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Just Your Handyman
51–60 of 82 posts
Re: Just Your Handyman
#52That the author describes himself as a self-taught handyman may not sound like much to USA readers like myself, but it's my understanding that Canada has a much more widespread formal trade apprentice program than what's available in the states (through unions). I've always wished something like that was developed here, since it doesn't seem like union labor will ever make inroads on the USA residential market.
How in the world would more regulation around who can fix a piece of broken trim board help at all?
We should be thankful the US doesn’t have a system like that which artificially reduces the supply of labor.
We should make it easier for people to work in the trades. Not wrap and bunch of unnecessary formality and regulation around it.
Re: Just Your Handyman
#53That the author describes himself as a self-taught handyman may not sound like much to USA readers like myself, but it's my understanding that Canada has a much more widespread formal trade apprentice program than what's available in the states (through unions). I've always wished something like that was developed here, since it doesn't seem like union labor will ever make inroads on the USA residential market.
How in the world would more regulation around who can fix a piece of broken trim board help at all? We should be thankful the US doesn’t have a system like that which artificially reduces the supply of labor. We should make it easier for people to work in the trades. Not wrap and bunch of unnecessary formality and regulation around it.
It doesn't seem to reduce the supply of labor in Canada, since the author of the article is self-taught.
However it's likely to increase the overall level of training, which is good for someone who needs their broken trim board replaced.
Re: Just Your Handyman
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
How in the world would more regulation around who can fix a piece of broken trim board help at all? We should be thankful the US doesn’t have a system like that which artificially reduces the supply of labor. We should make it easier for people to work in the trades. Not wrap and bunch of unnecessary formality and regulation around it.
It doesn't seem to reduce the supply of labor in Canada, since the author of the article is self-taught. However it's likely to increase the overall level of training, which is good for someone who needs their broken trim board replaced.
No it’s not good. The lower the barrier to every the better. More ability to choose the level of quality work you desire. A handyman for bill gates is going to be a complete different class than one for the roach motel but it’s still good if the roach motel can get one.
Re: Just Your Handyman
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
I mostly agree with you. I've been a full-time software engineer for the past 28 years and a part-time handyman for the past 5 months. One of the biggest differences that you don't mention is the use of your body. Software engineering is purely intellectual -- often to the detriment of your body (or mine, anyways) since it's often the case where I sit at the keyboard for hours on end, day after day. As a handyman, yo…
> One of the biggest differences that you don't mention is the use of your body. Oh, for sure. I was a dev for many years, then switched to product design. What I left out of my first comment was that my older brother is a maintenance guy for a hospital—basically a handyman with an office in the basement. Growing up, it was clear that he was at least as smart as me, but at a certain point he went one direction and I…
"... smart for being programmers just because we get paid too much for it"
I wish people would stop propagating this idea. The opposite is true.
Re: Just Your Handyman
#56> My kids get regular doses of “No limits!” and “You can be whatever you want!” in school, and I resent it because it simply isn’t true. You cannot actually be whatever you want. That’s harmful, sentimental garbage. Fact is, the real world is chock full of limits. This is the danger of participation awards. It's how people end up in careers they aren't suited to. As a society, we owe it to our children to be honest w…
Like remedial math, those messages might not be targeted at your kids, or any kids who get meaningful support at home. There are a lot of kids who are constantly told they are useless and will never be good for anything.
Sure, for any kind of cliche/advice, for any kind of delivering it, there exist people who need to read/hear that in exactly that form. But - unlike with remedial math - there also exist people who will be harmed by the same thing. Surely there must be a better way than shooting any given idea+form at everyone, and hoping the exposed population biases towards those who'll find it non-harmful?
Re: Just Your Handyman
#57> My kids get regular doses of “No limits!” and “You can be whatever you want!” in school, and I resent it because it simply isn’t true. You cannot actually be whatever you want. That’s harmful, sentimental garbage. Fact is, the real world is chock full of limits. This is the danger of participation awards. It's how people end up in careers they aren't suited to. As a society, we owe it to our children to be honest w…
Yes, although... don't underestimate the mental strain of always struggling financially and worrying about bills and rent
Indeed. It takes living through bad and good times to fully understand just how much money actually buys happiness, by shielding you from countless of soul-training problems and death through thousand little tradeoffs.
It's been said that "money is unit of caring", in the sense that if you're not willing to spend money on something, you're not serious about it. But in a similar sense, money is the unit of not giving a fuck - the more disposable income you have, the more soul-draining bullshit you can throw money at to make it go away.
Re: Just Your Handyman
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
> One of the biggest differences that you don't mention is the use of your body. Oh, for sure. I was a dev for many years, then switched to product design. What I left out of my first comment was that my older brother is a maintenance guy for a hospital—basically a handyman with an office in the basement. Growing up, it was clear that he was at least as smart as me, but at a certain point he went one direction and I…
"... smart for being programmers just because we get paid too much for it" I wish people would stop propagating this idea. The opposite is true.
Where I live, tradespeople make much less than software developers for comparable levels of experience, but in my opinion, they are just as skilful and more useful to society. Is it different in your area? Or do you think tradespeople are less skilful/valuable than programmers to society?
You could argue that they aren't paid enough, rather than that we're paid too much, but I certainly feel there's an imbalance.
Re: Just Your Handyman
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
How in the world would more regulation around who can fix a piece of broken trim board help at all? We should be thankful the US doesn’t have a system like that which artificially reduces the supply of labor. We should make it easier for people to work in the trades. Not wrap and bunch of unnecessary formality and regulation around it.
It doesn't seem to reduce the supply of labor in Canada, since the author of the article is self-taught. However it's likely to increase the overall level of training, which is good for someone who needs their broken trim board replaced.
I’m not some free market purist but in this situation we absolutely do not need more government regulation and the risk of low quality work is quite low.
A typical handyman can’t and won’t touch anything that could actually cause harm (gas, plumbing, electrical) and poor quality work will result in a negative reviews and no repeat work for the handyman.
More opportunities for training and upskilling, yes!
But you should not start some unnecessary credentialing/licensing system that restricts the supply.
Re: Just Your Handyman
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
> One of the biggest differences that you don't mention is the use of your body. Oh, for sure. I was a dev for many years, then switched to product design. What I left out of my first comment was that my older brother is a maintenance guy for a hospital—basically a handyman with an office in the basement. Growing up, it was clear that he was at least as smart as me, but at a certain point he went one direction and I…
Having a lot more electricians is not necessarily a bad thing. I've seen some estimates of the number of new electricians the US would need in order to handle the electrification of the country if we want to stave off further climate change, and it was in the tens of millions. This number will be very difficult to achieve, but that does mean that being an electrician should continue to be a good job for quite a long…
>in the tens of millions
That sounds... high. There are about 350 million people in the USA (from memory, so this figure is probably low), so even if there were just 10 million electricians, it would mean 1 in 35 people needs to be an electrician. If you exclude children and retired people, that proportion will go up further.