I spent two years welding ships together at the shipyards in San Diego. Yay fallback skills!
There are times when I miss it. Of all the jobs I've had over the years, it was the most meritocratic. If you did your job well and didn't cause too much rework, they loved you. I don't miss the hazardous/chemically toxic work environment, though. Those two years felt like a decade of wear on my body.
Of course. You still spent several hours on site getting to the work area, breaking to eat lunch, etc. I had it a lot better than the guys that didn't feel like wearing the respirators, but PPE isn't perfect.
Think of it like wearing shoes at the beach. Yeah, they protect you from most of the sand as you're walking around, but enough gets past that you still have to dump them out when you leave.
There are times when I miss it. Of all the jobs I've had over the years, it was the most meritocratic. If you did your job well and didn't cause too much rework, they loved you. I don't miss the hazardous/chemically toxic work environment, though. Those two years felt like a decade of wear on my body.