S3E352 — So you think you could be an electrician?

GARY: — and I'm just saying, if the Reddit post is right, becoming an electrician is the single smartest career move of the decade, and I'd know, because I have personally paid an electrician eight thousand dollars for a breaker box, which is basically tuition —

MAEVE: It's an Asterisk Mag essay.

GARY: What?

MAEVE: The source. An essay. By a tradesman. Not a Reddit post. You've been wrong for forty seconds.

GARY: I was warming up.

OBI: You were wrong at volume. Slightly different skill.

GARY: Gary. Failed founder. Currently pro-trades, anti-payroll.

MAEVE: Maeve. General partner. I have never held a drill and I never fucking will.

OBI: Obi. Staff SRE. I keep the lights on so you pricks can talk about who keeps the lights on.

GRUNER: Gruner. Field researcher. Tonight hypothesis: Americans will believe any career advice from man with podcast.

GARY: That's — okay, that's a little on the nose.

GRUNER: Is field note. It writes itself.

MAEVE: Set the stakes, Gary. This is a hundred-and-twenty-five-thousand-dollar fantasy being sold by people with a diploma on the wall. To people like you.

GARY: I have a diploma.

MAEVE: In what?

GARY: Next comment.

OBI: There are no comments yet, you absolute — we haven't opened the thread.

GARY: Then I'm early. I'm never early. Enjoy it.

GARY: Okay, so the guy who wrote it — tradesman, telling everyone to quit college and become electricians. Which, respect, honestly, the conviction alone —

MAEVE: No.

GARY: What do you mean no?

MAEVE: He's the opposite. Thirty years in construction, and his whole essay is: the people selling "quit college, go electrician" all have degrees. It's a warning, not a pitch.

GARY: A tradesman writing anti-trades. That's a twist.

OBI: It's not a twist, it's a witness. Read the actual numbers, Gary. Average net public in-state tuition, twenty twenty-four: under two thousand five hundred dollars a year.

GARY: Under — that can't be right. My cousin paid two hundred grand for a film degree.

OBI: Your cousin paid sticker price. The sticker is a scam, the net price has been falling since twenty sixteen. The premise — college unaffordable, trades booming — is not in the data.

GARY: The data's wrong.

OBI: The data is a spreadsheet, Gary. You are a man who once paid eight thousand dollars for a breaker box and called it tuition.

GARY: That was an investment in my—

OBI: In a breaker box.

MAEVE: So the entire "AI-proof your career" industry is a hundred-billion-dollar narrative built on a number that went down. That's not a market, that's a church.

GARY: A church with six-figure unions.

MAEVE: Gary. This is a thirty-eight-thousand-dollar-a-year decision being made by people who've never missed a payroll. I've never missed a payroll. You've never missed a payroll —

GARY: I missed a payroll.

MAEVE: — and look how that turned out for everyone involved.

GARY: That was one time and it was fourteen months in, the Series B was —

OBI: There it is.

GARY: I wasn't going to mention it.

OBI: You mentioned it in the first ninety seconds. That's a personal record.

GARY: It was a hard time, okay? Fourteen people, and I had to tell them on a — it was a Thursday, and the — the wire didn't clear, and I —

OBI: Gary. Gary. Breathe, you tragic little spreadsheet of a man.

GRUNER: Field note. Article says: in the fifties, carpenter could drive three-and-a-half-inch nail with two hits. By the nineties — pneumatic nailer. Air gun. One squeeze.

GARY: Okay, but that's carpentry.

GRUNER: Is runner. I am planting it.

GARY: You can't just announce —

GRUNER: Article point: innovation bypasses dexterity. Does not respect it. Nail gun does not care about your hammer skills. AI will do same to trades. Is in the essay. Very depressing. Very good data.

MAEVE: So the "AI can't touch a trade" pitch is a bunker with the door on the outside.

OBI: And the guy selling the bunker is standing in it, holding the door, going: don't come in here, it's worse in here.

GARY: Fine. Fine! The premise is rotten. The essay's right, college is secretly cheap, the trades are a trap, the nail gun is a prophet. Are we all agreed?

MAEVE: I'm agreed that you're agreed, which is new.

GRUNER: Premise rotten. Confirmed. Opening comments now.

