Previous Thread
Next Thread
Print Thread
Rate Thread
The life and times of a pro TFer #8285 03/18/99 02:03 PM
Joined: Mar 1999
Posts: 1
R
randy Offline OP
Member
OP Offline
Member
R
Joined: Mar 1999
Posts: 1
O.K. I admit it. I'm one of the many "enthusiast" guild members. I would guess that a large percentage of the recent membership increases can be attributed to those of us dreaming of wood while sitting in a cube. It's time for us to become a bit more active in this forum and the guild in general. No such thing as a dumb question (I hope).

I fantasize about one day earning a living by making sawdust. However, I have no real first hand knowledge of what a TF career entails. What is the average day, week, month like for a professional TFer? What percent of your time is spent travelling and at work sites. What is an average wage? In general how does it feel to earn a paycheck climbing a real ladder and not a corporate one?

Thanks.

Re: The life and times of a pro TFer #8286 03/20/99 02:22 AM
Joined: Feb 1999
Posts: 78
M
milton Offline
Member
Offline
Member
M
Joined: Feb 1999
Posts: 78
Randy:
Thanks for your interest and so many questions.

Timber framers are specialty woodworkers with a mix of carpentry and heavy material handling skills and no particular common background. (The same is true of many professions....truck driving for one) Wages vary by geography and experience. Those of us that have tools, skills, a willing spouse and our own businesses that do travel are often gone six months a year. It is not that glamorous and before you consider a career eating sawdust remember that it is considered a hazardous workplace material.
Those of us that are working in the friendly atmosphere of a corporate structure are probably paid in line with all educated and skilled trades working in similar circumstances.
If the Dow Jones sees 5000 again, many of us will not be working at all.
Construction is not for everyone I remind myself as I step out of the truck on those -5F days and do something that you can't do with gloves on again. I am sure that also is true of the cube farm.

I would encourage you to follow any dream that you can commit to and if I can help, let me know.
Curtis Milton


Moderated by  mdfinc 

Newest Members
HFT, Wrongthinker, kaymaxi, RLTJohn, fendrishi
5134 Registered Users
Powered by UBB.threads™ PHP Forum Software 7.7.3
(Release build 20190728)
PHP: 5.4.45 Page Time: 0.029s Queries: 14 (0.007s) Memory: 3.1112 MB (Peak: 3.3982 MB) Data Comp: Off Server Time: 2024-03-28 22:52:58 UTC
Valid HTML 5 and Valid CSS