It wasn’t my intention to enter the building industry, however I needed a cut from cooking that still let me use my hands while I work.
Being prone to depression makes working behind a computer difficult because I find that it allows intrusive thoughts to come to the surface a lot easier than if I’m doing manual labor.
I have talked to friends who recognize the exact opposite as I do, however I just have to do what works for me and keeps me sane while still putting food on the table and paying my rent on time. That’s how I got into cooking in the first place, as my mother and father would encourage me to make delicious apartment cooked meals on afternoons when my depression was trying to get the best of me. Before long, cooking became 1 of my favorite pastimes and I got a job in an assisted living facility family room at 16 years of age. I then started culinary university so I could get the training needed to become a chef at a pizzeria. But as I kept slowly trying to labor my way up in the food service industry, I realized the stress was consuming me whenever I was at work. The building industry can be a lot of stress, however I make a lot more money being an ironworker and a welder while sitting and linking steel rebar tie wire afternoon in and afternoon out. A lot of the buildings both of us make are created with multiple sizes of black steel rebar tie wire because they’re not particularly moisture prone. You don’t necessarily need to worry about corroding steel rebar tie wire unless the structure is exposed to repeat moistures.