[HN Gopher] Just Your Handyman
___________________________________________________________________
Just Your Handyman
Author : merrier
Score : 170 points
Date : 2023-12-08 20:53 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.plough.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.plough.com)
| FrustratedMonky wrote:
| Wonder how many on HN are like this, but with software or other
| industries.
|
| I'm not building sky scrapers (next triple AAA game engine), I'm
| fixing the leak in the ceiling (bug with some in-house corporate
| gui). It can be a little soul-draining, but do it for the kids.
| joshuanapoli wrote:
| I'm always driven to reach for more, in my career. I don't
| think that's ideal for happiness. Maybe it's not always even
| ideal for my career.
|
| Through COVID, I've had a lot of obvious gains. I used to
| commute four hours a day, and now I work from home. I'm paid
| more. I'm working with more interesting technology. Despite all
| of that, I still alternate between putting a lot of effort into
| finding my next step to a bigger career or feeling bad about
| not putting enough energy into it.
|
| The handyman must be less restless.
| cwalv wrote:
| > The handyman must be less restless.
|
| Why? They may not have the next step as clearly "defined",
| but there are endless ways to "level up"
| SuperNinKenDo wrote:
| Although the overlap is minimal in many ways, I was strongly
| reminded of Wes Cecil's series on the Philosophy of Building a
| house[1].
|
| Cecil's purpose is a bit different, but beyond the obvious theme
| of using the building of a house for philosophical reflection, I
| do think there's some cross-over in insights, if not in focus.
|
| I recommend it to anyone, ESPECIALLY anyone thinking about, or in
| the process of, building a house. And his channel in general is
| excellent fun.
|
| [1.1] https://youtu.be/GDg194s5tnQ
|
| [1.2] https://youtu.be/iId98RogAIg
|
| [1.3] https://youtu.be/-eXQZZsMAz0
| theGnuMe wrote:
| Thanks! I want to build a house in the future and I want it to
| anticipate my psychology and be functional and yet have a
| timeless design if that makes sense. Also needs fung-sui.
| pards wrote:
| > 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 with them
| and guide them down paths that will satisfy the aspects of life
| that are important to them. It's a balancing act between ability,
| aptitude, drive, and personality.
|
| Doing well in math and science does not necessarily mean that the
| child will be happy in a career that require those skills,
| especially if they actually enjoy music, art, or shop class more.
|
| Unfortunately many of these trade-offs are presented financially
| to kids; that doing what you love may result in a financially
| challenging life, and ignore the satisfaction and mental health
| benefits that would derive from such a choice.
| psd1 wrote:
| Yes, although... don't underestimate the mental strain of
| always struggling financially and worrying about bills and rent
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| 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.
| sjducb wrote:
| You may not be able to do whatever you want, but you can often
| get a lot further than you think. The first few years after
| school are the time to shoot for the moon.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Agree, worst is to broadcast that someone _can 't_ do a
| thing. So often kids live up to (or down to) your
| expectations of them.
| jmye wrote:
| And if you don't, who cares. Failing at 23 isn't fatal and
| probably teaches you a lot more than mediocre success.
|
| Everyone's so scared of going for something and missing, or
| deciding it's actually not as fun or interesting as you
| thought.
|
| Young people should have big dreams.
| cwalv wrote:
| It depends on their support system. The years from 18-24 can
| be brutal. A few mistakes ("just a year off to travel",
| credit card debt, a pointless major chosen to have an easier
| time in class and more left for socializing) can burn bridges
| that aren't even on your radar.
|
| Once you get into living paycheck to paycheck, esp. if you're
| supporting a family, your options are severely restricted. It
| doesn't mean you can't live a happy, peaceful, maybe even
| more purposeful life. But most people really don't understand
| how significant these decisions can be at 18.
| have_faith wrote:
| There's a little too much focus on the distant future, which is
| very abstract for everyone to consider, especially children.
|
| Really, you can pursue anything you want to, regardless of the
| time horizon that you have considered it in.
