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Only 5.3% of US welders are women. After years as a professor, I became one

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291 points Michelangelo11 | 2 comments | 06 Nov 24 00:24 UTC | HN request time: 0.432s | source
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christophilus ◴[06 Nov 24 03:38 UTC] No.42057079[source]▶
I once met a welder who was told upon entering the field, “You’re going to meet a lot of serial killers in this line of work.” He thought his boss was just messing with him, but it turned out to be prophetic. He met something like 5 convicted serial killers in 20 years as a welder. Welding is solitary work that is itinerant. Some of the stories that guy told me would turn your stomach. Anyway— totally off topic, but I thought it was interesting.
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brodouevencode ◴[06 Nov 24 14:57 UTC] No.42063283[source]▶
My experience w/ metal workers of all types holds true to this. I think it's the fumes.
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MisterTea ◴[06 Nov 24 19:26 UTC] No.42067871[source]▶
Seconded. Hiring Machinists at work we went through a few ex cons and wound up hiring one for a few years which turned out to be a nightmare. Now we have a hippy in a band who makes inappropriate comments. You cant win.
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1. 0_____0 ◴[07 Nov 24 14:17 UTC] No.42076830[source]▶
At that point does it make sense to get young and underqualified individuals and train them up yourself? I'm in electrical engineering and basically got into the field in a way that was similar to an apprenticeship, albeit mostly because I have ADHD bad enough that university was out of reach.
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2. MisterTea ◴[07 Nov 24 17:37 UTC] No.42078892[source]▶
Not when you have work backing up and no one in the building qualified to train them. We outsourced a bunch of work to outside shops to make deadlines but it's so much harder. The machinist might have to work with the engineer on issues and have access to resources that are local to our building. And some of the outside shops are even questionable - A machinist once asked me how I arrived at the dimensions of an o-ring groove because he forgot basic math. Now a tool that can be made same day turns into a week long process.

Sad part is we had a young guy here in his 20's who was a real crackerjack: machinist, knew basic electric, could use a computer and was even picking up programming. He had a kid, found a good paying government job then up and left. I'd call him a unicorn.