Interesting Commentary on Skills

[Mike Henderson]

I encounter lots of people who are craftsmen - people who are in the trades (electrician, plumber, drywall, painting, etc.) and people who are hobbyist. They know how to do a good job and they strive to do so. I also see young people who want to learn how to do things themselves, primarily to save money. Not all of them do a good job, but most try very hard. The biggest problem for them is lack of education and experience.

Also, working in manufacturing can be a horrible experience - doing the same task over and over, day to day to day - month to month to years. I could never survive working on an assembly line.

Mike

[Don Morris]

When we renovated our whole home about 7 years ago, it was the height of the building scene (before the building bust). The contractor couldn't find enough good sub people. So he hired some that "appeared" to be good workers. We have a list of about 147 screw ups that a quality crew just wouldn't have done. When a quality crew showed up it was obvious. My wife has a design degree, not hanging drapes type, a read blue prints, move walls, know about CMU's type degree so she managed the renovation. She was constantly stopping the workers and correcting problems. I should show you (took photos) some of the work that was done before we canned the guy. We showed the work to the contractor and then said, get him out of here and we don't want to see him again. Being a woodworker, I knew when he did a woodworking screwup. We also fired an electrical team when they didn't know how to measure 6' on center. My wife asked the electrician why a whole line of lights weren't 6' on center as called for in the blueprints and he didn't know what 6' on center meant. One group of electricians didn't know what Gimble lights were (swivel) that were specified in the blueprints. Windows were put into a brick wall not level with adjacent windows. My wife blew her gasget on that one. ETC. Talk about loss of quality workmanship. The plumber fortunately was a Master plumber and everything he did and told us to do or not to do was right on. The inspectors when they show up just gave him the papers. They looked at us and said: No need to look at Tom's work, he's the best there is. When I went to the local plumbing supply to get something for Tom when he was working and needed it, I just mentioned his name and they said, "The best". Good people are out there, you just have to find them. Unfortunately they're few and far between.

[Brian Elfert]

I have no idea if the local high school still offers wood shop or not. I do know they converted the classroom used for the classroom portion of metal shop to an office for the athletic director at one point. The entire high school was completely remodeled and expanded within the past decade and who knows if they kept the wood and metal shops.

I loved wood shop. I took every wood shop class I could fit into my schedule. I even stayed after school to work in the wood shop as the teacher was usually working on paperwork and such for a while after school. I'm no master woodworker, but I can hold my own.

[Rich Engelhardt]

When was this bygone age when craftsmanship was supposed to be a common trait?

When people took pride in what they did.......not what they could buy....

[David Weaver]

The plumber fortunately was a Master plumber and everything he did and told us to do or not to do was right on. The inspectors when they show up just gave him the papers. They looked at us and said: No need to look at Tom's work, he's the best there is. When I went to the local plumbing supply to get something for Tom when he was working and needed it, I just mentioned his name and they said, "The best". Good people are out there, you just have to find them. Unfortunately they're few and far between.

Well, if you could only pick one thing to get dead right, it'd be plumbing. You lucked out there.

[John Coloccia]

When people took pride in what they did.......not what they could buy....

Have you ever been in an old house or fixed old furniture? Old musical instruments? Old anything. I'm sorry, but the level of craftsmanship I see is far higher and more abundant today than any other time in the past I can think of. How many here had a dad that was a craftsman? By this thread, you would think that everyone's father was a woodworker or stone mason, or at least very handy around the house.

My dad tried to be handy. We could dig a hole, fill it with cement and put in a fence post or basketball hoop. My grand dad was a stone mason so if there's one thing my dad knew how to do it was mix cement. Beyond that, was he very handy? No, not really. Replace spark plugs, change tires...we even changed a belt in the dryer once. Maybe fix a little something here and there. Based on having gone to my friend's houses, that seems to be a pretty normal level of handiness. Maybe the golden age of craftsmanship never made it to New York? I just don't see it.

The response to this always looks at sloppy home construction as an example of declining craftsmanship, but that's not the craftsman's fault. I know people left and right that are masterful craftsman and they have no work because no one wants to pay for it. They're out there but you have to pay. We used to be more willing to pay for a quality job. That's all that's changed. People got cheap and don't appreciate quality anymore, but craftsman are far more abundant today, IMHO, and even hobbyists are FAR more sophisticated and abundant than we ever were.