|
| Walk down the street and see something interesting over the
| road? then cross over and take a look. Play with the a keyboard
| in the shop and like the feel? buy a cheap one, get some
| lessons, pursue it until you no longer want to. You may drop
| it, you may become a rockstar. You don't need to know you want
| to be a rockstar though.
|
| Children are already curious, we spend a lot of time trying to
| get them to formalise their curiosity into concrete plans. Life
| doesn't need long term planning, to be successful, or be happy.
| Levitz wrote:
| >There's a little too much focus on the distant future, which
| is very abstract for everyone to consider, especially
| children.
|
| Not only is it abstract, it's uncertain. When I was in school
| around the 90s and early 00s, programming was nowhere near as
| popular as it is now. What is the job market going to look
| like in some 20 years? We don't know, and teachers, as part
| of academia, have even less of a clue.
| sgt101 wrote:
| Also, very sadly, but not uncommonly, the child may not get
| to enjoy the fruits of the focus on the future, because they
| may die. In my life:
|
| - A girl in my class aged 11 was killed by a bus.
|
| - A boy I knew aged 17 killed himself and girlfriend by
| driving into a tree.
|
| - A competitor at work aged 27 had a bad cold, went to the
| doctor and was rushed to hospital due to suspected Liver
| cancer and died on the operating table that afternoon.
|
| - Good friend at aged 29 A got a brain disease and died over
| three years.
|
| - Good friend at aged 31 got leukemia, recovered, got it back
| a year later and had an allergic reaction to the chemo and
| died.
|
| The last three were all high flyers - two or three degrees,
| published etc. They had (like me) sacrificed a lot to get
| where they had and were just (at that time) beginning to reap
| some rewards. The last fella in particular had just bought a
| house, got a steady girl who was good for him and had had an
| "inflection" type promotion. All for nothing.
|
| Teach children to enjoy it while they can. Maybe that gives
| them 9 happy years, or maybe 90. (edited for formatting)
| jrm4 wrote:
| I mean, best done as a gradient no?
|
| In first grade, you 100% tell them they can be whatever they
| want, by the end of 12th (or however it works where you are)
| they should be honestly looking at what sort of things make
| money to handle that part of life. But also, you know, how to
| be happy and such.
| cwalv wrote:
| Is this just because they can't yet grasp the complexity of
| "whatever you want", so it's pointless to get into the
| details?
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| Trading off satisfaction/mental health benefits with the very
| real stress of "a financially challenging life" is something I
| am constantly confronted with when I look at our son's life
| (now 34). In some ways I admire his committment to NOT working
| 40 hours a week, so that he has time and energy for his art and
| music which is what really makes being alive worth it for him.
| But when he doesn't even earn enough to pay for a place to
| live, has no savings, no real future prospects of anything
| changing ... I am not sure that his satisfaction at working on
| art/music can balance that out.
| biiiyyt wrote:
| > Unfortunately many of these trade-offs are presented
| financially to kids; that doing what you love may result in a
| financially challenging life, and ignore the satisfaction and
| mental health benefits that would derive from such a choice
|
| While not strictly true, it's very much true in the general
| sense. Many of our passions don't make us money. Like it or
| not, living in society requires quite a lot of money.
|
| Struggling financially puts a strain on mental health, job
| satisfaction, relationships, etc. It dominates your
| experiences, your thoughts, your food, and ultimately your
| lifespan. It's *hard*.
|
| "Work hard", "do what you love and you'll never work a day in
| your life", "my passion is my work", blah blah blah. These
| extremes taint the thought process of our children. As a
| society we poisoned the minds of multiple generations.
|
| We _should_ be teaching children that their job does not define
| them. That "do what you love" is unrealistic. Do what allows
| you to be comfortable and do what you love. Will you have be
| able to humblebrag on social media? Probably not. Will you be
| in the top 10% financially? Probably not. Will you not struggle
| financially and have time to do the things you actually love
| (family, friends, hobbies, whatever)? Hopefully! That's the
| goal.
