I've worked a variety of manufacturing jobs; from medical manufacturing of catheters the size of fishing lines with three inner diamters, running 5 story oven stack extrusion lines, laser etching tooth insert threading, and suface coating PTFE into sheet material for military radar and industrial applications, to grunt work factory assembly lines making the rubber gun butts for Ruger.
They all carried serious risks of bodily injury, and some far more so than others - but this is what's crazy to consider: the difference in wages we are talking is no more than $3 per hour. Meaning, that grunt work where you could lose your hand to a steel injection mold was $9, the teflon coating job where someone working third shift on the machine I ran was struck in the skull with the peg-end of a steel 72+ inch roller pin holding a full 300 yard roll of coated fabric, nearly (millimeters from), resulting in her having a steel plate surgically placed - that position paid a whopping $12 in 2014.
I've worked as a line cook, over 5 years, and as a driver, 6 years. None of these paid well, and all are inherent of risks. It's always seemed silly to me when you zoom out of this picture and see it like this; the more your job pays the less it exposes you to physical harm.
Not always the case. You can make almost as much money as I did as a programmer, working the most dangerous and life-risking jobs. For example being out on an oil rig, or construction, power line repair, etc. in hostile locales. (Extremely cold weather, out on cliffs, etc.).
When I lived in Portland there was a bloke in my building who did this—cutting trees over the edges of cliffs to make way for construction of some sort—and got paid a grip for it. Then he'd come back and for two weeks blow his wad on weed, alcohol, and women—only to go out and do it all over again on the next job.
sans_souse · · focus · HN ↗
They all carried serious risks of bodily injury, and some far more so than others - but this is what's crazy to consider: the difference in wages we are talking is no more than $3 per hour. Meaning, that grunt work where you could lose your hand to a steel injection mold was $9, the teflon coating job where someone working third shift on the machine I ran was struck in the skull with the peg-end of a steel 72+ inch roller pin holding a full 300 yard roll of coated fabric, nearly (millimeters from), resulting in her having a steel plate surgically placed - that position paid a whopping $12 in 2014.
I've worked as a line cook, over 5 years, and as a driver, 6 years. None of these paid well, and all are inherent of risks. It's always seemed silly to me when you zoom out of this picture and see it like this; the more your job pays the less it exposes you to physical harm.
bitwize · · focus · HN ↗
When I lived in Portland there was a bloke in my building who did this—cutting trees over the edges of cliffs to make way for construction of some sort—and got paid a grip for it. Then he'd come back and for two weeks blow his wad on weed, alcohol, and women—only to go out and do it all over again on the next job.