Labor

Yesterday I was reminded of something by a young contractor doing some work in my house. The man yelled up the staircase here for me to come look at his project. The materials I had obtained for the project, he said, were not up to his standards. He would not install them. He pointed out specific flaws. I agreed, despite the loss of some money on the partially used materials and the inconvenience of delaying the project. I thanked him for being conscientious.

My experience with workmanship here has been discouraging at times. There is a growing work culture of "good enough". My father, a self-taught carpenter and jack-of-all-trades, was a manic perfectionist who built an eight-room house with his own hands. Despite exhaustion and frustration, he never settled for "good enough". He strove for the best result, even if this entailed asking for the help of a more experienced craftsman. 

Manual labor has been demeaned in the U.S.. There are many reasons. From a consumer standpoint, I believe trade unions are much to blame. Their exclusion of minorities and careful limiting of trained personnel in the marketplace in order to jack up wages has been disastrous. The development of an underground immigrant labor force by indiscriminate contractors has brought affordable labor to the consumer, but it has also lowered the bar on standards in some cases. 

My contractor has a standard for his work that exceeds "good enough". He not only prevented me from having a future problem with his work, but he took extra time and effort to remedy the materials issue with me yesterday afternoon. He was courteous and matter-of-fact while he did this. This is his way of taking pride in his work. I greatly appreciated it. 

Having a conscientious labor ethic is a form of ethical personal practice. It speaks to a certain level of personal development. Our culture has sadly abandoned this concept in favor of Neo-Liberal ideals about collegiate education for everyone. Educational institutions have capitalized on this at great profit. They have become a corporate complex with high-profile lobbying in government. Educators have spurned vocational education as inferior or somehow doing a disservice to those who are not interested in  or equipped for Academia. Is there any wonder why Americans citizens are not available to do jobs in manual labor? This is a blatant failure of government and the public educational systems that government are required to provide to our children.