“R.E.S.P.E.C.T. … all I’m askin’/Is for a little respect when you come home.”
—Otis Redding
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How about a little respect for the work I’m doing, for the work I’ve done, for the skills I’ve honed, for the care I take to make it right? Don’t look down on me while I’m on my knees plying my craft; rather, look up at my ability to do the work, and do it right, with pride.
I’m a floor man, a carpenter, plumber, electrician, landscaper, a proud worker bee. Without me, nothing gets done, nothing gets built—progress comes to a halt. Still, folks look at me, at us, as mere cogs in the gears. We are more than that; we build the gears and perfect the engineers’ designs in the real world.
We like the visceral feel of working with our hands and our minds. We are the tinkerers who improve designs. We invent better ways of doing the work and the tools to do it better and with less pain.
We feed, clothe, educate and keep a roof over our families' heads with our literal sweat and blood. Yet, over the years, respect for the working person has waned to the point where fewer people aspire to learn a craft. Instead, many go to college and acquire mountains of debt only to find that AI and automation are taking the jobs they studied for.
This is happening as hands-on workers become harder to find. There is a generation that doesn’t go out to play. They are attached to their “smart” devices, spending inordinate amounts of time in fantasies created by others, not developing people skills or engaging in athletics, music or art. There are few-to-no shop classes, music or art classes. There’s a perception of tradespeople as being somehow uneducated or insensitive to the arts. It’s to the point where, when discussing literature, they think we think Moby Dick is a social disease! It is a sad fallacy.
Think of some of the greatest minds in history who were both deep thinkers and great craftsmen and women: Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Galileo, Newton, Edison, Bell, Tesla, Madame Curie and on and on.
Asian societies revere work; those who work with their hands are integral to their societies. In contrast, here we have the term "grunt work," and the word "labor" is considered derogatory. People talk about bringing manufacturing back to the U.S. It’s going to be really hard to do when no one wants to work in a factory, carry wood up flights of stairs, dig foundations for buildings or even do the fine skills required to call oneself an artisan. Might get a blister, or get shocked, get a splinter or break a sweat!
Until we go back to offering education in both middle school and high school to those people who may have a proclivity to learn a trade through shop classes or home economics, or those with a talent in the arts and music, we are spinning our wheels. One should be as proud to say, "My child is a journeyman," as they are to say, "My child is a college graduate."
Here is how I see the world in the simplest terms: First, someone must sell something tangible to someone else. Second, for that sale to take place, someone must build whatever’s being sold. The principle of Occam’s razor: “The simplest solution is usually the best.”
So, show some respect to the person who cuts your hair or your lawn. Be grateful for the person who cuts the meat you buy or bakes the birthday cake or drives a truck to deliver literally everything we use. Support them, yes, admire them. Support hands-on training in flooring through vocational education, union trade schools, associations such as the National Wood Flooring Association, the Ceramic Tile Education Foundation, the National Tile Contractors Association and many others. And support your kids and anyone’s kids when they talk about going into the trades, because they are our future.