| tyrvale4760 wrote:
| I agree with your sentiment, but I would add two caveats: 1)
| Its not obvious, and hard to predict, when something one enjoys
| would actually make an satisfying career. Many find that
| turning passions into means-to-put-food-on-the-table kills the
| passion, or warps it. 2) Its not obvious, and hard to predict,
| how the mental and physical health hit will be from a
| "financially challenging life". Some are fine scraping by, but
| on average, being financially insecure is highly correlated
| with depression, suicide, anxiety, substance abuse issues,
| divorce, etc etc.
|
| All that to say, its good to be as realistic as possible with
| children, and as another suggested not only focus on high time
| frame decisions, and as you suggested avoid casting things as
| merely financial decisions.
| rfrey wrote:
| 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.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| 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?
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Great read.
|
| Several parts resonated with me. This one early in the article
| stood out:
|
| > But the vast majority of what I know in my work has come from
| continuously saying "yes" to jobs I've never done before - I
| decided I could figure them out by being careful.
|
| I learned something like the above from my dad -- watching him
| jump head-long into things he knew nothing about (or very little
| about).
|
| When I was a teenager and travelled to Alaska to visit him he had
| just got a job there running the water treatment plant in Homer.
| He took me up to the plant where he showed me how yeti all works
| -- the huge osmosis filtration system, the small laboratory
| onsite for insuring the city water quality. He showed me how he
| draws water out and runs various tests on it. Dipping a test tube
| first into a bath of HCl acid (with his bare fingers) before
| rinsing it, filling it with sample water, then into an ultrasonic
| bath to release any dissolved gases, then into a device that
| measures the water turbidity by shining light though the glass
| vial and measuring the scattered light.
|
| I knew he had taken Chemistry in college but running a water
| treatment plant did not seem to be on his resume to my knowledge.
| "How did you know how to do this?" I asked. He pointed to a
| three-foot row of binders along one counter in the lab and said,
| "I read the manuals they keep here."
|
| "But how did you even _get_ the job? "
|
| "Told them I had worked as a chemist (true), and said I could do
| it...."
|
| This was a small town in Alaska so maybe things were a little
| looser -- but still, I admired his fearlessness. Knowing him I
| suspect too if I had asked him what the consequences would have
| been if he had failed or been "found out" I am sure he would have
| said, as he often did, "What's the worst thing that could happen?
| I get fired."
|
| I was also amazed then to see him adding a room onto his small
| home in town. I was not shy to add weather stripping to a door or
| window but once you are pouring a footer, framing, hanging
| drywall you were, in my mind, firmly in pro territory. Somehow my
| dad just jumped into it and figured he could learn it (best to
| learn on your own house, I guess).
|
| What's the worst thing that could happen? He would have to hire
| someone to come in and finish his mess.
|
| Since then I have tried not to have pre-supposing mental barriers
| as to what I can and cannot do. And in a lot of ways the world of
| possibilities began to open up for me.
|
| I mention all the above because I have found throughout my life
| that most people seem to be like I was before my encounters with
| my dad started to change my perceptions. I want other people too
| to be unafraid to try doing a thing themselves.
| scarecrowbob wrote:
| I think that there is a whole skill set in learning how to do
| what your father was doing, and it has been one that I've
| worked on a lot in my life.
|
| One thing you may keep in mind is that "getting fired" or
| "hiring another contractor" aren't, in fact, the "worst that
| can happen".
|
| I have been doing a certain amount of "entertainment rigging"
| (suspending $100K+ stacks of speakers in the air for concerts).
| I didn't have as great a perception of our responsibilities for
| the safety of other people until I started working on things
| that could easily kill someone if the job is done poorly. My
| standard went from "would I stand under that?" to "would I let
| my buddy's kids stand under that"?
|
| In many things there are plenty of "even worse" outcomes- your
| water system could have lead in it, for instance. Or the wall
| could blow down and kill someone.
|
| I don't say that as a criticism of your father; rather there
| are two motivations:
|
| a) part (perhaps most) of the skill set of being willing to try
| and fail is knowing when to call someone else who does "know"
|
| b) it's good to be kind with ourselves about being a little
| afraid when we are doing things because often we can't know
| what we don't know.
