Any maintenance men here?

>>1091662
Join the building engineers union.


Go through apprenticeship, and journeyman.

You may verywell make that 100k.

>>1091662

Jack of all, master of none. Maintenance men are a dime a dozen. It's hard to compete or demand a raise when you've got 20 guys with bullshit work experience beating down the door for your job.

Specialization pays. Learn an actual trade.

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>>1091662
>do you have any certifications or degrees?
mechanical engineering degree, Class B general contractors license, and a couple of ASME boiler certs. almost done with PE stuff.

>I know I'll never make 100k a year
how wrong you are. the bigger/more complex the building, the more money you make.

>I certainly don't want to work for 15 hr
i started at 15/hr. i make well over 6 figures.

>I'd like to know what it's like
lots of menial shit when you start out. i mean A LOT of menial shit. you will want to blow your brains out before you pick up another paint brush again.

but eventually (hopefully) you learn enough about building systems that you progress in your responsible square footage and start getting paid to really trouble shoot and analyze. even without a degree you will eventually get paid because you know how to keep things from having to get maintained in the first place, hence saving your boss fuck tons of money and justifying your fat paycheck. upper and mid tier maintenance positions are cushy as fuck.

we prefer the term facility managers btw.

>>1091670
>building engineers union
Not OP. We don't have anything like that where I live. None of the trades out here have any kind of union worth a damn, let alone a union hall or anything like that.

>>1091662
Fuck general maintenance. Pick a specialized area, like:
Elevator tech
Boiler engineer/ boiler maker
Fire protection
Buiding electrical or plumbing.

>>1091672
Thanks based facilities manager. This makes me feel better.

I have no certs or degree yet but I'm learning everything I can. I'm looking at an associates of construction management as a start but I'll look at a general contractors license.

I could care less if I make six figures but I don't want to get myself into a job that won't pay shit.

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>>1091672
how often if ever do you run into something on the job that you don't have skills to fix? How do you go about solving the problem... like, do you study and try and DIY or call a specialist?

>>1091742
>how often if ever do you run into something on the job that you don't have skills to fix?

its often not a matter of skill, but of time and resources. the grand schedule must be kept in harmony.

>do you study and try and DIY or call a specialist?

the very first thing you do when you run into ANY problem is get a quote.quotes are almost always free and will help you make a decision in whether you DIY or contract out.

a good portion of your job is going to be dealing with outside contractors. you need to know enough about what they do to realize when they are trying to hose you or do shitty work.

with that being said, i tend to be more adventurous with the DIY when its on something thats:

a)cheap
b)can be easily undone if i fuck it up
c)is on something thats going to get replaced anyways

>>1091672
>almost done with PE stuff.
What's PE?

Also, why the boiler certs?

>>1091672
Tfw when you find out rick steves is a closet stoner. No wonder that Nigga is going on vacation all the time.

>>1091764
>What's PE?
muh engineer stamp

>why the boiler certs?
because a lot of buildings i managed still had them

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I work maintenance at a section ape complex

fun stuff

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>>1091742
>That image

I'm the Facilities Manager for a school district.

How?
>Cleaned Toilets
>Got boiler's license
>Cleaned fewer toilets
>Became supervisor
>Cleaned fewer toilets
>Got higher level licenses plus Pool, pesticide, refrigerant certs.
>Got job where I now sit in an office and never use any off my certs unless someone is out sick and I need to do a boiler check.

I am the third man down on the pole now. Above me is the Director of Operations and above him is the Superintendent.

To get the next job up, I would need most likely need to get an advanced degree which I'm just not interested in doing.

I make 6 figures a year. My job is basically dealing with contractors and doing all the leg work so my boss can sign the check and pretend he read it. Plus I am in charge of all health and safety issues including OSHA. Plus I get to deal with the union and act like I hate unions despite being in a different union.

Not building maintenance, but I do appliance repair... and seriously if you guys ever end up keeping tabs on an apartment complex you should figure out how to fix your stoves, dryers, and washers... buy gas stoves, learn how to change the igniters.... buy cheap gas whirlpool dryers, watch the YouTube videos on cool packs, thermal fuses, and the odd igniter.... learn how to clear socks from washer drain pumps... if you want to provide value learn these things... beats paying me to do it.... seriously I have a few apparent complexes that I do a non negligible amount of work for and I can't fathom why they don't try to cross train their maintenance people... not that I'm complaining, but seriously it's nuts.

>>1093167
*coil packs not cool packs..

>>1093167
Well I don't work for an apartment complex but I know some guys who work in property management. For the laundry they tend to just keep commercial units on site and have a contract worked out with an appliance repair outfit. Most of the reason is that they don't have an effective way of training people and they don't want to deal with the liability.

As for stoves, around here it's vert rare to have gas appliances in apartments. Electric is easier to deal with since there is no open flame or chance of gas leak. Plus electricity is much easier to meter in large complexes.

>>1093162
>Plus I am in charge of all health and safety issues including OSHA

So this means that you are the guy who gets shafted if something goes wrong and someone manages to hurt themselves?

>>1093186
Or it means your the guy who gets bitched at for keeping people from fucking up their eyes and fingers by not wearing safety gear....

>>1091662
>tfw hate being plumber
>tfw always dreamed of being carpenter
>"Fuck you, Mario - I quit!"