Comments on: Is Mike Rowe Right about the War on Work?

By: Jerry Pollard

Jerry Pollard — Mon, 30 Sep 2013 13:25:34 +0000

Right on...and the attitude
Right on...and the attitude (negative) carries over into the trades - each despising the other and running roughshod over work performed by the other (destroying, "unintentionally", work gone on before, not caring if other work has been compromised by our despicable behavior.

Lousy attitudes produce lousy workmanship...however that attitude has come to envelope our minds.

By: Thomas Billups

Thomas Billups — Fri, 27 Sep 2013 22:05:49 +0000

Great article Allison. Mike
Great article Allison. Mike Rowe is working with Governor Deal’s Go Build Georgia campaign http://gobuildgeorgia.com/news/2012/01/deal-mike-rowe-team-up-to-plug-ga-s-skills-gap/. I work in home building and teach carpentry and construction management students at an Atlanta community college, so I see this first hand.
Kim Shanahan (and Mike’s poster) is right on point – we’ve got to change our education system. The drop-out rate isn’t increasing because kids are getting dumber (well maybe a little), but because the one-size-fits-all education philosophy does not work. We’re doomed if we don’t return shop class, wood shop, and other trades options to the schools.

By: bobspez

bobspez — Tue, 24 Sep 2013 22:56:23 +0000

Not to mention the cronyism
Not to mention the cronyism and nepotism that went along with unions. I don't know how it is today, but 30 years ago, you practically had to be born into the trades in order to get into the more lucrative union jobs.

By: John Nicholas

John Nicholas — Tue, 24 Sep 2013 19:04:09 +0000

Andrew is right. That
Andrew is right. That competitiveness and we know better is still prevalent on the job site today. I see more of it from the older tradesman, then the younger.

Most recently was the plumber that was unhappy with the placement of the HVAC unit making it hard to get his DHW in place. I had to point out that the HVAC guy did what he did because the plumber ran the pex in the slab wrong.

When the various trades get pushed by the builders for quality over low price - that attitude will begin to change.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Tue, 24 Sep 2013 17:47:02 +0000

The problem with this premiss
The problem with this premiss is that "hands on" types of different trades relate to each other. I majored in English, but couldn't wait to finish and build cabinets. I did so for 20 years. Being on job sites for all those years I came to understand the invisible (sometimes) hierarchy that existed. The HVAC guy thought he was smarter than the electrician- the electrician thought he was smarter than the plumber- the plumber thought he was smarter than the cabinet guy...and this went on down the line. I didn't witness any if the we-are-all-in-this-together coziness that Rowe wants to portray.

By: gennaro ameno

gennaro ameno — Tue, 24 Sep 2013 08:56:14 +0000

Re: Lamb Testacles
Re: Lamb Testacles

Errol Flynn's Biography (My Wicked Wicked Ways)describes the same castration procedure he employed on a ranch in Australia during his pre- Hollywood career. saecastration process

By: bobspez

bobspez — Tue, 24 Sep 2013 07:32:09 +0000

Great post. There's nothing
Great post. There's nothing wrong with a college degree, but it needs experience to make it saleable. That's the rub, people come out of college with a degree and no experience, then find they need to start from scratch. Whatever path one chooses in life, the best career advice I ever got was that a person should find their niche, something they are good at and enjoy, and then pursue it regardless of pay or status. The second best piece of advice I got was that a person can get pretty much what they want in life, it just takes a lot longer to get it than you want it to. Now retired, I found both of those pieces of advice to be absolutely true and they worked for me.

By: Cameron Taylor

Cameron Taylor — Mon, 23 Sep 2013 19:02:01 +0000

Mike Rowe rocks. I appreciate
Mike Rowe rocks. I appreciate his advocating for the trades. I knew back in high school I wanted to enter the HVAC trade vs. college. That said, I do see the value of a college level HVAC program coinciding with field experience. The "learn it in the field only" guys can get pretty far, but without a solid grounding in how all this stuff REALLY works, they can get hamstrung on tough calls. Likewise the college HVAC student who lacks field experience can be "all hat and no cattle" when trying to get field work.

This coincides with Mike's "Work Smarter AND Harder" poster. We need hard working, smart people in HVAC, building science remedial work, and every other honorable trade we depend on daily. As an HVAC instructor I hope to instill even a fraction of that emphasis as Mike Rowe does full time.

By: geoff hartman

geoff hartman — Mon, 23 Sep 2013 18:43:24 +0000

Right on point. How can we
Right on point. How can we do buildings right when there is this deep lack of respect for the workers that need to apply the science, and likewise back at those running the business and consulting on how to do things right? - - "That college kid ass-whipe doesn't know diddly" and "Those knot-heads can't get it right." Are just a few comments we hear every day.

As technology exponentially drives efficiency (read less workers needed) and we learn (?) In school only college degrees and white collar jobs are respectable, who would wan't to do "work?"

Add then add the trend to pay less and less, always insist on lowest price, and focus on high profile individuals. We worship the sports star who earns millions per game and pity the guy who keeps the toilets working. BUT, we absolutely insist the toilets work perfectly all the time. Maybe the plumber is more valuable to our lives than the sports star!?

Maybe we should take the HVAC tech to lunch, and training to the field!? Instead of taking the boss to lunch and training just supervisors & consultants in air conditioned classrooms? (Where, by the way we talk down those technicians being driven to do more work in less time, and without the right tools, for not analyzing the house as a system with proper building science.

As Arsinio used to say; "Makes you say - Hmmmmm."

By: kim shanahan

kim shanahan — Mon, 23 Sep 2013 18:31:57 +0000

Allison you are on to
Allison you are on to something here. As the head of an HBA I’m around a lot of contractors who are smart, progressive and fully engaged in emerging building science. But if you get three or four of them together and ask them how they did in school, at least one of them will bring up the D word – dyslexia. As a contractor for 25 years before I became an HBA Executive Officer, I was around many very talented workers who couldn’t read words but could read plans and tape measures. Most of them were smart and learned to overcome their deficiencies.
Our educational system has virtually abandoned trades education in public high schools in favor of making everyone “college-bound”. In our “progressive” town we have a nearly 50% drop-out rate because of these misguided priorities. And the school system has accepted this because once the dropouts are out of the system the percentage of graduates who go to college is high, so it feels like success.
The tragedy is that many of those dropouts wind up in our industry anyway. But because they have had years of shattered self-esteem, they often come with baggage - drugs, alcohol, ajudication, poor work habits, etc. Here in our town, with strong support from our HBA and Communityc College, we are now underway with efforts to change that paradigm and are laying the groundwork for a Sustainable Careers Academy that would be a magnet school focused on hands on, experiential education. The idea is to convince kids to stay in school because we need the brightest and most motivated to learn the skills necessary for building homes. Reading may be fundamental but it isn’t the only thing. Convincing a young man that a great career is possible and that being tagged as stupid, slow, or stuck on the short bus is not one’s life sentence is necessary for the future of our industry.
Glad you have brought up the subject.