| everdrive wrote:
| > 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.
|
| I've long observed that modern culture and media seem to be
| really stuck on this idea that kids everywhere are having their
| dreams held back by evil adults who just want to crush their
| dreams, for no good reason in particular. The archetype in many
| movies is that some adult is telling some kid to abandon his
| dreams.
|
| I always found this interesting because no one ever attempted
| this with me. As suggested, they attempted the opposite, and told
| me that I could be whatever I wanted. Ultimately I think this was
| well-intended, but harmful advice. Most of the things I like or
| care about aren't just infeasible careers -- they're not jobs at
| all. The things I'm "passionate" about are just not career-
| worthy. I like reading books, playing video games, doing house
| chores while listening to podcasts, and talking to friends. It
| might sound stupid, but as a younger adult (18-25) I really had
| the mistaken impression that I didn't enjoy work because I hadn't
| found a good job yet. Really, there was nothing I enjoyed in my
| life which could actually survive the transition to a career.
| What I just described is really all leisure, and can't count as
| work.
|
| Yes, you can technically make a career out of the things I
| listed, but they cease to bear much resemblance to how I
| participated in them. Casually playing a video game occasionally
| is much different from developing or writing, or reviewing games.
| Occasionally reading a good book is much different from being
| able to write a book, or reviewing books for a living, etc. And a
| proclivity towards enjoying a book every so often says nothing
| about one's ability to make a career out of books. I suppose the
| point I'm trying to drive at is that there is a wide berth
| between what someone is interested in, and their ability to make
| that into a career.
|
| I would have benefited from being forced into the workplace
| sooner so that I could realize that all jobs out there are
| "work," even if there are some enjoyable aspects to them. ie,
| that there are fundamental differences between work and leisure,
| and that a kid who enjoys some hobbies is totally incapable of
| identifying his "passions." But, no one really seems to want to
| tell that story, at least in popular media. They want an easy
| good guy and bad guy. They seem fixated on the idea that as a
| child I truly knew myself, and in some sense was pure -- and that
| the world was an adulterating influence, bitterly set on holding
| me back. The opposite was true: as a child I barely know myself,
| and the world was ready to teach me important lessons, but
| mentors and media kept trying to protect me from learning about
| the world.
| intelVISA wrote:
| Consumption (passive) vs production (active). Only some are
| blessed to enjoy the latter, and even fewer in a useful niche
| that aligns with a well-paid career.
| steveBK123 wrote:
| Well said.
|
| Educators and parents don't do a great job of saying "if you
| want to be A, then you should work on your V skills" or "while
| you may be passionate about C, it is not a career.. have you
| considered D,E,F?".
|
| And also for those going off to college it would be useful to
| have the hard conversation early "while it may be fun to live
| in G HCOL city for 4 years, if you want to make a life there,
| you are going to need a HCOL paying job like H,I,J.. so maybe
| don't pursue low ROI degree K".
|
| I definitely interacted with a lot of younger millenials/GenZ
| in my career who were constantly changing jobs laterally
| because nothing was a "good fit". So they spent the first 5
| years of their career churning water instead of doubling their
| salary. This is the kind of thing that sets a person back for
| life.
|
| To me it's like "wow yeah you don't find working on a CRUD app
| / BI analytics / retail website to be the most life affirming
| thing in the world?" Guess what, as Mad Men said.. "that's what
| the money is for". People can have hobbies!
