But don't dis your blue collar bro's.

‘That kind of work’ built the roads you drive on, the tunnels you drive through and the bridges you drive over.

‘That kind of work’ cleared and graded the land and dug the foundations for your homes and the office building you work in.

Men in trenches laid your precious fiber optic cable. They also have to dig it back up and work around it without breaking it. They installed your sewers sometimes at a depth of 30' or more to carry away your waste. They brought in the water for your bath, your kitchen, your hot tub and swimming pool and your nicely manicured lawn.

Each year in my state, on average about five guys are killed doing backhoe and shovel work. They usually get buried or crushed. Before you say anything, stupidity and carelessness are not tolerated. Insurance costs too much.

How many salaried people suffer accidental death or dismemberment at the keyboard?

Technology? Well the laser transit comes in mighty handy. Shooting elevations is now a one-person job if they know how to use it. But then you have to be able to read the stack of site plans and carefully go over the engineering details because 6 times out of 10 the plan doesn’t quite jive with the real world. At this point your backhoe guy must come up with a way that works and then get it approved by the moron that did the original design.
(Not you Steve!)

Also the modern road graders are laser guided. Pipe is laid with a laser level. Open up the back of an excavator and you’ll see the black box that controls the engine, hydraulic pumps, and all hydraulic functions. This stuff breaks and someone has to know how to fix it.

I know people that work for MS that earn, with stock options, over $130,000 /year as lower level management overseeing a handful of people. I know a guy that’s worked in engineering for the “Lazy B” for 20 years and makes $60,000. I’m happy for them but people in construction I know are lucky to make $40,000. We can’t all be geeks.
Your disdain for the wage earner (union or not) make no more sense than that of the construction worker for the 30-something millionaire who he’s building a house for.

We’ve all taken the largest piece of pie that will fit on our plate. Someone else getting a piece probably won’t make yours smaller.

But take heart anyway because like we have moved manufacturing overseas to cheap labor, cheap labor has moved across the boarder into construction and is becoming more skilled everyday.

You’ll get your cheaper fiber access you ala mode Mofo.