take new job?

ok guys so i am 19 years old and just got the opportunity to get into commercial refridgeration. i have been doing landscaping yard work and construction with my dad since i was a kid and want to get a better paying job. i somewhat have an idea of what i need to do but idk if i should swoop on this or not? i do have to go to school twice a week but they are paying for it. kinda stumped if i should jump on it? what do you think?

 

Jobs are few and far between in our area.
If you are being offered a job on commercial 'fridge and they are paying for your training, there's no reason not to jump on it.

If you had to pay for school then I'd be concerned... sometimes "jobs" are simply fronts for training programs and you end up not getting hired after graduation... so make sure that they are paying 100% of the training costs up-front and not making you pay with the promise of repayment.

 

Do it, once your trained you will be making bank.

 

Sounds like a good opportunity.

 

i might give him a call and see how everything would work. i know he makes decent money but hes been there for a while. any cons to this field besides travel?

 

If you're using your personal vehicle, make sure you get paid for mileage.
IRS currently allows $0.55/mile.
In my field, even when I was only getting paid $0.30/mile, my travel made my payment AND insurance on this...

 

go for it. jobs are at a premium. i recently got laid off from my job, so take it while it's available.

 

well i can supposedly get it whenever im ready. as far as getting to the job site all i need to do is drive to a foremans house and go from there which wont be much more than a 20-30 minute drive. i doubt they will cover gas from my house to the foremans house right?

 

i am 37. i have worked in three careers. my advise, learn something new. you never know when you will need the experience down the road. thats my only regret, staying in the same job for too long

 

No, that won't be covered.

IRS used to allow only driving performed between 1st and last stop.
I just made sure that my 1st and last stops of the day were my office.
Sometime around 2000, they changed that and they began to allow mileage to the job site and home if you did not work out of an office.

But if you're driving to the foreman's house and leaving from there, you are not entitled to mileage compensation unless you are using your personal vehicle during the day.

When you get fully trained and to a Journeyman level where you are working on your own, being able to claim mileage is simple if you are not compensated, or in my case, are under-compensated:

Track total miles for the year.
Track total business-use miles for the year (I used a spreadsheet for both so the numbers were readily available at tax time).
Plug the business-mileage numbers in (I use Turbotax).
In my case, IRS allowed $0.35 but I was only paid $0.30, so say I had 30k for the year, I would then report $9,000 in unreported income. This would offset the total 30k and would reduce my taxable income by $1500. Not a lot, but it made a difference on my refund of a few hundred bucks.
But ya... I would have "made more" if the company had just paid $0.35.


Your insurance company will be cool with business use as long as your vehicle is not THE job. In our cases, our vehicles are used to get us to the place where we will perform our job. Yes, insurance will go up because of the mileage, but that is why the IRS allows for so much in compensation even though gas, tires, and oil for most vehicles averages half that. Insurance companies tend to get pissy when the vehicle is used for deliveries, and an accident "on the clock" generally results in a fight between the insurance company and the employer since the employer should be insuring delivery vehicles.

But in commercial fridge (or my field as a traffic signal technician), our vehicles are for getting us from job to job, and we are technically not "on the clock" unless we are at a job site. I had three claims for incidents that happened during the work day (only one was my fault) and there were never any questions or issues of whether or not I was "working" or what I was doing at a Jack in the Box in Fontucky at 10am on a Thursday if I wasn't working.

 

+1

Been doing what I'm doing for over 20 years and would love to bust out into a different field, but I am so specialized that there's nowhere to go with my abilities for more than half my current salary (which is $20k less than I was making in 2008).

 

Without knowing all the facts, I think you should take this opportunity. Getting free training in a new career is something that nobody can take away from you in the future. You can always build on that and work your way up. If you stay in the landscape or construction business, there is not all that much opportunity. However, if you do take this job and in a year or two you decide you don't like it and want to go back to landscape and/or construction, you can do that, because you already have the experience there also.
This sounds like a win-win situation to me.
The biggest factor would be if this is something you really want to do, or are you thinking about it just because it is an available option.

 

I've applied at so many places its ridiculous. And not 1 interview. I'm gonna try to call him tomorrow and see what he says

 

Bingo.

It's an issue of age and inexperience, and it's an issue for everyone beginning their working life.
Last time we had an opening for a tech, of the 4 who were called in for an interview, we only took 2 under consideration.

Of those 2, one had nearly 20 years with his current employer, 5 with the previous, and before that he was in the Army.
The other guy was under 30, and had 5 jobs on his resume with only a couple of years at each, and none were related to the other.

But...

Taking his age into consideration, we did not consider that being a negative. By the time I took my job at 30 (Ive now been in the field for 20 years with 4 different employers), I had worked in aerospace, retail management, retail sales, aluminum foundry, machine shop, warehousing, and of course, fast food.

That's just the nature of a young person who has not found the career that they want. We have another opening now, and if he applies again we will likely hire him.

2-3 years each at 5 different jobs is better than 10 years at 1 job that is totally unrelated to my field, and it is a million times better than no experience, or, in your case, working for your father, which a lot of people would look at as a "welfare" job.
Not saying you don't work your ass off. Some fathers are as hard on their kids or harder than they would be on an employee so they aren't accused of playing favorites, but first impressions are that family goes along for the ride.

 

That's another thing. If I don't try to take this job ill probably end up somewhere else and not not making much and not even make enough to pay bills so what's the point in staying there right?

 

Ok guys so I just talked to my dad and the guy that offered me the job. He told me to call him tomorrow morning and that he could set it up with his boss for an interview. but my dad said to just wait and well go talk to him this week to get everything set up. (Surprises me that my dad actually is helping me get the job lol) super stoked to see what's gonna happen. thanks to everyone here that gave me advice. I will keep you guys posted

 

Dad wants to see you do well. He knows what you're making and he knows that moving on will be a good experience for you.

Dad sounds really cool, and it sounds like if things don't work out you'll still have your current job to fall back on.

But DO contact the guy tomorrow morning. If you don't call, he'll assume you aren't interested or Dad talked you out of it. The boss might be unavailable later in the week so he may be planning on setting something up for you tomorrow afternoon or Tuesday.