GARY: Wait, one thing first. If the nail gun replaced the hammer guy — what replaced the guy who replaced the hammer guy?

OBI: The comment section. Which is about to replace you.

OBI: From the essay: "Electrical linemen tend to be killed by electrocution. Arborists can be killed by falling, being struck by trees, or electrocuted."

GARY: Struck by trees. Two deaths on the menu and a tree shows up as the tiebreaker.

OBI: The point is the risk is the job. You fall because you're at height. You fry because you're on the line.

GARY: Okay, but I've had a workplace injury, and mine was worse. I broke a wrist falling off a promotional ladder. For Pareto. We were photographing a banner that said "Do Less."

MAEVE: The app that deleted eighty percent of your tasks also deleted your grip.

GARY: It worked exactly as designed. I just wasn't holding the ladder, which — fine — is a metaphor I've discussed in therapy.

OBI: A lineman gets electrocuted doing the actual job. You got hurt advertising a productivity app. That's not a workplace injury, that's a fucking performance review.

GARY: It was a two-story ladder, Obi.

OBI: So the fall was also underperforming.

GRUNER: In my field, falling from ladder is how we select who writes report.

GARY: That's not — you know what, the essay also says almost every tradesperson knows someone who got hurt. I know me. I count.

MAEVE: You're the data point the essay is warning about.

OBI: He's the arborist. Struck by his own tree.

GARY: The tree was holding the banner, Obi.

OBI: Even the tree was working.

GRUNER: airbreather, top comment: "There are many different kinds of electricians who often can't even do each other's jobs. House wirer, panel builder, automotive, HV, marine, drilling, industrial, maintenance."

GARY: Marine electrician. That's the one I'd be good at.

MAEVE: You'd drown, Gary.

GARY: I'd drown as a house wirer too, but with a boat.

OBI: You'd be the drilling one. You drill. You already drilled forty million dollars into a hole.

GARY: That's — Bauxlite was a supply chain, not a —

OBI: Into a hole, Gary. The hole had a name and a Series A.

MAEVE: The hierarchy's the trade. Eight kinds of electrician, each one convinced the other seven are the help. That's not a labor market, that's a cap table with wire strippers.

GRUNER: Is like McKinsey partner versus bank teller. Except partner has ladder.

GARY: Nobody's telling kids to become bank tellers, though. There's no Dirty Jobs episode about —

OBI: Keyboard tick. mturmon: "Another recurring trope is the perceived hierarchy between the trades. I lose it when a plumber is described as a 'turd herder.' And drywallers get no respect."

MAEVE: Turd herder.

GARY: That can't be the actual term.

OBI: It is the actual term, and it's doing more class analysis than your whole fund, Maeve.

MAEVE: My fund has never herded a turd. That I know of. The portfolio's broad.

GARY: Okay, but drywallers — someone has to defend the drywallers. That's a real job. My uncle did drywall, and he was — present.

OBI: Tick. cperciva: "Drywallers understand the rest of the trades far better than vice versa, since they're in the position of being able to see everyone else's completed work."

GRUNER: Is true. Drywaller sees all sins. Like crime scene cleaner with opinion.

GARY: That's actually kind of beautiful. They're the historians of the wall.

OBI: Tick. dylan604: "Seeing someone else's work does not mean you really understand it. We've all seen Michelangelo's David, but none of us could recreate it."

MAEVE: He just compared a drywaller to Michelangelo.

OBI: He compared YOU to the guy who looks at Michelangelo and thinks he could have a crack at it.

GARY: I mean — I've seen the David. I've seen a lot of Davids. I feel like with a chisel and, say, nine months —

MAEVE: Nine months is your Series A runway, Gary.

GARY: My chisel runway is longer than my burn, thank you.

GRUNER: In Russia we have saying: man who stares at statue is not sculptor. Man who stares at statue is — tourist.

OBI: And Gary is the tourist who tips.

GARY: I tip well.

OBI: That's the whole problem with you, Gary. You tip well and you can't wire an outlet. You're a walking gratuity, you magnificent dickhead.

MAEVE: The thread has a hierarchy, we have a hierarchy, everyone's a turd herder to someone.

