How Many People Have Zero Practical Skills In Today’s Society?

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How Many People Have Zero Practical Skills In Today’s Society?

by Ken Jorgustin | Jun 22, 2020 | SURVIVAL SKILLS |



PROBLEM: Most people are trained in just one specialty. And it’s usually some sort of service rather than manufacture.
It may not seem problematic to be trained specifically for a single specialty service skill. Actually, it is a good thing to have a specialty. Most of us do have a particular skill that we’re good at. We tend to career in such things, because we excel there.
So what’s the problem? Usually it’s not. But it does require a stable functioning cohesive society for all this to work.
Logically a society will advance in many ways when individuals are really good at a skill. These skills enable products and services for the society at large. We all benefit from it. People are paid for their specialty work, and when they need a product or service outside of their abilities, they hire it out. Pay for it. Pretty basic, but that’s how it works. Everything alright so far?
However when a society breaks down (“Come on Ken, that’ll never happen!”), those who have multiple “practical” skills will be better off. So from a preparedness point of view, you might say that a “Jack (or Jill) of all trades” is generally preferred under those circumstances.

Many people can’t do the most basic things…
I have known MANY people throughout my career(s) who couldn’t do much of anything else – except what they were specifically trained in. I’m not knocking them for it. It mostly works in a functioning society because there are other people to do those other things.
But it sometimes struck me as interesting how so many people can’t even do some of the most basic things. Or comprehend how to.
Again, wow, I am sure glad that there are highly talented experts out there (e.g. brain surgeons) and I could care less that they may not be skilled in other areas! But I’m speaking generally here. Today it seems that most every person only knows one skill (their “job”).

What happened to the practical trades?
When I was young… (well I still am in my mind 😉 ), there were LOTS of trades that young adults could go into. In high school there were a number of classes where we learned a little about each of the major trades. We got some “hands-on”. The girls had their own types of classes too which I’m sure today would be considered gender biased or something… Hey, what ever happened to “Home Ec” class? Egads!! How demeaning to suggest that!
Young people were introduced to many practical trades “back in the day”. Many chose these avenues and went on to “trade schools” or would apprentice. While others went on to college for other higher skills.

Practical Skills
So what am I getting at here?
I guess it just “strikes me” when interacting with someone who may be very good at the one thing, but can barely tie their shoe laces. Wow would that person be in trouble if SHTF. And there are a lot like those out there.
It just seems to me that it’s a good idea to know how to do many things (especially those skills which are practical) rather than being expert in just one. Again, that’s from a general preparedness standpoint.
I am so glad that I have learned many basic, practical, hands-on electro-mechanical skills over my lifetime. I managed to work a few related careers which advantaged that. So it worked out well enough for me.
Eventually I worked my way into a management role. Though the pay was better, I didn’t like it so much. But that was mostly due to interactions with “higher ups” who hadn’t a clue (or didn’t much care) about those down the totem pole. They were the ones who couldn’t fix a “fill int the blank” if their life depended on it. Though I’m painting with a broad brush, many of you likely know what I’m talking about…

Back to the topic. Most people are trained in one area. One skill. One specialty. And most people today don’t seem to have much of any practical sense or practical skills.
Just think about a collapsing society where most everyone has no practical skills. What a mess!
Teach your kids how to make things. They might like it.
Click to expand...


https://modernsurvivalblog.com/survival-skills/zero-practical-skills/
 
I have more skills than I can count. Both of my sons are very much the same.
 
When I was working I was amazed at the ineptitude of most people. I drove me nuts to watch someone try to do something that they had no clue about. Even simple things were above their ability. No logical thought process. I always wound up taking over and doing the job myself.
I passed that on to my kids. My daughter has never backed away from any task and she can do anything she sets her mind to do. My son is like me. He is in the AF reserves and one day the manager for the DOD came to him and said "I have 1 open position apply for it today." He now has one of those cushy government jobs and is paid very well because he has a good work ethic and will get the job done.
I once had a manager tell me that when I was given a task to complete she never had to think about it again because she knew it would be done.
There are jobs I do not like (hanging sheetrock) but if push comes to shove I can do them.
I always told people that with enough time and enough of their money I can fix anything.
I bet I could do brain surgery. The patient would surely die but I could do it.
 
