I have been working in residential maintenance for about 4 years now, and am stuck making mediocre money whilst trying to start a family and provide a decent living for myself. I have been seriously considering moving on to become an electrician to finally start a worthwhile career.

My local IBEW is taking on apprentices in January through the JATC program for inside wiremen, and I'm pretty on the fence about it. The main things holding me back are:

• Lay offs. I constantly see people posting about being laid off and struggling to find work.

• Back breaking work. I have been doing physical jobs my whole life but I would like to still have full bodily function in my mid 40s.

• Crushing hours. I really enjoy family time and being able to be with them as much as possible, and don't really want to set myself up to be gone 90% of the time.

• Politics. I'm pretty good at manual labor but struggle whenever it comes to people. I'm worried I won't be super well liked and struggle in that sense.

I don't wish to live a lavish life. I simply want to make enough to travel and have a home I'm proud of. Is electrical work something I should be doing?