Seriously, many soldering irons don't have a switch. Fancy soldering stations have switches, temperature dials, etc. But basic ones are just a resistive load wired directly to the plug.
I'm an engineer that's been in that sort of situation. If it's planned, you have the tools. Unfortunately, sometimes these things happen and it's not planned. At that point it's taken what you can get. A cheap fire stick will still do the job better than no fire stick.
I've only seen outlet switches in the UK, unless you plugged into a roof lamp outlet where the switch are by the entrance door, but then you need a plug like these (at least here in sweden)