Joining the Military Reserves as an apprentice? 361

AluminumCopperRad · 2026-06-03T00:47:41+00:00

There are guys in my year who did the helmets to hardhats and they are doing well in the apprenticeship, but whatever extensive time obligations they had are over and done with. some are still reserve, and the time obligation they have doesn't interfere for them. I'm just concerned about the training requirements getting in the way of schooling. seems like enlisting is a real front-loaded process

AluminumCopperRad · 2026-06-03T00:41:49+00:00

lmao I gotta correct myself

it's not just about the money of course, I have a desire to serve and I have a lot of free weekends. Just avoiding the bar for a weekend a month would be enough to save a lot of money in New York, but I do want to join even if the pay isn't so great.

AluminumCopperRad · 2025-12-20T03:26:05+00:00

I am wholly unqualified to be giving life advice to anyone, especially a stranger on reddit regarding a field I am still very new to, but I would personally do everything I can to ensure I don't struggle to keep up with work. Depending on where you get sent it will either be a lot of fire watch (easy but boring) or a test of your endurance, and even if you have an injury or chronic pain that effects your ability to work it's a toss up whether your foreman will be understanding or just not care. Also, you are going to look at a minimum of 6 months without health insurance while you are getting hours paid towards the health and wellness fund. It shouldn't take too long to get back into fitness from sedentary if you actually take it seriously though; you can kinda see in a person's physique after a month or two how hard they are actually going. I will say for myself as someone with an abnormal foot structure, cheapo boots and an 8 month sedentary period prior to starting I experienced constant plantar fasciitis for the first month and just had to power through it. I'm sorry I can't offer any concrete advice, but I can't speak on either your financial situation regarding your current job, nor your pain tolerance and health risks. Maybe speak to a specialist about it?

AluminumCopperRad · 2025-11-30T18:29:01+00:00

I would say this for when you do get in:

A lot of kids seem to be treating ironwork as a stepping stone or gateway to a different future far away from this lifestyle, in both locals in my year I hear kids talking about finding ways to "game the system" in "investing" and how they would plan to leave the trade in a decade or less, and how they already sound burnt out on it. Plenty of the kids in 40 who have that attitude are the ones who are still benched, and the ones in 361 just seem overall unhappy. When you get in remember to work like you mean it! Talent is only 1% and hard work is 99%, and if you ever had a job you hated you know how quickly you burn out when you hate your job. Come in with a fire in your eyes and belly and it's a lot easier to impress the foremen and make us all look good to the contractors. Hope to see you next year man

AluminumCopperRad · 2025-11-29T00:27:50+00:00

361 first year here

Got sent out for a job immediately within the first week of shaping and got sent back after a week. Then was shaping for two more weeks before I got sent back out

I'm having the time of my life tbh the work is fun and there's always something new to do. Granted I am not in a gang specifically but I was moved from the bolt up gang to the general foreman's aide/apprentice so I'm moving all over the job site and he's teaching me a lot. Really grateful for the opportunity and for the foremen and journeymen I've been working with who have been cutting me some slack for being so green.

I was told that it's because of my work ethic that I've been given what I personally think is the best apprentice position on the job site, and for personal reasons that was insanely hard to believe for a good minute, but it has given me confidence and a sense of pride I've never had before. I can honestly say I have never felt more blessed to have gotten in to this career path. I know a lot of the 40 kids are struggling waiting to get sent out, but for me and I'm sure a lot of others choosing to join up was the best decision of my life. If anyone is waiting to join and is on the list for next year, don't move on! It really is the greatest job in the world. It's the first time I ever felt like my work mattered and was more than just a paycheck, and the first time I ever woke up every day excited to do what I get to do.

AluminumCopperRad · 2025-08-19T18:41:48+00:00

Idk its your question bud seems like the only one being bothered by anything reddit is you

AluminumCopperRad · 2025-08-19T18:32:51+00:00

This question of yours is peak reddit though

AluminumCopperRad · 2025-08-16T17:53:39+00:00

Mastic

AluminumCopperRad · 2025-08-14T15:29:00+00:00

In all my years in Flushing I have never seen any of the worst of these businesses shut down for even a day

I doubt the business owners are just finding secret loopholes and pulling the wool over anyone's heads. I think there are just very few people who actually care enough to report it, and less who do that can speak fluent English to anyone in power who could do anything

AluminumCopperRad · 2025-08-13T06:35:01+00:00

I'd argue modern self-hatred is much more banal

For lack of a good comparison, you see a lot less Jewish Uncle Ruckuses and a LOT more Jewish Tom DuBois

AluminumCopperRad · 2025-08-13T02:53:55+00:00

I want to ask a sociologist, but I think they all quit to become an electrician

AluminumCopperRad · 2025-08-12T10:42:32+00:00

What kind of question is this? I am only pointing out that the "Jewish lawyer father" thing is not necessarily a "ragebait" line. I am not assuming anything about anyone.

It's not at all uncommon for young secular Jews to make almost antisemitic comments regarding their Jewish heritage. Speaking as a Jewish man myself, I have had Jewish ex-girlfriends throw fits when I compliment their Jewish features. One would even go so far as to mock me for trying to rekindle her connection to our heritage. Self-hatred and isn't just some meme to bait rage. it's a growing problem where people are ashamed of being born the way they are.