[David Weaver]

Also, working in manufacturing can be a horrible experience - doing the same task over and over, day to day to day - month to month to years. I could never survive working on an assembly line.

Mike

I worked in a cabinet factory on an assembly line (one of the big name builders supply cabinet lines) for 3 years between high school and college, until I was able to get an internship doing what I do now.

There were a lot of "lifers" there, people would tell you right away if they were a "lifer" or not, it was sort of conversation there. "Will I see you here next summer?" and the response would be "i don't know, i'm not a lifer" or "yeah, i'm a lifer".

It was a good lesson, I guess. The people there worked hard and fast and didn't get paid much in relative terms. It was a rural area and you could live on it, though, but it was pretty miserable just due to the speed and repetition, even though there wasn't anything unsafe about it. They shuttered the factory a few years ago because of the housing downturn, which is a shame for the folks who did like it there.

[Rod Sheridan]

Have you ever been in an old house or fixed old furniture? Old musical instruments? Old anything. I'm sorry, but the level of craftsmanship I see is far higher and more abundant today than any other time in the past I can think of. How many here had a dad that was a craftsman? By this thread, you would think that everyone's father was a woodworker or stone mason, or at least very handy around the house.


.

Hi John, I agree.

I was talking to my FIL who is a retired cabinet maker, who served his apprenticeship in England. His comment was that hobby workers today produce far nicer work than most professional cabinet makers produced in the past, or present. There are exceptions of course, most of my FIL's work was commissioned by clients so the rsults were expected to be very good, however most cabinet makers produced goods to a price point, no point having your china cabinet much better than the competition if you couldn't get the money for it.

regards, Rod.

[Rich Engelhardt]

Have you ever been in an old house or fixed old furniture? Old musical instruments? Old anything.

We own 5 house...4 of them were built, 1949, 1955, 1954, 1956 and the fifth one we had built for us in 1986.
I've spent the last 26 years doing and redoing our house.
The other 4 are rentals - which we spent a year each on doing rehabs.

When it comes to actually purchasing a house, we follow the theme of the axiom, "look at a thousand, make an offer on a hundred and buy one".

So yes - I've spent a lot of time in old houses...


I also remember back to the early days of hot rods and muscle cars.
The guys that built their own hot rods were true craftsman.

Then there were the rich punks that had daddys that bought them a Z28.... or a 427 Vette...or a 426 Hemi Charger....
Good thing self serve gas stations were a thing of the future since a lot of those guys had zilch idea of where the gas cap was.

Since I was neither, I got to look at it from the outside. Even as an outsider, I got a good chuckle over the guys that were proud of what any fool w/enough cash could have.

[Matt McColley]

Belinda,

You must be getting the same batch of applicants I am. I had a very nice young guy right out of the Colorado School of Design with a bachelors degree in Industrial Design in my office last year for a CAD draftsmen/designer position. I did some snooping around to see what kind of a program he had completed b4 he came in, so I could gage what we might need to offer him. Program is only three years long ..... Hmmm, Only math class listed on the syllabus is Algebra..... Hmmm. When the guy came in I was initially impressed. Dressed appropriately... eye contact... spoke pretty well... had a portfolio of some pretty impressive looking work....

But I have this little problem, and that is, I want to see a demonstration of skills and aptitude to back up the claims on the resume. So I give my "little quiz" which consists of 1) some simple math 2) folding up some lego block type product samples and 3) sitting in the drivers seat and drafting a simple part.

Question #1.... we dimension all our prints fractionally... so please tell me what 3/4 + 1/8 equals. Long pause... :^O

O.K. I'm not completely devoid of understanding.... it's an interview, he's nervous, I'm intimidating.... Hey, relax and take your time, here's a pencil and paper. Long pause... then he starts drawing a tape measure... and after an embarassing 5 min. I say, Well let's move on to the next question.

The rest of the interview was pretty much a formality, so as to not make him feel bad.

