Yes, important point - skills are learned and you need to practice them.

I somewhat look forward to fixing stuff. I just fixed our furnace. Even if I need to buy a specialty tool, I'm usually better of getting the tool and learning how to do something myself.

I have a joke I like to tell: The first guy from the [HVAC|Electrician|Plumber] just comes out to get the check. Then next 1 or 2 might actually fix it.

Because I've had so many right out of votec kids come out, don't know what they're doing and don't fix the problem. I'm relieved when I answer the door and an older guy is there.

They really need to apprentice the young guys with older guys more than they do.

(I have some experience here, my brother is a master electrician in 2 states).

Actually, sending the least experienced technician to your house first is an intentional tactic. My father is a retired HVAC person of more than 40 years. He used to work for small family owned shops but the big companies (like gas companies) began buying up the shops in various areas. Then providing HVAC service plans via your gas bills.

They would load up on young guys and keep one or two old guys. They'd always send the young guys first because they were paid about 1/5th of the amount of the old guys per hour. If they fixed things correctly, then they made more profit. If they didn't fix things, you still paid the hourly rate anyway. After the revolving technicians of various skills attempted to fix (and charge you anyway), they would eventually send in the senior guy to actually perform the repair.

Most of the repairs are easy and minor. Nowadays furnaces have circuit boards with LED lights indicating the problem. So it's mostly just replacement of a known part. So most of the time they made a lot of profit by sending the youngest/cheapest guys.

Protip: Those LEDs are often enough for the homeowner to fix the problem themselves. Most furnace problems are pretty simple to correct once you know what's wrong. The simple controller that just blinks an error code (codes listed inside the panel) is more help than we've ever had before.

Also, the older guys are probably doing construction work and making more money.

This brings up an interesting side point. I'm not sure if it's the same everywhere, but in the state I reside there are two sides to the trade professions.

One side is the service side. This is typically non-union and employees are trained at vocational schools that specialize in some field of expertise.

The other side is the new construction side. This is typically union and employees are trained via schooling and apprenticeships provided by the union itself.

In general, the union/new construction side makes more money, but, it's harder to get into the union and you generally work less hours (and make less money) until you are a fairly senior person. The non-union/service side will make more money (and work more hours) at least initially. The service side has very high turnover of youngsters.

Sounds just like offshoring your code.

Or, for a more direct analogy, the various tiers of support you get from any help line.

> Where did Mike Rowe's grandfather learn to be a jack-of-all-trades?

Some place I did. I picked it up. I kept trying. I read books, I did it. I was also raised on a farm and took wood shop and engine shop, drafting and auto-cad (and physics, chemistry, etc).

Maybe some people just have a knack for this stuff?

(Can't reply directly to this comment)

"Maybe some people just have a knack for this stuff" is a different way of saying "I was also raised on a farm and took wood shop and engine shop."

You don't have to be raised on a farm to learn this. I was born and raised in a very large city and learned a lot of this stuff by having to work around the house to earn my allowance (mowing the lawn, painting the house, changing the oil in lawnmower & cars, helping build a new deck, etc etc). I also learned basic construction skills, metal working and welding in gasp my undergraduate art classes. This came in very handy when I had to build the walls, kitchen and bathroom in my Brooklyn loft many years later.

That "knack" could also be an affinity for tinkering & working with your hands. My brother is a self-taught auto mechanic because he is really interested in cars. Give him a free weekend and he'll rebuild his engine for the heck of it.

When we enjoy something, we do it often. When we do something often, we get better at it.

Talent is the willingness to practise.

Some people seem to be born troubleshooters they seem to be able to just know how to fix any problem especially obscure problems.

For example your car is acting up and the troubleshooter knows it's the fifth contact on a relay since it's the old original model 5b relay which he can tell from the sound of the clicking and he knows the fifth contact tends to corrode on the left side each spring when the humidity is higher. Give it a whack and a spray of contact cleaner and tells you to park it in the sun for an hour. Good as new.

The normal way is taking 20 or 30 years to know about a trade or just life in general and just seeing it so much you become a bit like the born troubleshooter but you'll never be as good.

Troubleshooting is just the art of isolation. You isolate areas of the system and experiment until the problem becomes apparent.

