Home DIY

I got into being a chippie by accident ~ 10years ago and haven't looked back.

I came from a sales-y office environment and hated it (laterly I was running my own business and when I'd had enough sold it). When I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do, to help keep me out of trouble, a mate of mine got me a job labouring on a site that he ran with a subby who owed him a favour, I quickly discovered that I had a natural aptitude and within 6 months was in charge of a team of steel fixers, shuttering chippies and concrete finishers. From there I have pushed myself to learn new skills and other aspects of the trade and am now self employed with a good enough reputation to be as busy as I want to be. This suits my wife and my self nicely as she is by far the main bread winner in our house and her job is VERY involved and leaves her with little spare time so when I need to be there for the kids in say school holidays I can scale back my workload.

There is a guy on youtube called Robin Clevett who is a very good, well respected and sort after carpenter and builder he has a regular thing he calls chippie chat where he sits down with a guy (the guy is older and has come into the trade from a career change) who works for him and talks about various aspects of the trade. It may be worth you looking at.

A lot of the pros of soing this are also cons depending on how you look at it on any particular day but as I see things:

Pros

1. No matter how bad your day is you will have made, or contributed to the making of a physical thing there is always something you can look at that and say "I did that". Coming from a sales background where a bad day/week/month meant you had nothing to show from it but a pile of burnt leads I cannot overstate how much I still love this.
   
2. Working outside. It can be fantastic.
   
3. Doing a physical job means that you sleep sooooooo much better. For the first 30 odd years of my life I was a terrible insomniac I now, mostly, sleep like a baby.
   
4. Every day is a school day. There is always a new way of doing things, new product or tool that you have to try and wrap your head around.
   
5. You work with many different people from many, many different backgrounds.
   
   

Cons

1. Working outside. It can be fucking horrible.
   
2. You work with many different people from many, many different backgrounds some of whom will have beleifs and political outlooks that you violently disagree with.
   
3. People will look down their nose at you. I love pointing out to clients who get snooty with me that was educated at public school and have a first class degree. It takes them down a peg or two.
   
   

It works well for me