Besides watching someone to try to learn, craftsmen can just goon over other’s works.
At a job once updating some central lighting control there were some awesome rooms some (probably long retired) electrician had planned and installed. man that shit was so clean. Another time me n another guy were 'mirin this single ¾ conduit bend for 5 minutes.
This isn’t exactly 100% relevant to your story, but it is related and an anecdote I enjoy sharing.
I recently moved to a small town and hired an electrician to make some changes to my house. After showing him around the house, we went to look at the fuse box to determine what changes could be made.
As we were looking, he said “I know those fuses are original.” When I asked how, he pointed at the labels and said “because that’s my father’s handwriting.”
Kinda cool to have a legacy like that. The electrician did do good work, so far as I can tell, so it was likely earned as well.
That didn’t involve you learning how someone can hang tvs better than you on Facebook. Having hung a TV or two in my day, I don’t know how one can learn to respect another’s ability there based on social media
Quick edit: I’m also super annoyed at op to tie it to ‘positive masculinity’ while describing the quintessential male trait - they like teaching or displaying their abilities. Go grill or work on cars with a group of men and see what happens. It’s a fucking trope. This nonsense wholesome schtick is gross.
I don’t know how one can learn to respect another’s ability there based on social media
Well i haven’t used Facebook in a long time but i have seen (both through reading accounts on social media and a few guys personally that use Facebook successfully for their side-work. Facebook gets like 2B eyeballs daily (if not our 4)
Edit:
edit: I’m also super annoyed at op to tie it to ‘positive masculinity’ while describing the quintessential male trait - they like teaching or displaying their abilities
But toxic masculinity is definitely not asking others for help. as a tradesperson i can speak to the fear of outting myself to ridicule if i all for help. Not just me either, I’ve seen whole days of work wasted cuz guys are afraid to ask. I don’t of it’s all jobs but Construction definitely be that way.
Op reached out even so and got help instead of ridicule and are now partners instead of competitors. Like what’s not to like here?
Can’t forget the fun flip side too, where some guys who know a lot are unwilling to share, because they (being fuckin cowards) feel it’s necessary to protect their job security by being the only one who knows how to do certain things.
Or! The guys who know how to do things - have decided they hate doing some of those things (usually for good reason in my experience) - and therefore pretend they don’t know how to do them. I kinda sympathize with this one sometimes.
But yeah, “likes to teach” as the toxic trait? Anyone who thinks that is the toxic version of knowledge sharing is kinda just revealing how little time they’ve actually spent around men.
Bud, there’s a term around men over explaining things because it’s such a thing: mansplaining. There’s also a real big trope in many relationships about men trying to solve problems instead of saying “wow that sucks”. This behavior is so ubiquitous that it’s in sitcoms and has been for as long as TV has existed.
The hilarious part about your comment is you’re the one over-explaining to me here. I’m super familiar with about every way a man can be characteristically shitty, happen to have witnessed most of it first hand over the years, committed some of the milder stuff before I grew up and learned how to behave, but here you are kindly helping me understand things about men. Interestingly, of all the things I have witnessed, what I don’t really see often is “mansplaining”. What I do see sometimes is a dude earnestly doing his best to offer help and someone else being totally uncharitable about that, like it’s some affront. And never to the dude oddly enough, only in a mocking, condescending way to others behind his back. The reason I see those ugly hidden reactions, incidentally, is because my behavior makes it clear I’m a solid ally of the people making those comments, and they trust me.
So I dunno. Way I see it, there’s a catalog of valid complaints about stereotypical dude behavior. But being super critical about sincere (if clumsy) attempts to support or help someone just always strikes me as deliberately nasty, for fun. But you do you.
Don’t bother with the TV sitcoms, please. “Bumbling idiot father who fucks up even the most trivial things constantly and is roundly shit on by everyone including his own children” is a core, continuous joke behind so many shows. And fuck it, often it’s hilarious, I’m not gonna get bent outta shape about it. Your “see, look how toxic, it’s been on TV forever” feels pretty weak.
Bingo. Toxic masculinity in the trades is thinking you know everything and acting like it. And it makes working with those people, especially foremen like that, terrible. No one knows everything, and the best tradesmen I’ve ever met are the ones that know they don’t and will never know everything, but they try to learn something new every day.
I have an electrical business, and hired a buddy that was a union operator for years to help out. I learn something new from that dude every day just from his years of adjacent experience, it’s pretty rad.
I’ve been contemplating sending a business rival a bottle of whiskey for proper capatilization on the word “FastLane” as well as strict adherence to correct PLU usage in the face of absurd custom store-level PLUs, 100% get it.
