Craftsmen know their work, the ins and outs, the customs and traditions; they know the lay of the land.
The good news is you can tell a good craftsman by their work.
As a young history worker I inventoried a donation of hand tools used to build the wooden ships of old.
The toolbox was the most interesting part. Why?
Because the boat builders used their tool box as their craftsman calling card, their CV.
Their toolbox showed the joinery used in shipbuilding, along with carrying the tools they made it with.
What other professions show their skills by the work they do?
I know a contractor who worked on a remodel.
He said all of the right things, how he loved his work, how he loved making the most beautiful outcomes.
He was a lovely man.
The problem occurred when he extended one end of a house by ten feet.
He dug a trench, poured footing, laid the foundation, but measured to the inside of the cinder blocks, not the outside.
The end result was a wall that boat-tailed in twelve inches, a crooked wall.
Craftsmen know what to do next, and it’s not saying, “No one will ever notice except you.”
Was the contractor the artist he thought himself to be? Maybe.
Based on his stories about the fabulous work he’d done, and would do, he sounded arty enough.
But the crooked wall said otherwise.
If you claim you have the skills and knowledge to start and finish a project, should it have a crooked place where a straight line ought to be?
No, but you’ll need a good song and dance, maybe a smokescreen, for cover.
They won’t be putting that work on their artistic list of accomplishments.
Why? Because poor craftsmanship won’t float.
The Tool Chest For A Good Life
What do you need in there?
Make room for common decency.
It won’t take up much space if you already know the basics, but if you don’t?
You leave it out, and that’s where problems start.
Go ahead and make a claim for being trustworthy, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, and the rest included in the Scout Law.
It’s a good claim people ought to be familiar with, but if you lack common decency, and your work shows it, everything else is off-center.
Trustworthy, but . . .
Helpful, except . . .
Friendly, until . . .
What else goes in there? A bullshit detector.
Why a bullshit detector? Without the foundation of common decency in someone, everything else is stinky.
Two small tins, one for crap and one for shoe polish, to remind you of the difference between shit and shinola.
Drop your education in there if you had drunk professors, bitter professors, or lazy professors.
I got a degree because I saw my Organic Gardening professor in the same line for coffee I was in.
We chatted about class, how glad I was to get in since it was my last science class needed to graduate, how difficult it was to understand the foreign instructor he brought in to teach the class for him, and how worried I was about the final.
He got a Grande Latte and I got a passing grade. It wan’t an A, or a B.
Make room for experience.
If you’re married, remember the times you thought, “This is why people get divorced,” and you didn’t.
If you’re not married, remember the times you thought, “This is why people get married,” but you didn’t, married someone else instead, and live haunted by the one that got away.
You’ll need room for work, for doing things you don’t want to do, and not doing things you do want to do.
When the timing is right, you get to do the things you want to do. Cherish those seconds.
Or, Leave It Empty And Unlocked
An empty tool chest is a beacon for filling.
Craftsmen know how to fill it; Charlatans know how to make it look full.
They have the key, the promise of a full chest, then open it up and put in false admiration, unwanted friendship, and the seeds of doom.
One man did this with his early friends and helpers. Because of them he became famous.
The fame grew so huge that he needed to ditch his old friends and helpers for his new ones.
But how do you end a friendship?
You could call and say you want to ‘opt out.’
You could not call and not do anything.
Or, you could organize something sinister and devoid of common decency.
The weight of cancer treatment is hard enough, but when a nation seems to turns its back on this most vulnerable population, it gets personal.
Try watching the congressional healthcare debate on a cancer waiting room TV.
Except for the single outburst, it was a room full of STFU.
Tool Chest, Or Furniture? Craftsmen Know
Let’s say we know what a better life looks like from top to bottom.
At the bottom it’s all about the basics:
A roof over your head, a job, good food, clean clothes, clean water, clean air, education, and a chance to advance.
At the top it’s the perks:
There’s not a mountain you don’t want to stand on, whether you climb it yourself or have someone carry you up.
You make plans, then change your mind, and everyone has to agree with both.
You don’t have to be a role model so you can run your mouth and tell your minion to interpret for you.
An empty tool chest is a sad thing to craftsmen. They know its value when it’s full.
And they know how useful it can be when an agenda-based hype men fill it full of crap and explain how good it is.
BRUCE laid it out years ago:
Workin’ in the fieldYou get your back burnedWorkin’ ‘neath the wheelsYou get your facts learnedBaby, I got my factsLearned real good right nowYou better get it straight, darlin’
Poor man wanna be richRich man wanna be kingAnd a king ain’t satisfied‘Til he rules everythingI wanna go out tonightI wanna find out what I got
About David Gillaspie
