Doug Major argues a young person entering the appliance service trade can retire with more lifetime earnings than many people who took the degree-and-debt road, without the student loans, and can work comfortably into their seventies. The catch is that most applicants are closer to forty, carry a life's worth of bills, and struggle through the roughly five years it takes to become profitable. Those who last need patience, a commitment to lifelong learning, and deliberate care of their body and mind.
I’ve been encouraging people to enter the appliance service trade for nearly as long as I’ve been in it. Good enough for me, good enough for you. Today I can make a strong case that a young person entering this trade retires with more lifetime earnings than a lot of people who took the degree-and-debt road. But I owe you the whole picture.
Is all that encouragement just self-serving?
Lately, reminiscing about the career and the advocacy I’ve taken on, I’ve had to ask myself: is all that just a self-serving steaming pile?
There are holes in this industry, especially in North America, that you could drive a cruise ship through. The kind of ship you’d love to take that dream vacation on. The kind most appliance service technicians look at the price of and quietly close the tab.
And yet. I’m not feeling sorry for myself as I look at my own numbers. The case for a lifetime in this trade is strong. Judge for yourself.
Who actually applies, and why don’t most make it?
The rub is who’s actually applying. It isn’t the eighteen- or twenty-year-old who could look at this objectively and play the long game. It isn’t even the thirty-year-old. The applicant is closer to forty. They’ve tried some things, and they’ve landed on something that finally interests them. They also have bills, expenses, a life already running.
And the first five years, the years it takes to get experienced enough to be genuinely profitable, are a rough, rocky road to walk with all that weight on your back.
I’ve hired plenty of these applicants. For all my efforts, only a few are still here, doing the work, earning the income. I warn them going in. I tell them the truth, and the truth is the truth even when I want it to be otherwise: most don’t make it. The pressure of those first years is just too much. The ones who stick are the ones I get all the way into a good career. There aren’t many.
Why would an honest person walk into this trade?
You’ve heard this part from me before. The appliance technician is badly needed, and the trade is due for some respect it doesn’t get. In North America we don’t protect this industry. We denigrate it. Yes, I am looking at you. Where minimum standards exist, they’re not enforced. Large parts of the industry would happily replace every broken machine instead of fixing it, for all the wrong reasons.
So why would any honest person walk into the profession I just described?
Because there’s a renaissance you can just make out from the bow, if you look through the mist. Bosch, Sub-Zero and others are working to build and hold a core of professionals who can service their products, because they need that core to protect the brand.
If consumers are finally fed up with good-enough and start wanting better, the appliance trade has a door open in front of it. I probably won’t walk through it myself. The ones who stuck it out will.
What does it take to set yourself up for thirty years, or a lifetime?
First, patience. You can’t buy experience. The only way to get it is to find a mentor, get to work, and learn from the tools in your hands.
Second, an honest acknowledgment that you are signing up to be a lifelong learner.
Third, take deliberate care of your body. This trade doesn’t break people young the way some heavy construction trades do. It has few built-in career-ending injury risks, but it isn’t free, either. Be smart about hero lifting. An oven dolly isn’t a sign of weakness. It’s a career-saver. Pad the floor, stay off your knees as much as possible, and use the time between calls to reset your body, your mind and your emotions.
How do you handle the strain that comes with the bill?
Look out for the mental and emotional strain, too. I’ve said for years: my customers are happy to see me come, happy to see me go, and desperately hope they never see me again. It’s not because I’m hard to look at. It’s because I come with a bill, and nothing unsettles a household like an unexpected repair cost.
It’s not personal. It’s institutional.
If you remember nothing else, remember this: the customer’s frustration and disappointment might be pointed at you, but it is not about you.
On many days, you get to be a hero, doing something society has completely forgotten how to do. Hang on to that feeling. If you don’t, this job will chip away at your self-esteem.
Where does it lead?
Look after yourself, and you can work comfortably into your seventies. By then you are experienced, established, and sitting among the top earners in the profession.
And the best part? You got there without spending the first twenty years paying off a student loan.