I’m a construction worker. A commercial electrician by trade. I see students here, I see moms and dads here,(I’m a dad too) I see office workers here. I love and respect everyone of you. [flattery will get me nowhere] How many construction workers are dopers too? I don’t talk about this place at work because I don’t think anyone would understand. I love my job. I really do.
What do you do?
I used to be.
Seamless gutter installer.
Roofer.
Cement mixer driver.
Of all the people I worked with I think only 2 would be comfortable here.
I worked in a sheet metal shop once … for a couple of months … fifteen years ago.
Does that count? 
Structure wiring terminations. I put the cubes on the CAT 5 cables and the ends on the coax and then I stick the face plate on. I also install the main panel and do speakers, volume controls, and binding posts. Occasionaly I get to do security systems. All new houses. It’s fun. These are the guys I contract for. You can see pics of the panel.
[sub]Note to mods. If that links is not appropriate please delete it. I’m not trying to drum up business just show what the panel looks like since people generally look at me cross eyed when I say what I do.[/sub]
I was my dad’s helper when he ran a one man remodeling and cabinetry business when I was in school. Once again, I have minimum experience and zero credentials…
I runs in my family though. Dad got his journeyman in the Carpenters Guild back in '46 or so. His father was an architect/carpenter, and my brother is a mechanical contractor and master plumber.
For what it’s worth, I’m basically a high tech wrench nowadays, and none of the people I work with have much interest in abstract or academic things.
I’m a cabinetmaker.
I love it, it’s very rewarding!
I do everything from bricklaying, tuckpointing and concrete. to drywall and finish carpentry. With a little plumbing and electric work. I guess just about everything.
I’m a remodeler. I do a very little bit of punch out stuff, but mostly I just do the estimating and sell the jobs.
I used to sell windows and doors. I miss the hell out of it.
I was out on the job sites, talking to people of all trades, dealing with homeowners, over all it was a great job.
Now I am just a web designer.
My father always says that you guys are the guys who make things happen in industry and commerce and life: the guys who work with their hands. I know from talking to the guys who worked with my dad that it is very hard work, what you do. You take the ideas that the engineers think up and make them reality. You work in dangerous conditions and in all kinds of weather and you do stuff.
My dad spent summers while he was in college in my grandfather’s shop, learning the drill and the lathe and the die cutting; and outside lugging sacks of sand and building walls and cutting stone, so that he could understand what it was to make things with his hands, and know what it was to sweat and exert raw effort.
I am not a construction worker, but I have a lot of respect for your hard work.
I hung sheet rock commercially in Atlanta for about 7 months one summer/fall. It was the most rewarding job I’ve ever had. At the end of the day you could look back and see that YOU made something out of other stuff. You had good days where you would hang 60 or 70 boards. You would have bad days where you would be carrying down 50 2’x12’x2" 120+ lb sheet rock down 4 flights of stairs because somebody couldnt read. I had respect for everybody that I worked with. Dumb as oxen 90% of them. You dont see a lot of old sheet rockers. Its pretty hard work. I KNEW that I didn’t want to do that for the rest of my life. Which is reason number 2 that I joined the Air Force. I now sit on my ass and read the SDMB for 8 hours a night. And make almost 3 times as much money. I’m happy for me.
dead0man
I’m a technical writer, but when that goes dry, as it occasionally does, I’ve been known to make my living by doing the following:
Operating a forklift
Driving a truck
Working as a retail store clerk
My writing colleagues understand me talking about the Straight Dope, but I don’t think my co-workers in those positions would.
Hey Knead
What did you do in the sheet metal shop?
I ran a shear.a NC punch press and a CNC hydraulic brake press.
It was hog feeders so it was all heavy work.
I learned a lot though.
The shear was hell to run. Full sheets of stainless are heavy and auckward(sp) to say the least.
In 1979-1981 I was a Construction Teamster, for an underground construction company. Drove the crew trucks to and from the job sites. Drove the dumps and tankers on the job. When not driving, I was a pipefitter.
1971-76 Drove dumps and tankers for a paving company. Since it wasn’t too steady, I had my own wood cutting business on the side. I cut fire wood, split rails for fencing, and cut slabs for tables and furniture.
As little as the foreman could get away with assigning me to do! My mother was a VP for the company and Jimmy (the foreman of the shop) lived every day I came to work in constant fear that some harm might come to me. Consequently, I got the job of “foreman’s assistant,” which entailed a lot of taking materials out to job sites, delivering paychecks to job sites, picking up supplies at vendors, and being told at least twice a day not to look at the arc-welding light. 
Still, all those trips out to job sites added up to quite a bit of time spent in the vicinity of actual construction, even if I never so much as hammered a single seam myself.
The other two guys who worked there that summer were engineering majors at Clemson with no family ties to the business. They got their asses worked down to the bone. I still feel sorry for them.
No, I don’t. They chose Clemson of their own free will.
I used to be a framer, and while I have a college degree and now work in an office the fact that I got out there and helped to build houses in temperatures ranging from -5F to over 100F is something that I take great pride in.
Not that I want to ever do that again!
A little hard work never hurt anybody!
Sheetrockers and roofers are known as the crazymen of the building trade! I had a contruction product sales territory a few years back and every single one of my customers had stories about how eccentric sheetrockers were, they’d go like gangbusters on a job for a few days, then suddenly dissappear, then come back a week later with no explanation and finish the job.
To carry around those heavy sheets, breathe that dust, and carry 100+# packs of shingles up a 40 foot ladder into the hot sun . . YOU GOTTA BE NUTS!!!
My father-in-law is a union electrician, and he is highly respected by many in and out of the construction inducrty because of his knowledge and skill. These people are highly underpaid, I see no reason why a skilled construction worker should make less than let’s say, an attorney.
Oh, and one nice side benefit from doing outdoor construction in the summer . . . a good tan! It was always nice going back to school in the fall with good looking arms and a good tan, I went from chick magnet in Septemeber to lazy out of shape white boy by June, and do it all over again!
When I was younger I worked as a hot roofer and as a mason’s tender. At times I even light demolition/salvage kind of work; my first paid job was to help tear down the Dacula, Georgia elementary school, which had originally been a black’s only school during segregation. I was thirteen years old, so that was 26 years ago (the demolition, not the segregation).
I’ll second that. We had a few of each working part-time in the warehouse where I operated a forklift, and “eccentric” doesn’t begin to describe it. They were great guys and worked hard, but as Vinnie mentions, they did tend to disappear at difficult times, and then reappear a few days later with no explanation, as if nothing had happened or no time had passed.
I’m not a construction worker, but my Dad and two of my three brothers are. The third brother has been, as well, but is currently working as a teacher.
My Dad got into construction in the early fifties. He was raised in the lumber camps as a lumberjack, and decided to get into construction because he wanted to get into some “easy” work. I guess it is, compared to lumberjacking!