It’s a dirty job, but…
Here’s “Dirty Jobs” host Mike Rowe, testifying to the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. In five minutes he makes the case for celebrating skilled work:
I didn’t do well in high school; the only classes I got A’s in were art and shop. So of course I took a lot of both. The shop building in our high school was equipped with what looked like surplus WWII equipment from Boeing. I learned how to measure, cut, machine, weld. rivet, bend, temper, and forge steel, along with a few other skills. And while I didn’t become a tradesman, some of those skills have helped me keep food on the table from time to time. At the very least they helped me appreciate the people who plan, build, and fix the artificial* environment we enjoy.
Many years later almost all the high schools in our area closed their industrial arts programs. One district superintendent told the local paper that “hobby classes” were not part of the schools’ core mission. It’s understandable, if rather short-sighted, living as we do in a community dominated by the world headquarters of two insurance companies, plus two universities. Kids get the message: a “proper job” means going to the office every day.
I remember being puzzled by the superintendent’s definition of “hobby”, living as he does in a house that is warm in winter, cool in summer, has electric light on demand, clean water and working sewers, a clothes-washing machine, and appliances in the kitchen. Maybe all the people who made that stuff happen for him were just doing it for a hobby.
NOTES:
- Yes, we enjoy our artificial environment. Observation suggests that when we pretend to like “natural” things, we mean the ingredients in our snack foods. Of course, rattlesnake venom is “all-natural”, so it’s possible to carry that too far.
What an incredibly short-sighted attitude. Classes like shop teach people skills that they can use later in life, if only to help themselves. They can also help people who want to be engineers and scientists become familiar with the physical world. It used to be that many engineers came from a farming background, where they learned how mechanical things worked from operating and doing maintenance on farm machinery. Nowadays, with corporate farming so prevalent, it’s hard to imagine rural youth get much of a chance to do that.
Of course, it’s getting to be that we don’t engineer anything in America anymore, but if we ever want to change that, it’s going to be a lot harder when young people can’t gain the practical knowledge of how things work.
AAGGHH!!!
Was my new kitchen installed by craftsmen, or “hobbyists”? Was the technician who finally figured out that my 10-year-old car had a nick in the wiring caused by a bad clutch install a “hobbyist”? These people are highly skilled workers! How can anyone in their right minds call them “hobbyists”????????
In my trade as a machinist I regularly get blueprints from engineers that have no practical experience at all. Sometimes the parts they design are impossible to machine without breaking the laws of physics. I have had more than one engineer tell me that they wish they had gotten some machining experience before they started designing parts. This is a great example of how shop classes can be a great benefit even if the students don’t continue on to a skilled trade later in life.
Cujo: My dad used to bring home broken machines and give them to me as “take-aparts”. It’s a good place to start.
Karen; those skilled tradesmen come from “somewhere else”. Kind of like how my mother, who grew up in San Francisco, recounts being shocked as a girl when she learned that vegetables were grown in dirt.
Silly laws of physics
I work in a new building and regularly hear analogous complaints from the electricians about the building’s architects. There are lights that simply cannot be changed when they burn out. Well, we could build a five-story scaffold in a narrow atrium over a stairway and around hanging artwork (don’t ask) but otherwise, it’s just impractical.
In a biography of Soichiro Honda, I read that Honda used to require engineers to work on the racing pit crew for a while before they could go near a drafting table. Hope they still do that.
Let me tell you, I have ridden and wrenched bikes for 50 years.
Bikes nowadays are built for ease of assembly on a line,
not for ease of maintenance, especially at the roadside.
HD excepted of course, but their technology is 50 years old
Nowadays I expect car makers to weld the bonnet (engine cover) shut,
to keep hobbyists out of the engine room
My favorite take on this:
Tyler Durden: [to the police chief] Hi. You’re going to call off your rigorous investigation. You’re going to publicly state that there is no underground group. Or… these guys are going to take your balls. They’re going to send one to the New York Times, one to the LA Times press-release style. Look, the people you are after are the people you depend on. We cook your meals, we haul your trash, we connect your calls, we drive your ambulances. We guard you while you sleep. Do not… fuck with us.
Put another way, you’re going to miss the guy who knows how the sewage plant operates a lot sooner than the schools superintendent.
My biggest regret is not taking more of these classes earlier in life, as well as not having a summer construction job.