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The Nation's Pulse
Save Our Souls
It is never too late to take shop class.
Like Matthew Crawford, the author of the hip new anti-big business diatribe Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry Into the Value of Work, I recently gave up my “knowledge” job for more physically strenuous and less intellectually engaging work. So far the results are mixed. If my last job seemed like one continuous and monotonous meeting about the company’s bottom line, my new gig could be done by a trained monkey. No doubt the company is training my primate replacement as we speak.
But that’s where the similarities end. Unlike me, Crawford spent most of his life in prestigious schools, eventually earning a doctorate in political philosophy from the University of Chicago. After graduation he landed his dream job at a Washington, D.C. think tank. Tragically, after only a couple of months of hard thinking, Crawford began to get Cubicle Fever. Like all young boys, he longed to be outdoors. Not only that, but his work began to seem pointless and enervating. Even debasing. He complained of being “always tired.” Crawford fell into a blue funk and a brown study.
So Crawford resigned his job with the think tank and went off to repair motorcycles and write books that combine updated elements of '50s sociological critiques (The Organization Man) with '60s-style metaphysics (Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance), the gist of which is that cube dwellers need to get a life. And a real job. A real job, of course, is one where you are not simply a cog in the machine and where you actually create something useful. Crawford wants all of us — or those of us who can be saved — to learn a trade or start a small business, but for godsakes stay out of that vile cesspool of corruption known as Cubicle Alley.
It’s an old story. Smart guys have been dumping their office jobs in favor of getting their hands dirty at least since Cincinnatus twice resigned the job of Roman dictator for that of dirt farmer. The trouble is, more people still want to be Roman dictator than dirt farmer. And that includes most dirt farmers. Just ask them.
CRAWFORD’S BOOK documents the many valuable life lessons learned and philosophical insights gleaned from fixing motorcycles, lessons he would never have learned at the think tank, and insights he would never have gleaned were it not for a doctorate in political philosophy. Nothing against motorcycle mechanics, but most simply don’t have the language and knowledge base to compare a leaky oil cylinder on a 1983 Honda Magna V45 with Heidegger’s question of being.
Still, Crawford has a point. I know I learned many valuable life lessons while working strenuous jobs, lessons that are simply unavailable to managers of staff of test engineers or facilitators of follow-up meetings. Here are but a few:
While working at Steak n Shake I learned that repeatedly dipping your hand into a vat of bubble gum ice cream will cause your fingers to freeze and hurt like hell. This became a lesson in how repetitive action can become dangerous when it becomes fixated.
While working as a bartender at the bowling alley I learned that there is always a little left over in the blender after you mix a frozen strawberry margarita, and if the boss isn’t around you get to drink this, and if the bar is busy and there is a lot left in the blender, you can get totally wasted. This became a lesson in the Metaphysics of Quality. At least that’s what I told myself to disguise the fact that I was an overweight 30-year-old single bartender with a drinking problem.
While working as a day laborer I learned that lifting 80 pounds of cement over and over again can cause the vertebrae in the lumbar region of the spine to tear, which can result in a painful and disfiguring injury. This became yet another lesson in how repetitive action can become dangerous when it becomes fixated.
While working as a clerk at K-Mart I learned that you could hide in the upper loft in the hardware department for up to 20 minutes before your supervisor would come looking for you. This became a lesson in how the hiding of man’s livelihood induces myths. Like the myth of the absentee hardware department clerk.
But by far the most valuable message I took away from Crawford’s book is that the best way to save this country and our souls is for more University of Chicago Ph.D. graduates to become mechanics, and more Harvard MBA graduates to become plumbers. Why not? Mechanics and plumbers earn great money, they provide a useful service, and they have yet to wreck the economy.
I couldn’t agree more.
About the Author
Christopher Orlet writes from St. Louis.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (20) | Leave a comment
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Gene Schmidt| 5.27.09 @ 8:50AM
Everyone should hold at least one miserable, back-breaking job, performed under the strict supervision of one certified S.O.B. boss, at least once in their lives. It can be a valuable life experience. But pity those who, unlike Matthew Crawford, do not have a choice in the matter and are condmened to a life of pointless drudgery (not to mention poverty).
Anastasia Mather| 5.27.09 @ 9:10AM
I believe at one time (don't know if it's still true) Orthodox Jews would not only train their boys intellectual, through rigorous study of the Talmud and Scripture, but would also make them learn a trade. I think they were right. I believe this balances people out - they use their brains, and they use their brawn, and one can survive the vagaries of life if one has learned how to use both.