Articles like this make me so happy I grew up in a poor farming family. We had to fix anything that broke, raised most of our own food, etc. I am good with my hands and that opens up many opportunities. Also critical thinking and common sense goes a long way. When I interview a prospective tech now days I always get around to asking them to walk me thru their troubleshooting process. It blows my mind how many never mention to check power.
 
Bacpacker said:
Articles like this make me so happy I grew up in a poor farming family. We had to fix anything that broke, raised most of our own food, etc. I am good with my hands and that opens up many opportunities. Also critical thinking and common sense goes a long way. When I interview a prospective tech now days I always get around to asking them to walk me thru their troubleshooting process. It blows my mind how many never mention to check power.
Click to expand...

Hubby grew up working in firlds and hunting too.not so much poor his daddy worked at the paper mill and rode diagline his mother was a nurse for a short time but quit after losing a patiant.Plus she had 7 kids at home.
 
I use to could fix anything , solve any problem.

Physically unable now to do the fixing,
Still can solve problems, but nobody wants to listen and learn anymore.

I gotta be honest.

I do not know any family member, friend or any aquaintence, that has enough intelligence, let alone common sense to to wipe their own arse ,
They depend on others to do it.

I must backup and say I have personally , face to face, met 2 people, in the last 10 years and they are both here on the forum.
Supervisor and Haertig.
I'll just say, if I needed a problem solved, these would be my go to guys on about anything.

They dont make em like that anymore.

Jim
 
Meerkat said:
Hubby grew up working in firlds and hunting too.not so much poor his daddy worked at the paper mill and rode diagline his mother was a nurse for a short time but quit after losing a patiant.Plus she had 7 kids at home.
Click to expand...

We weren't dirt poor, stepdad worked in a box factory and got a regular.check. but he didnt make a lot. Mother stayed home till sis was 10. She went to coming at school. Money was tight but we got by. Being able to build, grow, and fix things saved them a lot of money.
 
Bacpacker said:
We weren't dirt poor, stepdad worked in a box factory and got a regular.check. but he didnt make a lot. Mother stayed home till sis was 10. She went to coming at school. Money was tight but we got by. Being able to build, grow, and fix things saved them a lot of money.
Click to expand...

Thats about liek hubbys family.not real poor but not well off for sure.I got poor quick at 13. mama lost inheritace plus land instantly from crooked lawyer, So i had a rude awakening early, then she remarried got left with two kids we had to help her take care of. She was from a well off family so it was rude awakening for her too.But it made me strong and thank goodness for that.
 
My dad was a jack of all trades and my labor was really affordable. I have been pulled out of school to go drill a water well in the snow. For some reason I have the fondest memories of how to the glazed donuts we got on the way there tasted.
 
No one in my family had a lot of money for decades. They were farmers in the Great Depression and I was told, the 1920's was no piece of cake either, financially. They learned to fix everything and anything. People had piles--a scrap metal pile and a lumber pile. If something broke, the could find metal in the metal pile to fix with, sometimes weld with. The wood was the same, it was often searched for just the right piece to fix something. When people got running water in their homes, they did it themselves. They had no previous examples, so they had to figure it out. The same with electricity. They started out using windmills for their generators, later Rural Electric came into being, but they still had to figure out how to install it into their homes. Parents and grandparents had kitchen cabinets installed, but my dad made the cabinets, installed them, put on counter tops, ran the plumbing and electrical. They never hired anyone to do anything, except when they absolutely had to, which I have no memory of! Dad also did all the work on all vehicles and farm equipment. He also fixed televisions and radios. He was very mechanically talented.

Our gardens were huge (city lot wide, and 30 feet deep. There were baby chicks ordered each spring and butchered. People would give us used clothing and it had to be reworked to fit us, as we were thin and most of the clothing came from overweight people. We had home cooked meals and home made bread. I remember eating my first meal in a restaurant when I was 16 years old.

