Until mid-July, I had been unemployed for about a year and some change, living off of money that I banked from stock options that vested after my previous employer got acquired, money that I had saved prior to, and my wife graciously paying for me to be on her health insurance.
During that period, I had a lot of time to think about what I wanted to do next. This wasn’t something that I thought about often, at least at the start. In fact, I actively tried to avoid thinking about work because the point was to divorce myself from it. However, knowing that I only had so much money to burn before things started to get hairy, future work was something that I certainly had to consider.
In the end, I cast away my “career” as an administrative professional and accepted a position in the University of Virginia’s Multicraft Apprenticeship program! This hard career turn was both exciting and a bit terrifying. I entered eager to learn invaluable skills in the trades, though I’ve never had a particular knack for handiwork. It’s been a unique challenge for sure.
Anyway, you may be wondering: What gives? Why this huge change?
Let me tell you a story…
Doom and Gloom
Growing up, I had never really thought about the trades before. And then, when I was graduating from UVA in 2009, I had an experience that seemed to have put the nails in the coffin for such a career path.
That spring, I was about to graduate with a degree in Music and a minor in East Asian Studies. I wasn’t sure what jobs I should be looking for. I went to a career fair or two and the vibe I got was that no one wanted to talk to a Music major.
I made an appointment with my advisor to chat it out. I had only met with him maybe one other time outside of taking a couple classes with him, so we didn’t really have a relationship. But what else were advisors for?
I asked him for advice.
Well… I don’t want to be all doom and gloom, but with the way things are going, I don’t know… maybe pick up a trade? Like masonry?
I went into shock and remember only that I knew I needed to get out of that conversation as fast as humanly possible, ha. Later that day my mom called, asked how it went, and, steamed, demanded that I go back to him. There was no was way in hell that I was going back in there and talking to that guy!
Maybe this scenario seems innocuous enough, but the feeling of my employment prospects bottoming out just before graduation left me scarred.
One Greg, two Greg; red Greg… red Greg
Fast forward to last summer. A comrade of mine whose name is also Greg told us that he had gotten into UVA’s apprenticeship program. To that point, I don’t think that I had heard of it, but it piqued my interest. The nails in the coffin rattled—the zombie of the trades started to stir after its decades-long slumber!
Here’s how it works: Those in the program are apprenticed for four years in the area that they apply for and are accepted to. While there are single-track apprenticeships for carpentry and masonry, both Greg and I are in the multicraft program, which covers electrical, HVAC, and plumbing. Apprentices are paid an hourly rate with full UVA benefits to learn these skills. After two years, those in the program will be eligible to earn their Maintenance Mechanic Certificate; then, they are funneled to hone in on one of the three aforementioned crafts (based on our desires and aptitude) for the remaining two years. UVA’s goal is to hire those who graduate their program directly afterwards.
I told Greg that I’d love to hear more about his experience as he goes through it. Perhaps a move to something more hands-on would be in the cards for me. After all, the one thing I did know was that when I started to apply for work again, I would focus strictly on trying to land a position where I’d be using my talents to combat climate change. Maybe I could be doing the physical labor needed for the transition to renewables rather than the desk labor? Just as long as it wasn’t masonry.
… seriously, though.
Ideological motivation
Deciding to embrace the trades rather than let my experience with my advisor continue to haunt me didn’t come about because that incident didn’t still hang over me. Even though it’s mostly a funny story to tell 15 years later, it would nip at me every time that I had to enter my degree on a job application… which was every time that I applied for jobs… which, every time, has been a prolonged, awful experience.
Rather, my ideological awakening over the last decade has allowed me to see the trades—and work in general—in a different light and fill those gaps from a variety of angles.
The first angle is removing [what I think is safe to call] an unconscious bias that had rendered trades careers practically invisible to me for so long. Growing up, I had tunnel vision for academics, and for me that meant having a truncated idea of what career paths were viable or desirable. Jobs centered on manual labor were unseen/unconsidered.
The ironic thing about the above is that I never had any idea of what I wanted “to do"; my blindness to the trades was self-limiting. Entering college I thought I’d figure it out; leaving college I thought I’d figure it out. “Career” wasn’t in my lexicon and that’s something that hasn’t really changed.
What has changed is that I slowly but surely came to realize, both through experience and ideology, that most white-collar jobs under capitalism are destructive, have no real value, and/or deceptive. I wanted to get out of the vicious cycle of having a corporate job; bowing to greed as my fellow workers and I got screwed; miserably applying for jobs; letting the dopamine hit at landing a new job manipulate me into overstating its goodness and importance; repeat. Or, I at least wanted come as close as possible to having a job that compromised my values as little as possible. As bleak as that sounds, being clear-eyed about capitalism is a good thing.