Ryan| 5.27.09 @ 9:34AM
The ability (or at least desire) to fix things is practically implanted into men by God. I grew up helping my grandfather tinker around with his various perpetually broken old machines and tools and stuff. It was GREAT, and I can do most basic mechanical work around my house, saving me a chunk of change in the long run.
I'm learning some basic woodworking and craftsman-type stuff - I'm incredibly inept with a tape measure and hammer - but I'm getting better. It gets me out from in front of a computer and doing something useful, while actually accomplishing something I can touch and feel and know that I did something worthwhile.
Too many kids don't know this stuff, stuck in front of a game console or computer (and I thoroughly enjoy video games) that do little to teach them to be productive. Too few tinker with stuff with their dads and learn to enjoy working with their hands, which is a great stress reliever and engages the mind.
Stan Redmond| 5.27.09 @ 11:28AM
It was my college business professor who said the American corporate habit is to promote someone to their maximum level of uselessness. How true it is. I have worked up to the ranks from lowly floor worker to program manager of large manufacturing plants. needless to say i hated everyday of my "management" job because I never got to do what I loved to do. SO! now I'm self employed and loving it.
Tony in Central PA| 5.27.09 @ 11:58AM
Summers in college, I mostly worked for a moving company. I loved it ; the simplicity, the strenuous labor ( of course, I was 19 - 20 years old ) and the cameraderie of my coworkers who didn't know what to make of this " college boy ". I went back a few years after grad school. Things had clearly changed. There was a labor shortage problem. The manager told me that " Young people aren't willing to do this kind of work anymore ". Its a shame, because for a lot of guys in my generation and before, working like this was a real formative experience.
Gary| 5.27.09 @ 3:17PM
In retrospect, it was a dark day when I was fetched from Shop class in junior high school and assigned to Journalism class. I suspect that the school administration thought that anybody could do manual arts but only a few could do journalism. Time has proved how wrong they were.
Ryan| 5.27.09 @ 3:46PM
We're finding more and more that good craftsmen and tradesmen are worth their weight in gold. We NEED two-track systems for colleges, and need to encourage kids who are good with their hands that such work is worthwhile...and tell the kids who aren't that they better respect their plumber.
Old Texican| 5.27.09 @ 5:26PM
My wife is THE premier Pediatric Prosthetist on earth. She fits children with those bionic hands/arms.
Most of you have seen her on TV somewhere or other. (youtube type in search.....child prosthesis.
Enjoy! 26 #1 rated videos now.)
Helping her with her worldwide practice, I have done some research.
A German doctor wrote a book called "The Hand".
He discovered that the old saw..."hands on knowledge is better than book learning...any old day".....is in fact the overarching TRUTH.
There is a feedback loop between our hands and our minds...(our learning centers)...that cannot be broken.
...Our hands teach our minds even as our minds control our hands...ask any great surgeon.
Hands on work is so fulfilling.
Marc | 5.28.09 @ 12:29AM
My life has been interesting. I grew up in the country, had snakes, Horned toads and other critters as pets. My most strenuous and nasty job was loading hay bales onto a too tall trailer for $1/ Hr. That lasted one season. My life has come full circle from my early life, through years of big city living to my life now on 16 Ac of land near Houston. Now I am sweating doing my own planting and maintaining, though most of this is jungle and will stay that way for the critters to live in and amuse me.
My first jobs were an incentive for me to learn more. I worked for a TV repair shop for a while, a high end electronics store (Tube stuff) in High School, and an engineering company, HERCO, while getting my BSEE. Then I went to work for CONOCO. It was both the best and the worst you can imagine. The money was great at first, and the
benefits made up for the really crappy work environment later. I was offered a good RIF package when I turned 50 in the last downturn, and have not looked back.
Back to the past:
I learned from my dad how to repair anything that was broke. He, my Mom, and I fixed everything. I never remember a single repair person ever called.
Hurricane Carla? We replaced the entire roof ourselves. Car repairs? We repaired everything. He taught me how to rebuild a 1954 Chevy that I drove my first couple years at Texas Tech.
Today:
We bought land out here in the early '90s and cleared enough to have a shell built- a nice small cabin. I did all of the utility installation myself (Plumbing. LP gas piping, water, and electrical) with help from my wife. We did the interior framing and insulation as well as most of the Sheetrock. And to date, this is a work in progress.
And we owe nothing to anyone now.
My first SS check came this month. I never thought I would see that either.
Catholic Mom| 5.29.09 @ 5:34PM
I have the best husband EVER. He can fix anything...cars, appliances, plumbing, computers, etc. We have saved so much money on repairs, and with seven kids we need every penny. When we were first married, I threw my broken hair-dryer in the trash. The next morning it was on my bathroom counter with a new cord..good as new. I am very blessed.