That night at the dinner table, I ask my 4th grade daughter "what's 3/4 + 1/8 equal" .... and after about two seconds, she sounds off "7/8"

Darn it all.... I can't hire her, becuase she's not 18 years old yet. :^)

[Jim Koepke]

I know people left and right that are masterful craftsman and they have no work because no one wants to pay for it. They're out there but you have to pay. We used to be more willing to pay for a quality job. That's all that's changed. People got cheap and don't appreciate quality anymore

Attitude has a lot to do with the disappearance of quality.

"Close enough for government work." Is one that I particularly dislike.

I have worked in groups where some of the people are true professionals (skilled craftspeople) and there are a lot of people just there to collect a pay check.

I have seen people buy tool shaped objects because they were so much cheaper to buy than the real tool.

It is not uncommon to see someone look at a hand made lawn chair and claim it is just like the molded plastic things down at the local Borg.

As long as people believe the cheap knock off made in China is as good as the higher priced quality item at the mom & pop retailer, the quality items will be driven from the market. Mom & pop will be long gone when people finally realize they have been taken for a bumpy ride.

jtk

[Lee Ludden]

Your great-grandparents probably had several pieces of furniture. The piece that is still around was probably the best made, or most valuable of the lot. Most of what they had was probably thrown away or just wore out. It is easy to look at these solid, well-made antiques and think they were common, but they weren't. People bought what they could afford, made do with what they had, or did without. What has changed with modern mass production and cheap imports is that the bottom has gotten higher. Good quality is available to the people who can afford it, but those who can't afford it can still get something.

Even in my own lifetime, I can only think of two pieces of furniture that my parents had when I was a kid that is still around, both of which happen to have been made by my Dad. Looking at those pieces, it is easy to think "wow, what great stuff people had back then". Truth is, most of it was barely serviceable and not missed at all once it was replaced. The cheap stuff of today is much better than the cheap stuff of 40 years ago.

[Brian Elfert]

A problem with new homes, especially now, is it costs more to build new than to buy an existing home. How many people would buy a house built by master craftsman if it cost $100,000 or $150,000 more than the same house built to lower standard of finish?

I looked at a lot of houses when I had mine built 11 years ago. Some of the models I looked at were a joke. The fit and finish was nice in the finished areas, but you went down into the basement and even I could tell they didn't do a very good job on the basic structure of the house. I choose a really good builder who is very picky about his houses. His bid was 10% more than the other guy, but he was also using a better grade of materials including Andersen Windows instead of cheap builder grade vinyl windows.

[Jim Matthews]

It's not just the satisfaction of doing it myself; it was necessity.

I live in South Coastal Massachusetts and competence is rare.
It is self-defense to do things on my own, that way repairs are done once.

The real fallout of declining skillsets is that hacks now populate the skilled trades and charge the same rates as true professionals.

There are now two generations of middle-management types enslaved by their plumber/roofers/electricians.

We're paying way too much for the lessons we should have learned in shop class, had we just paid attention.

jim
wpt, ma

[Rod Sheridan]

A different take on things. As a partner in a small business that produces a quality product, our biggest issue with meeting quality standards and deadlines is difficulty in finding qualified employees. There are eager young men out there ready and willing to work, but they can't grasp the concept of where we need to be on the quality scale, can't read a measuring tape, can't add and or substract fractions - much less understand 10th and 100th increments of inches for tolerances. I don't know what they are learning in the public school system, but whatever it is doesn't serve them very well in the work force. These same young men expect to start out at $18 to $20 per hour. We have a good group currently but need to hire more workers. I have one guy that is a craftsman. He is a stoneworker, and he's the best I've seen in a long time. He holds himself to a high standard and takes a great deal of pride in his work. He tells me if a part is unacceptable, I don't have to tell him.

Belinda, I'm not being critical of your business in any way, however it sounds like you're expecting people with no qualifications or training to be able to work as a craftsman.

If I was taking people in with zero skills I would expect to have to provide them with an apprenticeship type experience. (Perhaps you already do this).

Where I work we only hire Techs with a 3 year diploma, then the training starts on what we do in particular.

I do have to laugh at your comment about not being able to read a tape measure however, I've met many people like that. Simplest solution is to buy metric measuring tools so you don't need fractions, as I doubt you're going to influence the schools enough to teach more mathematics and science.......Rod.