I'm 34 and for the last 11 years I've worked manual labour. Due to injuries and illnesses I find it harder and harder to do what I've been doing, but when I try to apply for other jobs they only recommend similar positions.
It all started after my son was born. My current retail job didn't pay enough, so I quit and started working for my stepdad who had recently started his own disaster restoration company. The work was tough and the hours were long, there was also a lot of on call shifts. 60-80 hour weeks were the norm, and I usually only got time off when I was sick, which usually came from working long hours on mold remediation or sewer backup job sites. I could probably make a much longer post about how horrible my time was there.
Eventually, sick and tired (literally) I left to find something else after a few years. I refused to do another disaster restoration job, and found a position for maintenance for low income individuals with a company that was subsidized by the government. I soon realized that my job wasn't too much different, I went into houses that got absolutely trashed and had to clean and renovate them, and there was still on call for emergencies after hours. I loved the ideals of the company trying to help those in need, but I only got to deal with the tenants who had significant problems or who were abusing the system. All because my work history gave me experience with extreme jobs.
I got let go from that one after a new provoncial government got voted in and severly cut our funding. My next and last job ended up being more of the same. Different company, clients were usually in addictions recovery. Damages were worse, tenants often were in worse mental health and thus their living quarters could be absolutely disastrous. I've been assaulted more then a few times and eventually quit when the company wouldn't do anything after one altercation where the tenant had a knife.
I want out. I'm tired of abusing my body and always being on call, never truly having time for myself or my family. My body hurts doing certain tasks. I apply for positions in the industry that don't have me in the field, but of any callbacks I get they ALAWAYS offer me a different job back out in the field, so I decline them. I have disaster restoration companies reaching out to me that I don't even want and never applied for. I always get “You're resume shows wou have a lot of experience doing this, so that's what we want you for” no matter how much I tell them I can't do that type of work anymore.
And I've looked at taking courses or specializing. Outside of being unaffordable for me at the moment, they all seem to lead down a road that would still have me working in the field for for several more years before I could think of getting something in an office. I've also applied to jobs that I have no experience in, but they're all looking for degrees, looking for people with experience in the field, or have such massive paycuts I wouldn't be able to make ends meet.
Unless I get some sort of windfall of money so I can go back to school and pay my bills while I do so, I see no way out of this.