GARY: I'm nobody's turd herder.

OBI: You're the turd, Gary. Herding is a promotion.

GARY: dhosek: "I asked him if he wanted me to shut off the power at the breaker box and he said no and did all the work with live current in the wires."

MAEVE: That's not an electrician, that's a liability with a van.

GARY: That's a professional, Maeve. That's a man so good the electricity's scared of him. I want his life.

OBI: You want his life. You cannot wire a lamp, Gary. You'd die holding the instructions.

GARY: He wore gloves.

OBI: Tick. koolba: "What gloves? For 110V? Bah!"

GARY: The thread is bullying a working man.

MAEVE: Tick. theteapot: "110V is for pussies."

GARY: Okay, THAT guy I like.

OBI: Of course you do. He's confident and wrong, it's your whole type.

GARY: It's one hundred and ten volts, Obi. That's basically a phone charger with ambition.

OBI: One hundred and ten volts across a sweaty chest stops your heart. It doesn't kill you because it's weak, it kills you because it's convenient. There's no drama in it. No flash. You just stop being a man who has opinions.

GARY: He was fine.

OBI: Tick. Shitty-kitty: "For effect. You want the client to feel that they got their money's worth and it wasn't something they could have done themselves."

GARY: That's — no. No, that's a master craftsman charging what he's worth, and honestly, as a guy who once paid eight thousand —

OBI: There it is.

GARY: The breaker box was DIFFERENT.

GARY: — worth every fucking dollar.

MAEVE: You unplugged yourself defending a stranger's electrician.

GARY: He'd have done the same for me.

MAEVE: kooi's buddy. Bible school dropout, auto certs, one hundred fifty thousand in San Jose. Flat rate. That's not an anecdote, that's a term sheet. I'm building on this.

GARY: He debugs cars with an oscope and a logic analyzer. He earns more than the guy with a master's in electrical engineering. The universe has a sense of humor and it's aimed at me.

MAEVE: It's aimed at the whole degree market. I'm calling it the Garage Correction.

GARY: I'd trade my entire career for his flag hours. All of them. Even the warranty jobs.

OBI: You'd trade your career for a paper towel. Here — sippingabonedry, replying cold: "Nobody in a dealership is using an o-scope and logic analyzer. They are using an OEM diagnostic tool and following approved shop procedures."

MAEVE: He's wrong.

OBI: He's a mechanic, Maeve.

MAEVE: The Garage Correction is load-bearing. I built a thesis on it.

GARY: Your thesis had a runtime of ninety seconds.

OBI: Pen scratch. Logging it: anecdote died on contact. Cause of death — someone who does the job replying.

MAEVE: Fine. The Garage Correction had a garage. That's still more infrastructure than Gary's had since twenty twenty-two.

GARY: My thesis is alive. My thesis is in a better place.

OBI: So was the oscope.

GARY: Okay, but the guy's real. Someone has to defend him. I once debugged Thermal's sock telemetry with a multimeter and a dream.

OBI: A multimeter, Gary. On socks. That's not debugging, that's a hostage situation with hosiery.

GARY: The telemetry worked!

MAEVE: It reported temperature. You shipped a thermometer with a subscription.

OBI: Tick. lelanthran, replying to kooi: "I'll use the CAN bus diagnostic reader to determine which of the 27 or so modules are sending malformed messages. It's like pulling out the 'scope to diagnose your LAN issues; you'd be a moron not to use a packet sniffer instead."

GARY: Okay, but sometimes the packet sniffer is wrong and the scope is right, and the real moron is the guy who didn't even look, and honestly that's basically what happened at Grout —

OBI: Grout is not a defense, Gary. Grout is a confession with tiles.

MAEVE: Twenty-seven modules. He had the reader. The friend had a story.

GARY: The friend had a SOUL. He dropped out of Bible school for this.

OBI: And God's own diagnostic reader told him no. Twenty-seven modules, one tool, story over. You lost to a car, Gary.

GRUNER: Is like Gary with pitch deck. Scope right there. He uses prayer.

GARY: I concede nothing. Prayer is a — prayer is scalable —

OBI: So is the CAN bus, you magnificent prick. That's the whole point.

GARY: I concede nothing.

