My artist life partner had a good laugh when she found out that our male friend is waiting for a handyman to have her painting hanged as if driving nail into a wall was some sort of job for skilled professional.
What Being a Handyman Has Taught Me About Male Insecurity
31–40 of 134 posts
Re: What Being a Handyman Has Taught Me About Male Insecurity
#32> Although I've worked for plenty of men who seem to be perfectly comfortable with the arrangement of using the money they earn with their own skills to pay for someone else's expertise, there are three reactions I've grown familiar with that suggest there's often anxiety about letting another guy do your "man jobs." I grew up here in the U.S., but I still find Westerners weird sometimes. My dad grew up in a village…
I feel exactly the same way. Nothing makes me happier than to hire a skilled tradesman and see the great results when the work done. His work is going to be much better than mine, assuming I could even do it. I don't really understand why any guy would be threatened by this. I think of it as working smarter, not harder.
Re: What Being a Handyman Has Taught Me About Male Insecurity
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
" Stocking a basic toolbox is extraordinarily inexpensive, there's really no reason not to have one." This is great advice, anyone reading who doesn't have at least the basics please get them. I have a few friends who I help out on occasion and it is incredibly frustrating to not have the basic tools available. Decent screwdriver set Socket set Hammer Electrical Pliers Multimeter Pliers Adjustable Wrench Just these b…
Pfft. A basic toolbox doesn't even get you halfway there. Here's why. Because the basic tools are not the keys to the kingdom. The way it works is this. You NEED to familiarize yourself with all the little connectors, fasteners, bolts screws and materials. Hundreds or thousands of them. Got a nice drill? Great. Guess what you better know what masonry bit is, and that you need to use a smaller bit than what you think,…
220, 221, whatever it takes.
Re: What Being a Handyman Has Taught Me About Male Insecurity
#34Until I went to college I didn't realize not everyone learned wood and metalworking in school. Industrial Arts, it was called. We learned to make jewelry, forge with iron, etc. Then in high school I did woodworking instead, and made furniture, which most of us sold as a side job. I just thought that was totally normal. I'm still not sure why it isn't.
The farthest I ever went was metal shop in middle school and wood shop 1 in high school...
Re: What Being a Handyman Has Taught Me About Male Insecurity
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
" Stocking a basic toolbox is extraordinarily inexpensive, there's really no reason not to have one." This is great advice, anyone reading who doesn't have at least the basics please get them. I have a few friends who I help out on occasion and it is incredibly frustrating to not have the basic tools available. Decent screwdriver set Socket set Hammer Electrical Pliers Multimeter Pliers Adjustable Wrench Just these b…
Pfft. A basic toolbox doesn't even get you halfway there. Here's why. Because the basic tools are not the keys to the kingdom. The way it works is this. You NEED to familiarize yourself with all the little connectors, fasteners, bolts screws and materials. Hundreds or thousands of them. Got a nice drill? Great. Guess what you better know what masonry bit is, and that you need to use a smaller bit than what you think,…
The point isn't to be able to DYI your way through any possible home or auto repair or renovation job. If you want to become a professional and do everything that's an entirely different kettle of fish. But you can certainly become vastly more self-reliant rather easily.
You don't need to fix anything and everything, that's what professionals are for. Being able to know some simple things like how to jump start a car, how to change a battery, how to put a nail in a wall, how to fix your clogged sink, etc. are all super useful day-to-day. And they give you a little bit of grounding to be able to partially understand more complicated stuff that a professional might do when he or she is repairing your car or upgrading your kitchen.
Re: What Being a Handyman Has Taught Me About Male Insecurity
#36Is it me or are there an extremely large number of front-page stories from The Atlantic today? There are three on the frontpage right now, with 2 more in the next three pages (all of which frontpaged at least for a moment).
Seems suspect. Not sure why this type of content is being posted on hacker news. It's a poorly written article not having to do with this site's prerogative..
Re: What Being a Handyman Has Taught Me About Male Insecurity
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
" Stocking a basic toolbox is extraordinarily inexpensive, there's really no reason not to have one." This is great advice, anyone reading who doesn't have at least the basics please get them. I have a few friends who I help out on occasion and it is incredibly frustrating to not have the basic tools available. Decent screwdriver set Socket set Hammer Electrical Pliers Multimeter Pliers Adjustable Wrench Just these b…
Pfft. A basic toolbox doesn't even get you halfway there. Here's why. Because the basic tools are not the keys to the kingdom. The way it works is this. You NEED to familiarize yourself with all the little connectors, fasteners, bolts screws and materials. Hundreds or thousands of them. Got a nice drill? Great. Guess what you better know what masonry bit is, and that you need to use a smaller bit than what you think,…
A lot of this stuff is what you might expect from the level of a craftsman. For those of us who aren't interested in putting in the 10 years to get to that level, we'll make the joint compound and the wrong washer work good enough.
Re: What Being a Handyman Has Taught Me About Male Insecurity
#38There's always the choice to be made:
The handyman/contractor/mechanic has the skills, and the tools, and probably knows what to do, but in my experience often doesn't give a shit about the quality of his work. (But see below)
I don't have the skills, and may not have the tools, and I don't know what to do, but given time I have proven myself able to learn, and I really do care how things turn out.
Often 'giving a shit' makes up for a lot more of your initial ignorance than you would think.
If there was some great way of finding that rare someone who did have pride in their workmanship (or at least could adequately describe the various tradeoffs that might be made) it would be a lot easier for me to trust someone else to do the work.
Re: What Being a Handyman Has Taught Me About Male Insecurity
#39Is it me or are there an extremely large number of front-page stories from The Atlantic today? There are three on the frontpage right now, with 2 more in the next three pages (all of which frontpaged at least for a moment).
The Atlantic was banned from reddit for spamming last year. Wouldn't surprise me if they were doing the same BS here.
Well, the submitter of this article has a 5 year old account. They frequently submit news articles from a variety of sources, and are also an active commenter. (Though, they do seem to like posting quotes.)
The other two atlantic articles on the front page are from 2-3 year old accounts that likewise post a lot of pieces from various newspapers.
You're welcome to dig through their posting history for a conspiracy, but it's not jumping out at me.
Re: What Being a Handyman Has Taught Me About Male Insecurity
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
The richest people I know personally are all incredibly hard workers with rather wide-ranging skillsets and certainly a willingness to try new things. But that's just anecdotal so take it with a grain of salt.
Exactly this. It is all anecdotal. I was just telling an opposing anecdote the the original story. It does depend on what you are doing and how difficult the particular job is. Cutting wood and hammering nails is easy and somehow relaxing. Tiling walls and roofing are both difficult and easy to screw up, and I don't think I ever had the homeowner with me on those occasions. Painting, laying linoleum, hanging prefab c…
Having some sweat equity, as an owner, is really nice. It just gives you a good feeling about your house, car, etc., to know that you built at least some of it with your own hands.
I love to work on my muscle car. To me, just writing a check to buy someone else's muscle car is not interesting, nor does anyone have "cred" with me if they just bought it.