i was just breezing through glenn reynold's excellent instapundit.com, and i came across this link: "Lack of hand skills", by blogger wacky hermit.
i work in manufacturing (i partially build MRI machines). as this post i've linked to wonders...what's happening to our society's ability to fix things? the products we buy, even this brand new HP laptop i'm using, are ultimately disposable without even a second thought. things that used to be a major purchase are now discarded at the slightest hint of a problem.
in Michael Moore's 90's tv series, "TV Nation", one segment focused on his hilarious effort to get some CEO of one of the big three auto companies to come downstairs from his office and change the oil of one of his cars. i think what made this uncomfortably funny to most of the TV audience was that they themselves would be not at all comfortable with performing this same task, with or without the spotlight of the TV camera. this is MY theory, btw...i COULD do it, and HAVE done it before, but there is always a HUGE question in the back of my mind: "am i going to fuck this up and ruin this car?". PANIC ALWAYS sets in.
anyway...so, in the 90's we learned that we were moving to a "service economy", whatever THAT means. "manufacturing" jobs were a vestige of a bygone era, one supposes somewhere between the "robber baron" phase and the present. these "service" jobs, as far as i could perceive, were never defined. in my opinion, they were the "talking points" explanation to explain the dissappearance of manufacturing jobs due to the implementation of the NAFTA agreement in the 90's (which, in effect, caused me to change my party affiliation from Democrat to Libertarian...i mean, if you're gonna be a member of a party who doesn't look out for you, shouldn't you at least go with the one who's HONEST about it?). hmmm...service jobs...i can't seem to identify many. are they restaurant workers? yes. retail employees? yes, i think they qualify. bank tellers? more and more replaced by ATMs. telemarketers and/or company telephone help people? more and more replaced by Indians. the service jobs that remain in the US are the ones where people have to come in and deal with someone face-to-face. hardly ANY of them require skills a trained monkey couldn't perform. except, of course, if we're dealing with those who deal in capital investments...who live in a world so far removed from the "reality" which our public education (a.k.a. "government schools") prepares us for that most people shy away from it, except through generic approaches such as 401K plans. most people have NO CLUE how the price of a gallon of gasoline is determined (it's commonly accepted as fact that it's a "BIG OIL" price-fixing conspiracy, even though the actual profit margin earned by oil companies is a pittance compared to what the local, state, and federal government's tax take on the profit is...WITHOUT DOING A DAMN THING TO EARN IT).
about a month ago, my girlfriend bought a couple of rocking porch chairs from Target. the assembly was pretty easy...it took me about an hour or so to throw them both together. about a week ago, one of them started to recline backwards to the point where it was almost backbreaking. we both just stared at it, and proceeded to bitch about Target and how "everything you buy is shit nowadays". today, as i was drinking a cup of coffee and almost pulled a neck muscle falling backwards in the chair, i decided to turn the thing over and check it out. feeling the nuts, i noticed that all eight were loose. did i forget to tighten them when i assembled them? i don't know. maybe. i doubt it. was it my fault that they were loose? well, how can i blame anyone else? granted, they are pre-fab chairs with assembly instructions in multiple languages which can only be interpreted loosely, but...FUCK. i'm a goddamn COLLEGE GRADUATE and i assemble some machines which sell for A MILLION DOLLARS APIECE. these two pieces of SHIT put my girlfriend back maybe a COUPLE HUNDRED BUCKS. i KNOW i tightened those fucking bolts!!!!!!!!!
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