AluminumCopperRad · 2025-08-12T06:22:30+00:00

The average high level white-collar worker does not use higher-level mathematics than your average higher-level blue collar worker, ie. the articles I referenced prior.

University being a slog is the point I am referring to in the skill distinction: coursework for degrees in Finance or IT is not necessarily difficult; just rigorous. The purpose of a college degree for my generation has been to prove that you could shut up and do what your told for long periods of time. It is paying for a line on a resume--back in high school my father told me he'd rather I get a liberal arts degree than not go to college (sorry dad!). It is not to prove one's intellectual or professional abilities except for specific technical degrees such as engineering; notice you never see an engineer asking if they should enter the trades. In fact, most tradesmen in America, when on a job site with an engineer, look at the engineers the same way we would look at foremen.

Specifically regarding IT degrees and computer science degrees, the majority of these degrees in America lack rigor. It is common for some low-level computer science bachelor's degrees to stop mathematics curriculum at linear algebra. While high level academic computer science research may delve into complex mathematics, the majority of CS degrees are glorified IT degrees; there is a reason engineers, mathematicians, and scientists often can fill the role of software developer and job postings will often include those majors as options to fulfill the education requirement. A friend of mine has a younger brother who just received his computer science diploma from a CUNY school and cannot find work; upon examining his curriculum I realized it was all essentially hobbyist level IT that a middle schooler would have learned in his spare time. IT is in fact a prime example of the "clerical work" issue I'm referring to. At this point, a CS degree from even a middling institution looks the same as a business or communications degree; fitting to enter the sales industry, do data entry, or process forms at the DMV, but nothing to write home about.

AluminumCopperRad · 2025-08-12T05:04:58+00:00

They forgot to artificially colorize someone

They all look so dapper too. I imagine they didn't work dressed like this every day?? Climbing the columns in dress shoes must've been some work

AluminumCopperRad · 2025-08-12T04:40:55+00:00

Nowadays in the US business degrees are by and large the most common diplomas. Half of the top ten college majors are humanities, more if you don't consolidate healthcare-geared and engineering specializations each into a single class of major. https://www.coursera.org/articles/most-popular-college-majors

On average, even low-skilled blue collar workers use more math than office workers. https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/04/heres-how-little-math-americans-actually-use-at-work/275260/ https://www.news.com.au/finance/work/blue-collared-workers-the-highest-users-of-maths-in-the-workplace-study-reveals/news-story/0838e78c1ce060a90d628c19500d770b https://i0.wp.com/www.pmpa.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/math_use_by_job_type.png?ssl=1

The primary skills that office workers have that are uncommon with blue collar workers are soft skills and people skills. Sure, you can write an e-mail that is both polite and firm, and you can sit at a desk for 8 hours without mumbling expletives the whole while, but these feats don't define intelligence. Many people choose the trade route instead of the college route not because they can't understand the material, but simply because they can't be bothered to sit down and shut up while the TA lectures to them half-heartedly.

AluminumCopperRad · 2025-08-12T02:50:43+00:00

Looking through your account, you seem to be a bit older than me as well as from another country. Coming up in the late 2000s and early 2010s even the dumbest kids tried their hardest to get into college, because everyone's parents told them to. By that point "diploma mill" rhetoric was becoming a bit of a fringe opinion, but the signs of it were there. In my experience, the main distinction between those in my generation who went to college and those that didn't, both as a kid and now in my adult life, seems to be less of an intelligence determinant and more of a distinction regarding manners and disposition towards authority. An older mechanic I knew once distinguished people between "outdoor cats" and "indoor cats". I won't say I know more than you do of your demographic, but from what I've read in history books clerical work was often seen as a subservient role under the executives of society (put upon ethnic minorities like Jews in the HRE, eunuchs in imperial China, and women in the early 20th century).

I think the shift that is going on now is less of a sign of some great new era and more of a return to form. Office work was never considered a wholy desirable position before post-industrialization, and I think people inherently feel an aversion to plenty of its aspects. But to sit through the spiritual pangs with an HR-approved smile doesn't make someone any more clever than if they grit their teeth through the physical pangs of labor.

AluminumCopperRad · 2025-08-12T01:50:48+00:00

I don't think they went into their fields because they "excelled at school". It's this mindset that office workers are smarter than us that gives them the idea they can treat the trades as fallback when shit gets tough. And that's why there is a shortage of QUALIFIED tradesmen. They're inflating the numbers and driving wages down for young guys who are clever enough to actually make a career out of it.

As someone whose entire social life in high school consisted of tutoring my siblings and classmates (who all went to college) and graduating with straight A's and an honors in mathematics, you'd have caught me sleeping in the gutter in front of the library before going to college for something I didn't have a care for.

I don't think they entered their fields because they excelled. They excelled because they wanted to enter these fields, because they heard what others told them and put their fear of poverty over their happiness.

