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Legal or not, you’ll have to choose between a career and getting high.   We live in a society in which use of marijuana and other illegal drugs is widespread. One recent survey showed that about one out of 11 Americans uses illicit drugs regularly. Another says that 38% have tried marijuana at...

Service firms in particular clamor for female technicians.   Okay, this myth is admittedly hard to refute. Most estimates peg females as only about 2% to 2.5% of all skilled trade workers. That’s probably doubled since the rise of feminism in the 1960s, but progress has been at a snail’s pace....

Job security is higher for skilled trade workers than most other occupations.   This myth originates in the fact that construction work is highly cyclical. While it’s true that when work slows down many construction workers get let go, this deserves a closer look. In my last entry I said that...

Performance pay often leads to six-figure incomes.   How much do trade workers earn? That’s a difficult question to answer definitively because so much depends on the type of work (construction versus service, residential vs. commercial, etc.), geographic region and other factors, not least of...

Service work is a lot different than new construction.   It’s a half-truth that the work of the trades is dirty and dangerous. A construction project is fascinating to watch, which is why big job sites usually have a fenced-off area with peep holes for onlookers. If you’ve ever poked your head...

They say the trades are only for those who aren’t “cut out” for college.   Let’s not mince words. A large segment of our society is biased against blue-collar workers. It wasn’t always that way in America. Our founding fathers included numerous artisans and craft workers. Paul Revere was...