Again, initially that looked like focusing on trying to land a position with a company that [at least purported to] focus on combatting climate change. Applications didn’t open for the apprenticeship until April, and I couldn’t just wait around for something that wasn’t even guaranteed while I bled money. I would have accepted any position if offered one.
However, with one exception, I didn’t want another offer. My motivation for transitioning to the trades was and is beyond the simple satisfaction of aiding the existentially necessary need to transition to renewables.
Readers may remember that when I went to Cuba last October, we visited an elementary school and on the wall was this photo of Che Guevara:
I haven’t been able to get it out of my mind. You may recall that I referenced it in a post back in May, as well, when I wrote:
I often come back to [this] image… as a source of inspiration. There is deep meaning in the fact that even the most famous members of the Revolutionary Vanguard, after taking power, built their new socialist society with their hands as well as their ideals. We can strive to emulate this example in the now.
In learning a skilled trade, yes, I am still hoping that I can use my hands to help combat change. But I want more than that—I want to contribute to building the revolution. That doesn’t mean that I desire to be some kind of leader in the revolutionary vanguard like Che—that’s not my role. Rather, I want my employment labor and my political action labor to be in sync. I want to help “[build our] new socialist society with [my] hands as well as [our] ideals.”
In the future, that might look like running power for a workers’ federation hall or building a solar farms that allow Charlottesville to divorce itself from Dominion’s corporate stranglehold and run a clean, affordable public grid or turning the Charlottesville CODE building back into an ice rink.
An example of that in practice in the now is simply working alongside and regularly interacting with working class people. As a socialist I believe in working towards the dictatorship of the proletariat, but the longer that I spent the majority of my days in a corporate environment surrounded by those of the upper-middle class and the professional-managerial class (in addition to spending leisure time with my friends, who tend to be of the same), the more I felt separated from the people whom I work to support politically.
I’ve seen that divide lead to complacency. In that bubble, there can be a lot of talk, and having leftist ideals is not enough. At the end of the day, the work you put in and the time you dedicate determine your commitment to working people and a better world.
While I didn’t feel as if I were slipping into complacency, I decided to dedicate myself even more to my ideology from another angle. Immersing myself in this environment and having conversations on the daily will give me a personal, direct understanding of other workers’ lives in general and workers’ issues, as opposed to a theoretical understanding born out of reading and discussion. In turn, that immersion should help inform me how we can organize together.
One thing that I want to emphasize is that even though these things are on my mind, this isn’t a science experiment. I’m not, say, thinking of my colleagues as test subjects or trying to rouse and mobilize some kind of army for personal gain or accolade. My economic status, privilege, and trajectory may be much different from many of my new coworkers, but as workers under capitalism we are all the proletariat. We need to break down the walls that ruling class capitalists intentionally erect that block blue-collar and white-collar workers from seeing that their interests are more similar than not. We need to reintegrate.
Ideological framework aside, working at UVA, of course, is not without its compromises. I mean, just earlier this year I watched as my new employer called the state police to assault its students. But while I train, my work will contribute to maintaining the academic environment, allowing me to pay it forward to the younger generation of learners, which I sincerely find value in. I have reason to have faith in them.
I also find it fitting that my first rotation on the job is actually at UVA’s hospital. After all, Che’s work as a doctor was a major factor in his radicalization, and this was the image I saw towering over the entrance to Calixto Garcia University Hospital, where our delegation brought medical supplies to—and in solidarity with—the Cuban people:
Using my time and labor to keep the infrastructure of a state institution that is critical for the health of my community and beyond is valuable, and I will do my best to see it thrive with revolutionary fervor.
Thanks
Want to give a few shoutouts before I close out:
First, of course, is to Jen: She has been unwavering in her support, from quitting my old job, to supporting living at my own pace during my time off, to encouraging me in this new path. That’s the simplest way I can put it.
To my parents: Not only did they not blink when I told them about wanting to transition to the trades, I asked them not to bother me about going back to work, and they didn’t for the better part of a year.
To my in-laws: For complete respect of my decisions. I don’t know that we ever talked about work during my sabbatical, and as someone who thinks we should all decentralize work talk from everyday conversations, I’m grateful.
To my job references: I appreciate the time that you spent on me during the hiring process. All of you were supportive of the career transition and gave me your confidence.
To my friends: Many of you made it clear that you never wanted me to work again :)
Peace,
Greg
Congratulations comrade! All so eloquently put, as always 🌹