I think some people get inspired at an early age and tend to go on stuff like that. I didn't grow up on a farm, but I know my dad inspired me. He almost never had anyone do anything for the house, or the car or anything. I was taking vacuum cleaners apart before I was 5, finding out how they worked. I ended up going into Physics in college because I wanted to find out how everything works, as it seemed the most logical choice for learning a bit about most everything. In high school, I also took wood shop, machine shop, drafting, autocad, etc... along the way. I also repaired my own car (A jeep, so I got lots of experience :)

So, I know my dad inspired me at a very young age, and I've been mechanically inclined as long as I can remember (I'm sure watching the This Old House, the New Yankee Workshop, The Woodwright's shop, and every other sunday morning PBS show and car show with my dad probably helped)

I helped yank a motor from a wrecked stock car when I was 3 (I was running the crane while dad and his buddy had their fingers in there). I got to play with the drill press, grinder, and welder before I was in school.

No, I didnt grow up on a farm. But dad DID, he was overhauling tractor motors at 10, and driving at an obscenely young age (first ticket at 12: no license).

I knew how to drive a car before I was in high school, and was playing with carbon composites at 15 (left over b2 bits, whee).

It IS a knack for these sorts of things, but also having someone around to help get you started, combined with an interest in what ever you're working on.

This is no different than how most of you learned to program. Well, I guess it is: you're not sitting on you butt while you do it :)

> Maybe some people just have a knack for this stuff?

True, but IMO that knack has to be fostered for it to develop. If you were raised on a farm, I assume you had some guidance. I doubt that a lot of kids whose parents are software developers would go into woodworking.

You would be surprised at how many software developers have hobbies that involve working with their hands. I spend much of my free time doing wood working and am sure it's something that I would introduce my children to at a young age (as my father did with me).

You know, my dad was a very skilled woodworker and home handyman, but he passed away before he had a chance to really start teaching me very much of it.

I've always kind of wanted to get into woodworking (although it's hard right now since I have an apartment, not a house), but I'm not sure how to best start. Do you know of any good resources you could recommend for an adult who wants to get into that kind of thing?

Thanks! :)

Depends on where you live - here in NYC there's things like Makeville where you can take classes, would assume there are similar in most urban centers.

If there aren't any, it's the same as learning programming - pick a small project and look for how-tos (like this breadbox, for example: http://www.am-wood.com/nov97/bread.html) and have at it. Work your way up to more complicated things once you've got some skills and tools under your belt.

Dolls houses is something you can make with virtually no space - and because it's furniture in miniature some of what you learn can scale up when you've got more room. Things like measuring, marking, joints, and wood types all apply - if you can accurately build something at 1/12th scale you can prob build it full size. And it costs virtually zero. And your kids will LOVE you for it.

Wooden boat building is a lot of fun, and doesn't have to take a lot of space. There are kits available for beautiful kayaks and such that people have built in their apartments. Be sure to plan how to get it out of the house if you build something bigger inside :) Also, beware of potentially toxic chemicals. Some wood dust (cedar) is dangerous.

Learning a lot of these skills is easier than ever.

I wasn't raised doing a lot of around-the-house stuff, but in the past five years I've learned to do everything from recaulking a tub and rewiring lamps to fixing bicycles and repairing vintage rangefinder cameras.

I buy tools on craigslist and learn the steps online. Sometimes there's an unintended consequence to deal with (water spraying out of the sink, burned chicken, stripped set screws) that forums, skillshares, and hackerspaces are great at helping with.

None of this makes for a vocation, and I'm not advocating that people learn welding from eHow. But there's a lot to be learned from 'do it yourself' rather than 'do it for me'.

The tools are there for the properly motivated like they have never been in our entire history. The internet and social networking have made it so there is a forum for every trade, interest, or fetish. It is time to use it for more than just porn and gaming...not that there is anything right or wrong about either.

I try to force myself to learn something new before I go do something for entertainment. I will watch one MIT video lecture on physics or something to that effect, or research something that I am curious about. Then when I am done I can go game or watch something mindless if I choose so.

It makes it hard when I have to explain to people that I am self employed and I do about 5-10 different things...just depends on what is paying...most people just don't understand.

That's a good point, but I'm not sure to what extent it's true; Where did Mike Rowe's grandfather learn to be a jack-of-all-trades? Most likely from his father or grandfather. If parents today choose to be "less interested in how things got made, and more interested in how things got bought" then chances are so will their kin.

It took me three tries to fix the wax gasket under my toilet (symptom of a worn-out wax gasket: water leaks out from the bottom of the toilet whenever you flush), but I did it out of curiosity, wanting to be more like my dad who fixed everything in our house, and because I didn't want to be the guy who called the landlord to fix every little thing... I think more than anything, the feeling of control over my surroundings is what pushes me to do as much handywork as I can.