I want to get training as an electrician so I can take my house completely off the grid (or at least, be independent with the grid as a redundancy) one day without accidentally burning it down. Then I want to make free software to monitor and manage home power usage, and share it with the world so we can all have nice, efficient, futuristic homes without some corporate combine demanding a monthly fee and invasive surveillance for the pleasure.

Saaaaaaaame

Woman here, can confirm. Worked as an aircraft mechanic for a year and a truck driver for another, you will encounter the scum of the earth. So glad to be back to working with civilized humans.

People whine that women wont enter the trades, theres a reason they dont want to and its not because the work is too hard.

They're gonna stay like that unless a bunch of woke people join them out of nowhere for several years and convert/push out all of the weirdos

Joke's on you, I've already got crippling back pain before turning 45.

Anyone going into the trades for money is going to be fucking miserable. The pay is nice but the pay is nice for a damn good reason. You will have no time, be perpetually tired, and wind up working in some really shitty conditions. Also a lot of that money will constantly be getting spent on tools. Sure most companies provide their techs with some tools and a stipend, but that stipend is never enough and you'll wind up wanting to replace most of the provided tools with your own anyways once you find ones that work better for you.

If you're going to get into the trades it better be because you like working with your hands and beating your head against brick wall problems. In that regard though going from software to the trades isn't that weird of a move. I'm a tradesman now but I nearly got my bachelor's in Computer Science. I loved how coding made me use my brain. I only dropped out when I got a desk job and realized that I wouldn't be able to stand working a desk job. In the trades I get the same intellectual fun without having to sit at a desk all day.

I agree that the trades can be hard on the body and there is a decent risk that your career can be cut short due to injury. However, the characterization of tradesmen as all ignorant MAGA types is unfair. I imagine this varies a lot by region and market but I live in a fairly liberal-leftist area and happen to know a bunch of folks in the trades and they are not like that.

FWIW I am in a fairly affluent city and my friends will sometimes complain about working with subcontractors who come in from the exurbs who will throw fits about not being able to easily park their giant trucks wherever they want or make sideways comments about crime in the city. The response to that is usually something like “oh, you don’t have all these annoying parking rules in your rural town? Maybe you should go work on building multimillion dollar projects over there then? Oh, what’s that? There are no multimillion dollar projects in the middle of fucking nowhere? Hmmm”

There are also trades and regions where unions are still highly regarded.

And the pay. Its usually the people who own the business making lots of money. Everyone else is making slightly above minimum wage working 12+ hour days Monday to Saturday.

Your local plumbers union can probably help you get an apprenticeship and get going.

You need to find someone who is a) cool and not a bad teacher and b) a good plumber and c) willing to take you on to teach you and d) work your butt off till you're useful.

A lot of community colleges either double as trade schools or have active relationships with local trade schools.

Another option is to talk to your local employment office. They usually have more programs than just unemployment insurance. Depending on your financial circumstances and your location, you might even be able to have the government pay for your training program/certification. At the very least, they'll have useful points of contact and information about training for various jobs.