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| He didn't mean it in this way at all (it was really a
| reference to how to live in a racially discriminatory
| society) but I always liked James Farmer's
|
| > _We do what we have to so we can do what we want to_
| cwalv wrote:
| The surprising thing, tho, is that even if you win the
| lottery, so that you end up not really having to do
| anything, you'll still find out that "work" is a
| requirement for a fulfilling life.
| ponector wrote:
| Work is a requirement for fulfilling life, not job.
| Winning lottery you can do any work, not just grinding
| 9-5 pointless job.
| steveBK123 wrote:
| Yes and no. Found money is easily lost. And when a
| savings rate turns into a burn rate, the nest egg quickly
| evaporates.
|
| Play with any retirement calculator and shift your
| retirement age forward even 5 years. The problem is 5
| years less new saving, 5 years less returns on peak nest
| egg, 5 years more spending down the nest egg, (and also
| not collecting social security yet because too early).
|
| For someone who didn't already have strong passions and
| hobbies that don't have high burn rates, filling 50
| hours/week without spending down savings extra fast is
| hard.
|
| You can also become alienated from those around you and
| the ordinary rhythms of life.
| steveBK123 wrote:
| Yeah, exactly.
|
| I think a lot of "follow your passion" types also miss that
| a lot of passion businesses are 90% business (sales/marketi
| ng/accounting/leasing/HR/administrative/paperwork/phonecall
| s/BS) and 10% the thing you were so passionate about.
|
| It's important to at least like what you do, and to find
| some purpose in how you fill your time. But it's a rare
| person who actually finds doing their job more pleasant
| than sitting on a beach / reading a book / watching a film
| / scrolling HN / etc. I've worked with some, and I don't
| really envy them.
|
| There are limits in each direction.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| I like the word "dignity". It is important that as a
| society, we allow people to experience dignity in their
| work, no matter what it consists of. This is different
| from the question of how much they like it and how much
| they get paid. All jobs, no matter what they pay, should
| bring sense of dignity to whoever does them (and in our
| current economy, most jobs should pay more than they do).
| karaterobot wrote:
| Neat article. If you squint, I don't think there is a ton of
| difference between what most handymen do and what most software
| engineers do: they both have some generalizable skills, and when
| they get asked to do something they say 'yes' and then figure out
| how to do it. I don't think the challenge level of most day-to-
| day software tasks is any harder than the "where'd that water
| stain come from" puzzle he described in the article. The
| difference, of course, is in working conditions and payment.
|
| But even if the AI technologies we're so nervously excited about
| replace all our jobs, the handymen, plumbers, and electricians of
| the world will be mostly unaffected. Their work is hard to
| automate. I hesitate to say we'll change places in terms of
| economic status--more likely, all the out of work engineers and
| designers will move into those industries and drive down the
| prices.
| atticora wrote:
| As a coder when I want to figure something out I can just try
| it an obnoxious number of times and ways within minutes, with
| almost no marginal cost. Even on the job. When a handyman wants
| to learn plumbing he has to do things like knock holes in the
| ceiling just to have a look. If a handyman gets it right only
| as often as I do in my REPL, he'll fail fast. Atoms are so much
| tougher than bits.
| neverartful wrote:
| 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, your body
| necessarily is a key part of the work you do. Lifting tools,
| materials, carrying them, getting into weird positions to
| access the problem area (under bathroom sink for example). The
| other aspect is the physical nature of the work. The work is
| tangible. You can take a photo of the thing that needs to be
| fixed before the repair/construction and then another at the
| end and compare the before/after photos. Even if you don't care
| about the photos, you can still see the tangible, physical end-
| result of your work. With software engineering, at best it's
| usually just a status update on a Jira ticket.
|
| Regarding AI technologies, I agree that it's extremely unlikely
| that AI will take over the work. It's possible that may help in
| some diagnostic cases. I strongly disagree with "all the out of
| work engineers and designers will move into those industries".
| Why? Many (perhaps most even) software engineers that I've
| worked with are too lazy or too proud to do handyman type work.
| Some of the handyman work can be physically quite taxing and
| some of it can be quite humbling. Examples of taxing work -
| when you're doing a gate rebuild/repair in 107 degree
| temperature in direct sun. Example of humbling work - opening
| up p-traps under sinks and having some of the smelly, dirty
| water splash on you.
| lostphilosopher wrote:
| I'm less concerned about the supply of handymen inflating and
| more concerned about demand falling. If AI really does
| replace a huge portion of the people with the money to hire
| handymen and plumbers and the property to need them where do
| they get the work from? More people will DIY out of necessity
| even if the results are worse because they won't have another
| option and fewer people will have the property to maintain in
| the first place.
