I do not know why they have a high turn over rate.

My wife and I have no kids at home. My youngest turns 18 in May and lives with her mom.
 
Based on my expertise in the field of inland tugboatry (watching barges move through the locks on the Tennessee River) I can tell you that it is one of the most physically demanding jobs I have ever witnessed. Some of those guys look like they could hop off the deck and drag the barges over sandbars when needed. If your chest isn't the size of a half barrel, start working out now.

The job also looks like a most excellent way to get limbs crushed. Ask your buddy about the injury rate.
 
Don't listen to the special little flowers, take the job. Your hands will get dirty, you may have to touch "icky" stuff sometimes, but you'll get to work outside and make a good living. Most people are far to lazy to actually work, that's why it pays so well.
 
For a single guy with no encumbrances this would be a great opportunity. If your wife is cool with having to take care of the farm by herself while you are gone every other week then go for it.
 
I have a friend that used to do this, working on barges, he told me he saw a guy fall between to barges and get crushed to death.
 
JManInPhoenix said:
For a single guy with no encumbrances this would be a great opportunity. If your wife is cool with having to take care of the farm by herself while you are gone every other week then go for it.
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She said she would be fine with it.

I have three cousins who live around 100 - 200 yards from our house. If my wife needed some help she could walk over and ask.

We live at the end of a dead end road so no through traffic.
 
I knew this guy named Peter that used to work for Initech...he switched to construction.

Making bucks, getting exercise, working outside.....it wasn't too bad.
 
Harrod said:
I have a friend that used to do this, working on barges, he told me he saw a guy fall between to barges and get crushed to death.
Click to expand...

Yep, that is the kind of stuff I'm talking about. My very first day on the boat I had to get up on the barge and jack hatches, which means using a chain and lever arrangement to rotate cams which lift a 10-ton steel cover up so it can be rolled back. Two minutes in the half-inch chain snaps and the backlash takes the sunglasses off my face without a scratch. Half an inch and my scull would have looked like an overripe orange someone stepped on.

Common things we had to do included leaping from the second deck of the tug to the deck of the empty barge, in a seaway. Going up on the barge in a seaway when the deck is slippery with wet fertilizer, that sort of stuff. I was on her for eight months and got hurt twice. The second time kept me out for two weeks with a turned ankle.

Someone mentioned exercise, but you don't get much exercise. A lot of tug guys are overweight, like truck drivers. You work your tail off in port for a few hours, but then it's followed by twenty hours of doing jack all except eating and cleaning stuff.
 
Markbnj said:
Yep, that is the kind of stuff I'm talking about. My very first day on the boat I had to get up on the barge and jack hatches, which means using a chain and lever arrangement to rotate cams which lift a 10-ton steel cover up so it can be rolled back. Two minutes in the half-inch chain snaps and the backlash takes the sunglasses off my face without a scratch. Half an inch and my scull would have looked like an overripe orange someone stepped on.

Common things we had to do included leaping from the second deck of the tug to the deck of the empty barge, in a seaway. Going up on the barge in a seaway when the deck is slippery with wet fertilizer, that sort of stuff. I was on her for eight months and got hurt twice. The second time kept me out for two weeks with a turned ankle.

Someone mentioned exercise, but you don't get much exercise. A lot of tug guys are overweight, like truck drivers. You work your tail off in port for a few hours, but then it's followed by twenty hours of doing jack all except eating and cleaning stuff.
Click to expand...

Yeah, high pay manual labor like this, crab fishing, oil refinery work, etc. is usually high pay & high turnover because it's fucking dangerous.

OP, do you have any chronic pain, i.e. back pain, knee, or joint pain?
 
preslove said:
OP, do you have any chronic pain, i.e. back pain, knee, or joint pain?
Click to expand...

Nope.

When I was in my late teens and early 20s I used to work 12 hours a day for 4 - 6 weeks at a time doing manual labor in welding shops.

For some reason I never hurt my back, never had a hernia,,,, nothing like that.

Lift with your legs and not with your back. I feel that rule saved me a lot of misery later in life.
 
Scarpozzi said:
I knew this guy named Peter that used to work for Initech...he switched to construction.

Making bucks, getting exercise, working outside.....it wasn't too bad.
Click to expand...

I always figured that Peter would turned into a whiny bitch about that job as well the first time he had to work in the rain. He just seemed like that kind of guy.
 
"Inland Tugboat" is the name of that bar you go to on weekends where everyone is really nice and wears costumes, remember?
 
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