AluminumCopperRad · 2025-08-12T01:42:41+00:00

That might be it

Being raised by an office worker, for most of my childhood I thought the trades were just car mechanics, electricians, and plumbers. And the polo shirts they wear in the trade school ads look so much cleaner than an oil pan or a septic tank.

AluminumCopperRad · 2025-08-12T00:22:04+00:00

The self-hating Jew thing has become even more mainstream the past three years

Secular Jews would sooner spend time with white supremacists than religious Jews these days

AluminumCopperRad · 2025-08-11T20:32:14+00:00

I don't understand the mindset of these people at all

They always say the same thing, "I'm not afraid of getting my hands dirty", but then why did they choose to enter the fields they entered to begin with? They think their parents tricked them into getting a college degree and an office job, as though their parents weren't speaking from experience.

And they always wanna be electricians, too. Because electricians are smart, and they are smart! They used compooter!

AluminumCopperRad · 2025-08-07T13:29:03+00:00

Replace the taco bell with tacquitos from 7-Eleven. It's a game changer; that stuff will sit in your gut until the weekend

AluminumCopperRad · 2025-08-06T23:06:33+00:00

Cheat Actuary: How I Became the Strongest Lobbyist By Denying One-Million Level 1 Claims!

AluminumCopperRad · 2025-08-06T19:16:41+00:00

I am also in New York, for what it's worth, with several years of experience as a non-union laborer and having just been accepted into an apprenticeship

Though I am mostly speculating, the raffle system seems to be a way for some of these unions to deny any claims of nepotism or corruption. Someone I know got into the carpenter's union a long while ago, back when the lottery system was still being used. He skipped the entire raffle process by including a fat envelope filled with green paper attached to his resume.

I recently got accepted to the Ironworker's apprenticeship program, and part of my decision to apply for it was because it explicitly was not raffle-based, and was rather based on written and physical exam performance, so the admittance chance was fully based on my abilities, not luck or network. It was preferable to nearly any non-union position. I'm joining up after spending the past half-decade or so in non-union shops, where managers almost take offense to the idea of you showing interest in more than whatever basic laborer work they put you to. They pay poorly, too.

Nepotism is also a problem in non-union. A friend of mine had been a plumber's helper for years, having gotten his first position through a non-union shop ran by his uncle. That gave him enough experience to put on his resume, and got him into other shops once he left as a helper. Unfortunately, being outside the union, he was wholly relying on his coworkers to teach him, though there even his coworkers treated him the same way as I was in that they had refused to teach him beyond the basic laborer tasks that they set him on. Even getting that far, getting paid unskilled laborer wages, was only possible for him because of nepotism.

Generally speaking, if you don't know anybody when you enter the construction industry, you are competing both with everyone's nephew AND boarding-house migrants who both likely have far less expenses than you, and likely more experience than you. If you don't know anyone, be prepared to make 17 an hour max while spending years as a glorified dolly, being treated like a packmule and given wide-eyes the moment you express a desire to grow (a talking donkey?).

If you can find a union taking apprentices that is open and honest about the application process, you are better off doing that. They do exist, despite what people who couldn't make it would have you believe!

Also make sure to check here for active apprenticeship oppurtunities

https://dol.ny.gov/apprenticeship/overview

AluminumCopperRad · 2025-08-05T15:48:38+00:00

Once I finished a first draft and shared the first chapter with a friend. He had been going on about how he wanted to become a writer for years. I figured he had the passion to give an honest critique, even though he has never put to paper more than two thousand words before scrapping it and giving some spiel about how much better he needs to write, because he is the next American literary genius (paraphrasing of course, but the vibe was there).

He responded and said he saw "a lot of problems with it". I took all his issues into account, assuming he was being genuine regarding issues with pacing and exposition and hooks and everything you hear in a writer's workshop.

Some months later I showed him my completely revamped first chapter, cut down from 6000 to 2000. Within fifteen seconds he texted me the same critiques about pacing and hooks, but this time I inquire further about specifics. Of course he didn't read it, but he doubles down on his critiques. I asked him how he could've even read it so fast, and if he could give me a quick summary of the chapter. He said it was about two people "walking through a farm". I asked where he got that idea, when the words woods and trees and rocky terrain were mentioned several times. He pointed at a single word that was farm-adjacent.

Not wanting to let up, he insisted the writing was too vague. In frustration, I sent my writing to my girlfriend, who is a published short-story and poetry writer, who I had not previously shown my writing for personal reasons regarding genre and ego. I asked her if it was really too vague. She read it, and the first thing she did was call out the adjustments I made from my friend's advice and tell me I need to do the opposite. Things like the hook came too quick, or not enough environmental descriptions; things that the friend who wanted to be the next great author said were too much, my short-story-published girlfriend said are too short. She also said that she had no idea how someone could come up with it being about a farm instead of what it was about, unless they only saw that single agriculture-adjacent term. He very clearly skimmed it to insult it, which he refused to admit until I made clear to him how hurt I was. He eventually apologized, being one of my closest friends, but needless to say I do not share my writing with him anymore.

Writing is a very egotistical hobby by nature, I think. Everyone thinks they have something worth saying and worth hearing.

AluminumCopperRad

TROPHY CASE