| spenczar5 wrote:
| Those are good distinctions. I'm a 13-year software engineer,
| and a 4-year part time finish carpenter.
|
| An important distinction that comes up for me a lot is that
| it's much harder to fix mistakes with physical stuff. I can
| rapidly iterate on software, try stuff, see what works, play
| with a concept. But if I do that with wood and nails, I'm
| going to be in for trouble. Each idea costs material, and if
| it's a repair, there can be no going back. "Iterative
| development" really isn't a thing. This has gotten me in
| trouble - my instinct is to explore a problem, but I find
| that physical stuff requires more intellectual planning up-
| front, counterintuitively.
| cwalv wrote:
| IMO this is the defining characteristic of software
| development. It's why I love it, and why the processes that
| support doing it well are different from other types of
| projects.
|
| I also think other disciplines will inevitably move more in
| this direction. Once things can be accurately modeled and
| tested with computers, the iteration cycle becomes similar.
| You do have to eventually build the "machine", but I think
| that will become more and more automated, sortof like a
| compiler.
| karaterobot wrote:
| > 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 went another.
| Cut to 25-30 years later: his body is a wreck, mine is okay
| (modulo poor diet and lack of exercise), he 's always broke,
| and I'm doing alright.
|
| When I said that our jobs are very similar, I just meant
| that, like a handyman, much of what a SWE does is basically
| attaching one thing to another thing while cursing. That's a
| joke, but you get what I mean. My point was that neither are
| rocket science, but we shouldn't think we're especially smart
| for being programmers just because we get paid too much for
| it. Add the physical element of handyman work to that and
| that just underlines the point I wanted to make.
|
| > I strongly disagree with "all the out of work engineers and
| designers will move into those industries.
|
| This is timely. I said that because I was thinking about it
| yesterday, when talking to some friends about what they'd do
| if and when AI obviated their current jobs (which is in the
| realm of possibility). A common answer was that they'd become
| electricians. I think there are at least two problems with
| that: one is the physical aspect of being a tradesman, which
| nobody thinks about. The other is that there would certainly
| be _more_ people going into the trades, not less, if those
| industries became a safe harbor from AI. Many of these people
| would wash out, sure, but at least some of them (like
| yourself) wouldn 't. That, combined with all the upper-
| middle-class people being suddenly broke, would probably
| drive down wages for people who work with their hands. I
| can't imagine anything else happening, though of course I
| could be wrong.
| SamBam wrote:
| 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 time, even if lots of new people
| go into it.
| akoboldfrying wrote:
| >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.
| natnatenathan wrote:
| I think it is easy to fall into the trap of thinking that
| we deserve the insane wages of tech because we earn them. I
| have a friend who is a school principal and what she does
| is easily as complex, ambiguos and impactful as what I do,
| for a fraction of my salary. Maybe what she lacks in income
| is made up for in the satisfaction of contributing to the
| world in a positive way? There certainly is a hollowness I
| feel in tech. I started because I loved technology and how
| it helped in so many ways -- image processing to help my
| astronomy classmates glean new insights from data. Tech
| today is about locking in customers, driving additive
| products and maximizing profitability. That said, I don't
| have the courage to leave.
| chrisweekly wrote:
| "... 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.
| akoboldfrying wrote:
| 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.
| whartung wrote:
| For me the biggest difference is that handyman mistakes tend
| to tangible, and potentially worse to repair than the
| original problem. Software is easy to reset back and clean
| the slate for another go.
|
| It's this kind of thing that deters me from taking on tasks,
| fear of making things worse, digging the hole deeper, etc.
|
| Then there's the whole losing focus, leaving it half done,
| etc. issue.
| p1esk wrote:
| _the handymen, plumbers, and electricians of the world will be
| mostly unaffected. Their work is hard to automate._
|
| It's funny, when I started in ML 10 years ago people said the
| same thing about writers, artists, musicians. And yet here we
| are today. Robotics is just the next thing to be "solved" in AI
| field, the same way computer vision or NLP got solved - after
| decades of hard effort and little progress. Once the algorithms
| are ready people will build robots who will be much better than
| humans at any physical tasks: faster and more precise.