I read something this week about a young woman having a flat tire and not knowing how to change it. Not a hard thing to do. When I took driver's ed., changing a tire was a requirement to pass the class. Helplessness was not allowed. That didn't make any female less of a girl or cause any male to lose his pride because he couldn't rescue females with flat tires. It was a reality when people drove 30 + miles to school on country roads every day, long before cell phones. We also had to be able to check the oil and transmission fluid to pass the class. Checking the oil was something the instructor told us to do every time we filled up with gas.

On the other hand, how about knowing how to cook basic food such as eggs, toast, coffee, sandwiches, soup. Not hard, but some people don't do any food prep, let alone getting fancier with cooking. I've met lots of people who eat lots of premade food, rather than cooking at home.
 
I worked with a woman who has ambition to no end, an eye for how to make it look good, and the willingness to learn to do whatever it takes to get it done. She and hubby bought a house with an unfinished basement, and SHE finished it with a long series of built in bookcases, a bathroom and more. It is absolutely amazing. Now, she is in process of building a play structure, play house, climbing structure for her 7 year old son. This will not be ordinary in any way. After schools were closed due to COVID, and more importantly, no summer camps are open, she started looking online for what to build in her yard for her son to be entertained with. If I know her, she could sell admission to allow children to come spend time in her wonderland for children. This morning, she went to buy corrugated plastic roofing for part of the play structure, having done her research and knowing that the panels would never fit in her van. So she also took two saw horses, a tape measure and a cordless saw with her. She bought the panels, set up her saw horses in the parking lot, measured and cut her panels in half so they would fit in her van. She said she had two different people ask where her husband was. She is much more capable and driven than he is. She is always asking for advice or if someone can give her input on what she wants to do, so she has the humility to learn what she needs to know to get the job done.
 
Here is another answer:
"How Many People Have Zero Practical Skills In Today’s Society? "

Every single member of Antifa, BLM, and the anti american complaint and propaganda class.

If there ever is a major grid down or comparable, I will not give any charity to those lifelong enemies of the republic.
 
I was 10 years old when I tore apart the lawn mower just to see what was inside
My Dad walked into the garage. Instead of kicking my butt. he laughed and said thats pretty good
now. Put it back together. I did. It smoked but it ran
I am a tinkerer at heart. If it is broke I can fix it. if it is Fixed I can broke it

It simply amazes me at the people who look at something and say I CAN NOT DO THAT
and never attempt to fix it.
 
In-laws favorite saying is, "I can't do that." I asked them, "Have you tried?" They answer with a "No". My second question is, "Since you haven't tried how do you know you can't?" Then they get mad me.

Their second favorite saying is, "It's easier for you to do this than it is for them." My reply, "It isn't easier for me." Then they get mad again.

In-laws followed my FIL example. Pretend to be by busy while he had others do the labor (free gratuitous) for him.

SIL complained that she had trees growing out of her rain gutters and should be cleaned. She was looking at me with the plan I'd take the bait. When I didn't she repeated her statement a little louder. Again I didn't bite. Then she tried to shaming me by saying evidently I didn't care about other people "troubles". I responded by stating that since her adult son was back living with her (rent free, all the free food he could eat included) he could clean her gutters for her. "But he never had a dad to show him how!!!!!!!!" she replied. Between the two of them they couldn't (or weren't willing) to figure out how to set up a step ladder, climb the ladder to clean out the gutters.

10% of the work force requires zero supervision, 10% minimal supervision and 80% constant supervision.

To answer the OP; from my experiences yes I believe the majority of people have zero practical skills.
 
Last edited:
Amish Heart said:
Food is always good pay for a young man
Click to expand...

