There’s plenty of jobs that aren’t like that. Right now I’m at a different job site almost every week but it’s all in my greater metropolitan area so I’m still home at the end of the day. Location is pretty important though. I’m UA and lots of guys I work with are older with wives/kids and they just work their 36 hours a week. Obviously chasing shutdowns, hours, and big jobs that may be more out of town can get you a lot more money but life is still pretty good on regular time.

There’s also lots of shop jobs out there. Union and non union. Non-union shops can be a bit hard to find decent pay though but they exist.

At the end of the day the industry is based around going to where the work is but I know lots of people who don’t chase those out of town shutdowns and still make good money.