other employment?

Tim;
Do not let these guys make up your mind for you. You are the one that will have to live with your choice.
A welder like anything needs to be trained well. It is a hot nasty job a lot of the time for the untrained that have to take whatever job comes along.
A operator is the same thing. You need to pursue it all the way. Go to any large construction job and look at what the operators are doing.
The skid loader and dozer operator are working in the dirt 8 hours a day.
The small crane operator is working 5 hours a day.
The large crane operator is sitting with is feet on the dash reading a book or napping working about 2 hours a day.
And guess what..... The large crane operator is making more per hour than all the others.

Besides every one that can climb in and start a skid loader thinks he can run one so the competition for employment is fierce.

It all boils down to being well trained in what ever you choose from ditch digger to president of a company.

By the way what is wrong with dairy farmer. I made that same choice 25 years ago and some times think I chose wrong. Remember that dairy farm has kept clothes on your back and food on your table for 17 years.

Might consider a mechanical job that would adapt to a shore job so you could get off the boat and move right into a good paying job with all your MM experience.

When I was tugboating, I liked to go into the engine room where they had all the equipment running and their work shop and tools and all. They worked hard but made a lot more money than the other types of jobs on the boat. Couldn't get over how big the engines were but they were only 1600 hp V12 GM diesels. Had access holes built into the side of the engine where they could climb through to get at the inside of the engine.

Mark

Really hard work but making $16 per day in '57 for a 16 year old high school kid, it wasn't bad at all. And they really knew how to chow you down. Additionally I liked the adventure.

I didn't pursue it as a career (but thought about it) because I was in love and couldn't stand to be away from my girl friend (now wife of 44 years) for 30 days at a time.

Mark

Sitting in the cab of an earthmover, it seems to me, can get mighty old.

Case in point.

When I was rock hauling I also hauled dirt. I'd be at the pit at first light. There would be a guy in a 5 cubic yard track loader going after it loading us..... .my last load was at last light some 12 hours later. The same guy was still sitting in the same seat that he got into that morning and he did it day in and day out.

No telling how many hundred buckets of dirt he dug that day just to get up the next day and do it all over again. Gotta get old. At least hauling I had some varaibility....TRAFFIC!!!!!.

My 2c.

Mark

Well, I think I best can help you by telling you about my working carrer. When I was forced to retire, I had paper work hanging on the wall for, 35 weld certification tests (only failing 1/3 of one test), was a AWS CWI (certified weld inspector, nuke plants) and a Refrigeration Engineer.

My hard working habits opened alot of doors when I was young. I had alot of people teach me what they knew but didn't bother teaching some of the other young men as they wasn't ready to learn. That put me into night courses for 3yrs paid for by my employer.

I then went in a Sheetmetal apprenticeship where once again I was taguht on the job as well attended night courses for 3yrs. I was progressing enough at my job as a apprentice, that I taught other apprentices my trade. After I made journeyman, I continued my night education for another 4yrs plus started teaching other apprentices and journeyman. I'm rated at the top 1% of my field at this time.

By now, I welding 8hrs a day as I really acellerated at welding in all processes, stick, Tig, Mig, making welds that some weldors can only dream about. In the mean time, my vision has really started to decrease, minus 125 when I first started welding to minus 450, so I'm off to refrigeration controls before I go blind.

Again I acellerate to the top 1% of my refrigeration peers, but this time I self educated myself in less than 2yrs as the classes offered didn't move fast enough for me. This works well as I'm allowed to take tests to prove my ability's and obtain the proper cridentials.

During all this time, I'm earning a good living, always employed when I wanted to be and working 40hrs where alot of other men were

not, (work slow down from the ecomoney). I'm getting into my early 40's and see I need to add more to my retirement account, so off to the big money jobs. That takes to the remote part of Alaska where I'm taking home over $3000wk and this was 15yrs ago but there's also drawbacks as drugs and alcoholism is rappent amoung co-workers, I was also seeing alot of this at home too, and I'm not into that so that makes me a outcast and makes it very difficult for me to do my job.

I then went back to the daily 40hr a week grind as I was having to work 60hrs with continuing education and only getting paid for 40hrs. It was like being on vacation after all the long hours working in Alaska as I get sloppy one day and I'm not paying close enough attention and from a simple accident, crushed my foot and my working carrer just ended.

Now I'm in heavy pain 24/7 and will be the rest of my life and was forced into early retirement. I've spent the last 10yrs fighting insurrance companys, (workmens comp, pensions and SSA) to give me my money. With an attorney taking 30%, I finaly have 2/3 of what I should have coming for retirement, a huge income decrease for being on a fixed income. Some of my co-workers stayed in touch for the first 30days, then never a word again.

So what does this have to do with anything? Cause this is how life can go if your not extremely careful 100% of the time. Working for the other guy you will only make a living, that's all, so keep your risks to a very minimum, take a "goverment job" with low risks, and you reach retirement with a liveable income and that is the best you can hope for.

Now if your wise and put up your "own" (no strings attached) retirement money thru solid investments starting with your very first job, even if it's only $10wk to start with, then can you retire early without having to "qualifiy" for your own pension income (alot of strings attached), and enjoy whatever you choose for the rest of your life. This will be the most single important step you can take in your working carrer, no matter what that carrer is, and it doesn't matter what age you start at, as long as you start investing.

T_Bone