From 13-15 I would spend my summers working for a farmer who was a retired drill sergeant. He hired 3-4 teens every summer and we would do everything from picking rock, to fencing, to painting, to picking square bales. We made $10-15 a day for 10 hours of work, but the farmer's wife would feed us 3x a day. Big hearty protein-heavy meals. Each summer I would put on about 10lbs+ of muscle. Plus the farmer would let us shoot his M1 Garands and M1 Carbines and teach us how to shoot them better. Those summers provided me a whole lot more than the amount of money I would make.
 
I will readily admit my mechanical skills are very limited. For the purposes of this thread I would be part of the masses with Zero Practical Skills. I had a very normal, Beaver Cleaver, middle class, upbringing. I never had to fix anything other than my bicycle, and was never taught how things worked, or how to repair anything. If I took something apart I rarely put it back together properly, and to be perfectly honest, it frustrated me.

That said, I always found a way to use the skills I did have to make extra money to be able to pay people to do the things I couldn't do. I would work a second job doing something I was good at and enjoyed, so I could pay a guy to fix the plumbing, or do electrical or repair work. I have been teased (good-naturedly) that I was my own economy. Believe me. It has paid benefits, and probably saved my marriage.

I would like to think that this adaptability, and willingness to work in some capacity would serve me in an SHTF situation.
 
I alwaysliked instruction and really disliked making costly mistakeatha had to be done over again. At same time I had a good mind and it helped me figure out or engeneer something new.
Blessed with abnormal amount of energy as was hubby.Kids always told us " yall like to work".But maybe because our jobs at young age made being idle a job in itself.

We will survive about as well as to be expected for our age.Between the two of us we know how to fix it plant it, but the energy and ability is sure not what it use to be.
 
I grew up curious. I started fixing those wind-up toys when the springs broke. I took apart a watch once to see how it worked. When I got it back together it worked but it no longer worked as a watch because I had put some gears in the wrong places. I learned to keep track of the pieces I took apart after that. I helped my dad build a 4x8 dining table. We built rockets and model boats. When I was 11 I built my first real boat.
I built my first gun before that and made my first explosive shortly after... nitroglycerine!
There isn't a lot that I can't do. I designed and built the "cabin" that my brother is living in. I have remodeled a bathroom, built cabinets, done plumbing, roofing, and wiring. I rebuilt engines and transmissions for a living, diagnosed and repaired electronic drive controls and worked on hydraulic systems, installed and repaired LPG fuel systems, built rocket launch controllers and made my own browning solutions for gun refinishing.
After we bought this place I designed and built my garage and my shop from the foundation up. Everything passed the inspection because I exceeded every code on the books. I have a useless masters degree in religious history and in theology. I did everything but write my doctoral thesis for my PhD in theology - I stopped because it was another useless degree.
Over the years I have had some really good instructors and some really poor instructors. I have instructor credentials and did that for a while. I got ordained three times in three different religions and that makes me a non-denominational minister (along with the associated psych classes).
I have invented things from a kit to repair a deficiency in an automatic transmission to a fluid wing for aircraft. - the air force came out with a nearly identical wing design for the F-16 just as I was going to publish mine. Oh well, you can't always win.

So, if you need something, and you can't find it build it! It is just one of life's little adventures.
 
SheepDog said:
I grew up curious. I started fixing those wind-up toys when the springs broke. I took apart a watch once to see how it worked. When I got it back together it worked but it no longer worked as a watch because I had put some gears in the wrong places. I learned to keep track of the pieces I took apart after that. I helped my dad build a 4x8 dining table. We built rockets and model boats. When I was 11 I built my first real boat.
I built my first gun before that and made my first explosive shortly after... nitroglycerine!
There isn't a lot that I can't do. I designed and built the "cabin" that my brother is living in. I have remodeled a bathroom, built cabinets, done plumbing, roofing, and wiring. I rebuilt engines and transmissions for a living, diagnosed and repaired electronic drive controls and worked on hydraulic systems, installed and repaired LPG fuel systems, built rocket launch controllers and made my own browning solutions for gun refinishing.
After we bought this place I designed and built my garage and my shop from the foundation up. Everything passed the inspection because I exceeded every code on the books. I have a useless masters degree in religious history and in theology. I did everything but write my doctoral thesis for my PhD in theology - I stopped because it was another useless degree.
Over the years I have had some really good instructors and some really poor instructors. I have instructor credentials and did that for a while. I got ordained three times in three different religions and that makes me a non-denominational minister (along with the associated psych classes).
I have invented things from a kit to repair a deficiency in an automatic transmission to a fluid wing for aircraft. - the air force came out with a nearly identical wing design for the F-16 just as I was going to publish mine. Oh well, you can't always win.

