this post was submitted on 26 Apr 2025
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So, you're a manual labourer with no qualifications or skills, and you're starting to feel the effects of that?
Most people are qualified and starting to earn decent money by their thirties.
Manual labour requires a lot of skill and by 30+ you need to acquire it or you'll destroy your body. There are jobs that require only a few hours of learning but they rarely are intensive, just extremely boring.
What are you calling manual labor? Methinks you paint with a very small brush.
Carry a metric tonne or so of wallboard up the stairs because the lift hasn't been installed yet, empty all the wheelie bins on site, sweep the floor, all that stuff.
Basically, the people that do all the work that's beneath the dignity of a tradie.
You and I are on the same page. We're talking about hard work, simple, non-stop bullshit. I wouldn't put tradesmen in the same bucket.
Hell, I thought being a cable guy was fucking rough, but slinging mulch and rocks at Lowe's has been far worse, even trying to adjust for a 25-year difference in my age. I did insanely hard shit hanging cable, but it wasn't non-stop. My legs are more solid than they were running across rooftops installing satellite.
There are definitely manual labour jobs that require little to no skill, a lot of site labourer work is like that. Carrying wallboard, emptying bins, just generally carrying shit around.
Don't know where do you live, but around here there is no construction jobs that only require you only to carry shit around. Also you need to learn a lot to carry shit around correctly unless you have spare back.
In Quebec they're called "journaliers" and being assigned to the Mason as a "journalier" sucks big time.
It's the entry level position in construction for people who didn't get a professional degree in a specific trade.
I think they are called handyman in english, and it's an extremely hard and shitty job that doesn't require a lot of learning, true, it does require skill to do it properly and efficiently, and in way that won't leave you invalid by 40. Good handymen often learn other skills and obtain 'real' profession, so it's more like a starter point of a career for many.
No. A handyman is a skilled role.
The guy bringing timber and wallboard up the stairs to where that guy is working is a site labourer.
Glad to be enlightened, clearly this doesn't happen, since you haven't experienced it.
Big construction sites where I live definitely have such people, and it's a horrible job.
I'd say OP is full of it with no real experience in construction. Of course there are people who do the mindless grunt work. I'm one of them!
Worked my ass off to move up, take on more responsibility, take on less muscle work, but there are plenty of guys who do nothing but lift and load.