: Hands on is good…

By: g | No Comments » |

A while back I read “Shop Class As Soul Craft: An inquiry into the value of work”, the premise of which revolved around the idea that the intrinsic value, intelligence and skills gained through the ‘manual trades’ is rapidly vanishing, being replaced with the false notion that sitting at a desk, behind a computer is actually advancement; despite the fact that much of the so called ‘white collar’ jobs are really just a modern version of unskilled factory work.

While I didn’t quite finish the book – the last few chapters began to repeat themselves a little, it raised some very interesting points and in terms of my day to day undertakings, makes me think about Australia’s seemingly demented push for everyone and their dog to go to university and become, for many, the equivalent of assembly line keyboard pushers.

On any given week I find myself part of the production process for Lab-Gear, hacking code for my partner’s design studio’s clients and undertaking various screen based tasks needed to steer Mountain Cycle, its market presence, sales channels and product design and development. It’s a full plate but the variety is something that works well for me, as I get bored doing too much of one thing. Of late though what I have found is that if I do not spend time each week ‘hands on tools’, doing production stuff for Lab-Gear, I start to get quite irritated. Off the bat I’d have to say that this is tied to doing too much screen time, something I’d said I never do but rapidly found the reality of the design world is quite different to the idealistic views of a graduate. On further thought I am wondering if the mental agility required when you use hand tools etc. is actually beneficial for one’s self?

I find one becomes comfortable with the ‘undo’ of the digital world and to a certain extent, I feel we loose the ‘responsibility’ that comes with manual activities, the old ‘measure twice, cut once’. When you’re slicing up a $400 sheet of leather, there is no undo so getting it wrong and it costs money. Nothing like digital work where getting it wrong is more often than not, is a simple ‘undo’ away to fix.  I have found, often the hard way, that being diligent over and above what one might otherwise be in front of the screen, changes the way you do things and it’s the manual work I am doing that is actually making my digital work more thorough.

More interestingly though, I have found that solving problems on the fly when you are making things, is very different to those thrown at one on the screen. Like the ‘measure twice, cut once’ idea, decisions made when making things can be good or bad. The end result might be the same and do the same thing, might even look right  but when something’s in your hands, you find out very quickly if it’s the best solution. The process is not better or worse, it’s just very different and we are leaving it behind at a cost. This hands on training, as I see it, is also seemingly re-training my thinking processes. So now when I work on building websites, I find myself approaching their construction rather differently than before the days of no manual work -it’s less about making sure it only looks/works right but more about making sure the end result is cleanly crafted. It’s not a geek thing, it’s more about taking pride in what the majority never see and this is often a trait found in skilled manual trades (or at least should be!). Funnily enough by working this way the end result is often better than one would expect and two sites I am currently working on affirm this notion.

These personal findings about work coincide with many of the assertions about skilled manual work spoken about in the aforementioned book. As such it is something I am finding increasingly interesting, especially when you think that not everyone can (or should) sit behind a screen, as at some point someone, somewhere has to do all the things that people are told not to do because it’s not good enough anymore. For myself, for some years when Lab-Gear started, I wanted very little to do with the manual side of the business, taking the ‘white collar’ mentality towards manual trades. Slowly over time that started to change and over the past year and a bit (after building a house funnily enough), has totally changed to the point that I feel for any professional designer to be worth their salt, they have to be hands on; something interestingly enough that the university system has gone out of its way to prevent, turning out ‘professional designers’ in all fields that have little, if any, understanding about the true essence of what they do.

I suggest if you have ever pondered this topic or are someone who finds value in tinkering in the shed, you read “Shop Class As Soul Craft: An inquiry into the value of work”, or most of it, and think how we as a society are addressing skilled manual trades and the intrinsic worth they offer. At the same time, it’s also worth thinking about the loss we, not only as a society but as individuals, will suffer if we continue being fixated on the (now defunct?) white collar dream. Maybe, just maybe it’s time to look back at the basic structures that have become so over blown – artisan, merchant, banker, farmer, craftsman, and ponder if, by super specialising, we have lost so much?

 

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