Anvil boy has a great post up here, and it inspired me to enough comment that I felt that rather than comment I’d post about it.

The gist of the post is that the well educated elites cannot even adequately communicate with the “hoi poloi”.

Here’s a hint, folks: The education it requires to graduate from an Ivy League school, is no more strenuous than the education required to be a good plumber. There’s a crapload of shit to get through before you are competent at bolting down shitters. Or pouring concrete. Or doing any of the normal jobs that tradesmen do. The fact is, while you can learn, more or less, how to pour concrete in an afternoon, you have to do it for YEARS to become a professional. And to be prepared for the types of things that might happen during a pour.

The same is true of plumbing. Or electrical work. Or roofing. Or siding. Or drywall.

Yes, drywall. It has become a joke around here that you can’t sling mud without mexicans; and that’s in fact part of the trouble. there are so many people who are unwilling to pay decent contractor prices to get drywall done, so they hire mexicans. And frankly, there are some mexicans that do half decent drywall work. And do so for about a tenth the “normal” cost. I’d say 99% of the new construction in this area is done by mexicans.

Steve regularly complains about the quality of work being done by “Professionals” in his area, and a friend of mine in Miami has independantly confirmed what he says is true. The primary reason, it seems, is that decent contractors have been edged out of business by people working cheap, and people were willing to put up with shit work in exchange for low prices.

Sigh. Everyone wants something for nothing.

Around here, it’s still possible to find professionals. You can get people who will do quality work, but you have to pay for it. And some people still do, and can afford to.

People like me, who have done that type of work for ages, in one capacity or another, choose to DIY, and that’s because we cannot afford the quality of contractor required to do the quality of work we desire. Sometimes, we might hire less than optimally skilled people to do simple tasks, but I never leave anything critical, structural, or visible to anyone but me.

SO yeah. The ivy league types don’t know what to say to the people who use their brains AND hands to do their jobs. And they probably never will. But without them, without the people who know how to do the work, we’re all living in caves. And when you go cheap, and you treat the “little people” like shit, you get shit work.