So, if you need something, and you can't find it build it! It is just one of life's little adventures.
Click to expand...

Hubby is the same way, I've not seen something he cant fix if he stays at it.He can hunt and dress ,but he is also older now and deals with pain. He works through it but still stops him in his tracks now and then.He has lots of badly positioned metal in his spine.Leans down to the left on xrays
 
I have zero practical skills in today's society!
waveguy.gif

Just ask ET.
Even had the tire shop change the oil in my truck last time.
Fortunately, managing finances requires zero practical skills😜.
 
Frodo said:
I was 10 years old when I tore apart the lawn mower just to see what was inside
My Dad walked into the garage. Instead of kicking my butt. he laughed and said thats pretty good
now. Put it back together. I did. It smoked but it ran
I am a tinkerer at heart. If it is broke I can fix it. if it is Fixed I can broke it

It simply amazes me at the people who look at something and say I CAN NOT DO THAT
and never attempt to fix it.
Click to expand...
My brother was notorious for tearing things apart, but he never put them back together again. He was also notorious for tearing things up.
 
Supervisor42 said:
I have zero practical skills in today's society!View attachment 45249
Just ask ET.
Even had the tire shop change the oil in my truck last time.
Fortunately, managing finances requires zero practical skills😜.
Click to expand...
I used to do my own tune-ups, change the oil in my vehicles. But it is dirty under cars. I quit doing it decades ago and let the professionals do it now. I am glad to have the knowledge to know how to do it though. Daughter has done lots of car work herself, but lets the professionals take care of oil changes and other mechanical problems as well.
 
Weedygarden said:
I used to do my own tune-ups, change the oil in my vehicles. But it is dirty under cars. I quit doing it decades ago and let the professionals do it now. I am glad to have the knowledge to know how to do it though. Daughter has done lots of car work herself, but lets the professionals take care of oil changes and other mechanical problems as well.
Click to expand...
I can do the maintenance on my vehicles but I don't enjoy it anymore. It's easier and sometimes cheaper to have the work done. We have newer vehicles and they aren't as easy to work on as the old stuff. Just checking the oil on my F150 is a pain. I have to get a step ladder and lean way into the engine compartment to reach the dipstick.
 
backlash said:
I can do the maintenance on my vehicles but I don't enjoy it anymore. It's easier and sometimes cheaper to have the work done. We have newer vehicles and they aren't as easy to work on as the old stuff. Just checking the oil on my F150 is a pain. I have to get a step ladder and lean way into the engine compartment to reach the dipstick.
Click to expand...
You may not even need to pull the dipstick if it has an oil-level sensor. Check the manual under 'messages'. Just depends on the year model.
It will tell you when it is getting low of oil or coolant.
{there I go again
Ingore90.gif
)
 
I didn't mention that I can also set broken bones and knock toes back in place.I ran inot hubby boots and broke and knocked out of joint two toes!
They were pointing east when they should have been pointing north.Plus bent.
Hubby was sitting with me and he said don't do it! I knocked the mback in place with a loud scream he said 'sto it' then I grabbed one and pulled it back into place to set the bone,terrible pain and thats when he keft.While I set the other one.
When I screamed the cat ran out Meow! Dogs in yard barked.
My foor was solid black next day so went to ER Xrayed and dr laufged and said 'they wer broke and you did a grea job.I told hubby I just did what they would do. He said I was nuts,lol.Well I have had worse when I put intestines back inside me in April 1971.We do what we have to do. I just don't think I'd survive a large break though.
 
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