Think of the craftsman

[jemhouston]

https://knightonexperiment.substack.com ... -craftsman

Think of the craftsman
Tom Knighton
19 hr ago

person in black suit holding brown leather bag
Photo by Salvador Godoy on Unsplash

One thing I’ve seen grow in recent years is a certain veneration of the trades. People like Mike Rowe have shined a light not just on how important their work is but also on the benefits one can derive from going into a trade.

After all, when you look at college debt, then think about how much less trade school costs, plus how you can make good money right out of the gate, it’s not difficult to see why it has become attractive to so many.

When I thought of the trades, I thought of things like electricians, plumbers, and auto mechanics. All of those are tradesmen we need at various times and they’re in no danger of running out of work anytime soon.

But there are entire categories of people in trades that, well, they might.

For example, if you had a plumbing problem, you could probably tell me who you would call. The same if a light fixture started acting funny or a toilet in your home started backing up.

What would you do, though, if your pants were too loose? What if your shoe soles started to wear thin?

If you’re like most people, you’d simply toss them and buy new ones.

To be fair, with a lot of pants or shoes, that makes financial sense. It’s more expensive to resole some shoes than to replace them, after all.

And that’s kind of the problem.

See, tailors and cobblers are tradesmen as well. In fact, I’m now of the opinion that every man needs a tailor and a cobbler to go along with their barber.

Why? Because quality has a quantity all its own.

Yeah, I know that phrase usually goes the other way around, but we’re not talking about warfare where you need a lot of tanks and airplanes. We’re talking about clothes and accouterments. You can only wear one suit and one pair of shoes at a time. You’ve only got one head to wear a hat on. You don’t need 500 of each to have a well-rounded wardrobe.

So why do we? Why do we, as a society, insist on buying so much so cheaply?

What’s more, are you someone who supports those in the trades while simultaneously engaging in activity that threatens some of them?

Look, I get that not everyone can drop $500 for shoes or $5,000 for suits. I sure can’t, after all, so there’s no way I’d expect anyone else to. In fact, no one has to do any such thing.

However, what they can do is buy the best quality they can find, particularly in a grade that can be repaired and/or altered if needed.

We can start utilizing these tradesmen, hopefully needing them more often than our plumbers or auto mechanics. Not only will we dress better, but we’ll also show more young people there are other ways to go forward in life without spending tens of thousands of dollars to get a college degree that qualifies them for little more than to ask, “Do you want fries with that?”

Nothing against fast food workers, mind you, but spending years in college only to work where you could have straight out of high school doesn’t make any kind of financial sense.

Supporting these endangered trades means that these trades may expand. Suddenly, tailoring looks like a viable career path. The same can be said of shoe repair or cutting hair or hand crafting belts or whatever.

Those of us who have our careers sort of figured out? Why not show we support the trades by, you know, actually supporting the trades instead of just paying lip service and keeping so many trades at arm’s length?

Of course, you may read this and think, “Nah. Pass.”

That’s your right, of course. You can do as you wish on that front. But I hope some of you will think a little bit differently.