| teddyh wrote:
| "The reason is that, in other fields [than software], people
| have to deal with the perversity of matter. You are designing
| circuits or cars or chemicals, you have to face the fact that
| these physical substances will do what they do, not what they
| are supposed to do. We in software don't have that problem, and
| that makes it tremendously easier. We are designing a
| collection of idealized mathematical parts which have
| definitions. They do exactly what they are defined to do.
|
| And so there are many problems we [programmers] don't have. For
| instance, if we put an if statement inside of a while
| statement, we don't have to worry about whether the if
| statement can get enough power to run at the speed it's going
| to run. We don't have to worry about whether it will run at a
| speed that generates radio frequency interference and induces
| wrong values in some other parts of the data. We don't have to
| worry about whether it will loop at a speed that causes a
| resonance and eventually the if statement will vibrate against
| the while statement and one of them will crack. We don't have
| to worry that chemicals in the environment will get into the
| boundary between the if statement and the while statement and
| corrode them, and cause a bad connection. We don't have to
| worry that other chemicals will get on them and cause a short-
| circuit. We don't have to worry about whether the heat can be
| dissipated from this if statement through the surrounding while
| statement. We don't have to worry about whether the while
| statement would cause so much voltage drop that the if
| statement won't function correctly. When you look at the value
| of a variable you don't have to worry about whether you've
| referenced that variable so many times that you exceed the fan-
| out limit. You don't have to worry about how much capacitance
| there is in a certain variable and how much time it will take
| to store the value in it.
|
| All these things are defined a way, the system is defined to
| function in a certain way, and it always does. The physical
| computer might malfunction, but that's not the program's fault.
| So, because of all these problems we don't have to deal with,
| our field is tremendously easier."
|
| -- Richard Stallman, 2001:
| <https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/stallman-mec-india.html#conf9>
| mcbishop wrote:
| This reminds me of the excellent book: Making Things Right... "An
| enriching and poetic tribute to manual labour."
| georgeoliver wrote:
| That's a great book, and (speaking as a carpenter, though in
| the USA) accurate and well observed.
| raintrees wrote:
| I run my IT business this way, and it feels very similar. Many
| times I say "yes" then I have to figure out how to make yes true.
|
| Integrity is one of my targets. And I mostly sleep well at night.
| georgeoliver wrote:
| That 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.
| bequanna wrote:
| 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.
| georgeoliver wrote:
| 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.
| notyofriend wrote:
| 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.
| leipert wrote:
| Mhm. Here in Germany plumber, electrician, etc. are all
| "protected" jobs. You can't call yourself a plumber or
| electrician if you haven't learned the proper trade. I'd
| argue it's good for safety, standards and liability.
|
| Now when it comes to stuff like building a kitchen, you
| could go with proper carpenters or furniture folks or a
| handyman. It's good to have those different categories
| and know what you would be getting.
| bequanna wrote:
| It's essentially the same in the US.
|
| If there is a large risk when work is low quality, there
| is regulation. The more possible danger, the more
| regulation. This is OK.
|
| But an argument for regulation that is just some hand
| waving and repeating "standards" is not a legitimate
| position. It is an attempt to build some little
| bureaucratic empire which will enrich a group via
| regulatory capture.
|
| The government wins as they now have more employees and
| more power and the people already in the trade win.
| Everyone else loses.
| JoBrad wrote:
| That's sort of true in the US, as well. A plumber or
| electrician is licensed, but handymen aren't, as far as I
| know.
| bequanna wrote:
| 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.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| Great article. This guy sounds like a pretty neat dude _( "a
| part-time autodidact handyman")_.
|
| Sadly, this guy does not sound like any handyman that I've known,
| but then, I have not known any handymen with a theology degree.
|
| But I have certainly known a number of fairly incongruous folks,
| in unusual vocations, so I'm not surprised.
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