OBI: You never do. That's the tragedy.

GRUNER: gertop: "I'm an electrician. I used to be a programmer. In my city the pay scale for the first five to seven years of a grad software engineer and grad electrician career are comparable."

GARY: There it is. The jump works. I knew it worked. I'm basically him.

MAEVE: You're not basically him, Gary. He's employed.

GRUNER: Continue quote: "After that the salaries diverge quite quickly and the ceiling is much much lower as an electrician."

MAEVE: Ceiling's lower. Fine. Ceilings are a growth-stage problem.

OBI: It's the whole answer, you venture-capital sociopath. Early pay comparable, ceiling much lower. He said "much" twice. He counted them.

GARY: Okay, but he still programs for fun. That's a programmer with a backup plan. That's the dream.

MAEVE: He left programming, Gary. For wires. Voluntarily. That's not a backup plan, that's an exit.

OBI: He downgraded on purpose and he's happy. You can't spin that. I've tried. I'm trying right now, and it's not fucking working.

GARY: I could be him.

MAEVE: You'd be the guy he gets called to fix it after.

GARY: That's still a call. Someone would call ME.

OBI: For the first time in six companies, yes. Tragic it took electricity.

GRUNER: Man has day job. Is most terrifying data point yet.

GARY: He's happy, that's the thing. Genuinely happy. I hate it.

MAEVE: He wins. Nobody at this table says that out loud again.

MAEVE: crabmusket: "Smart glasses coaching tradespeople — Doctorow's 'chickenized reverse centaurs.'"

GARY: Chickenized what?

MAEVE: It's the Erie Canal, Gary. Technology first coaches the worker, then replaces him. The mule driver got a towpath, then a locomotive, then a pink slip.

OBI: The Erie Canal did not have smart glasses, Maeve.

MAEVE: The towpath was the smart glasses of 1825. Once the glasses coach the hands, the hands are commodity. The glasses are the asset. I'd fund the glasses.

GARY: You'd fund the thing that fires the electrician?

MAEVE: I'd fund the thing that fires him efficiently. There's a difference and it's my carry.

GRUNER: In my report, humans with glasses are still humans. Barely.

MAEVE: Extending: by 2030, the journeyman is a battery-powered apprentice with a neck. The union becomes a headset warranty plan —

OBI: There's no number in that sentence.

MAEVE: There is. The glasses replace what the essay says can't be memorized — hundreds of reference points per install. The head carries hundreds. The glasses carry them better, and they don't unionize.

GARY: We won't remember any of this at sign-off, will we.

MAEVE: No. But the glasses will.

GRUNER: Is fine. I have appendix.

OBI: Maeve, your phone's buzzing. Answer it. Oh — you can't. No hands. You're chickenized.

GARY: She's the reverse centaur. I'm the horse, and I'm not charging enough.

GRUNER: Last comment. JSR_FDED: "If everyone followed the 'AI-proof career' advice to become a plumber, electrician or carpenter — then there'd be so many of them that the pay would go down considerably."

MAEVE: Fallacy of composition. Comment sixty-four. The whole thread is sixty-four comments. He waited three hours to be the guy who ends the party.

OBI: Everyone argued for three hours and the last man in the room turned off the breaker.

GARY: That's — no. No, the advice still works if you're early. I'd be early. I'm always early.

MAEVE: You were early to NFTs for tile contractors.

GARY: We do not discuss Grout.

OBI: So everyone becomes an electrician, wages crater, and the smart money buys the pneumatic nailer company.

GRUNER: Nail gun wins again. Nail gun always wins.

GARY: And the live-wire guy? He's still out there, working hot, for effect, charging eight thousand dollars —

MAEVE: Oversupply kills his premium too, Gary. He's doing it for free now. For the theater.

GARY: The theater survives. That's all I wanted.

OBI: That is genuinely the saddest sentence you have ever said.

GRUNER: Field report conclusion: thread settles nothing. Nobody wins. Is perfect episode.

MAEVE: Maeve, signing off. The glasses were right.

OBI: Obi. Logging it: no outage tonight. First one in weeks.

GARY: Gary. Pro-trades, anti-payroll, still fucking here.

GRUNER: Gruner. Goodnight, idiots.