More that they’re using the official IFPS PLUs instead of using the random numbers that this grocery store decided to use.
Bananas are standardized at PLU 4011, but this store has been using PLU 14 out of convenience to them at the expense of government agencies that need the correct numbers to approve purchases made with state-run welfare programs that restrict their use to specific produce items, like WIC.
Hmm, i used to have pics. Hard to describe with words. Beyond the beautifully square pipe runs and can punches he had a kinda signature with his sweeps and the rooms he musta done looked like he had made a master plan rather than just making it work. Oh and very little evidence of covered up mistakes (short pieces of conduit) that youd maybe only notice if you were doing demo anyway.
We would wonder who this dude was cuz there were like…a lot of rooms he had a hand in in this building. His clean work trademark was one thing, but we never knew for sure it was one of his until we’d pull the old cabinets to find his other trademark, peurile cartoons about how he really felt about his boss.
Man that’s amazing, if you ever do find pics of his cartoons or work and want to comment them, I’d love to see them. It’s incredible how we touch past lives like that.
Not the person you’re responding to, but an electrician as well. The difference between someone who just showed up to get it running and get paid versus the ones who take time to sinch as close to perfect as possible are night and day. A good installation would have the basics like clean pipe runs, level cans and boxes, minimal mistakes (extended conduits, plugged holes in boxes where someone mismeasured, no missing parts, etc). The perfection guys go beyond by having everything laser level with themselves (pipes, boxes, etc), thoughtful layout to make working on it easier, forethought with layout as far as system expansion and futures, sometimes even sizing pipes and boxes a little bigger to accommodate future additions, and often just the little simple details like aligning screw heads where you can tell that the original installer really took their time and had passion for doing things right. Especially compared to installs where it’s a pain to try and do anything and you’re basically putting lipstick on a pig, it’s always a wonderful treat to work on something where someone really gave a shit.
Besides watching someone to try to learn, craftsmen can just goon over other’s works.
At a job once updating some central lighting control there were some awesome rooms some (probably long retired) electrician had planned and installed. man that shit was so clean. Another time me n another guy were 'mirin this single ¾ conduit bend for 5 minutes.
This isn’t exactly 100% relevant to your story, but it is related and an anecdote I enjoy sharing.
I recently moved to a small town and hired an electrician to make some changes to my house. After showing him around the house, we went to look at the fuse box to determine what changes could be made.
As we were looking, he said “I know those fuses are original.” When I asked how, he pointed at the labels and said “because that’s my father’s handwriting.”
Kinda cool to have a legacy like that. The electrician did do good work, so far as I can tell, so it was likely earned as well.
“because they’re fuses instead of breakers”
Ah yes, that’s my fault; my house isn’t new, but it’s not old enough to use fuses, original or otherwise.
Wholesome
Another similar example would be guys who look at a picture of a server rack and go “Hnnnng, look at that cable management ohmygod how!?”
That didn’t involve you learning how someone can hang tvs better than you on Facebook. Having hung a TV or two in my day, I don’t know how one can learn to respect another’s ability there based on social media
Quick edit: I’m also super annoyed at op to tie it to ‘positive masculinity’ while describing the quintessential male trait - they like teaching or displaying their abilities. Go grill or work on cars with a group of men and see what happens. It’s a fucking trope. This nonsense wholesome schtick is gross.
Well i haven’t used Facebook in a long time but i have seen (both through reading accounts on social media and a few guys personally that use Facebook successfully for their side-work. Facebook gets like 2B eyeballs daily (if not our 4)
Edit:
But toxic masculinity is definitely not asking others for help. as a tradesperson i can speak to the fear of outting myself to ridicule if i all for help. Not just me either, I’ve seen whole days of work wasted cuz guys are afraid to ask. I don’t of it’s all jobs but Construction definitely be that way.
Op reached out even so and got help instead of ridicule and are now partners instead of competitors. Like what’s not to like here?
Can’t forget the fun flip side too, where some guys who know a lot are unwilling to share, because they (being fuckin cowards) feel it’s necessary to protect their job security by being the only one who knows how to do certain things.
Or! The guys who know how to do things - have decided they hate doing some of those things (usually for good reason in my experience) - and therefore pretend they don’t know how to do them. I kinda sympathize with this one sometimes.
But yeah, “likes to teach” as the toxic trait? Anyone who thinks that is the toxic version of knowledge sharing is kinda just revealing how little time they’ve actually spent around men.
Bud, there’s a term around men over explaining things because it’s such a thing: mansplaining. There’s also a real big trope in many relationships about men trying to solve problems instead of saying “wow that sucks”. This behavior is so ubiquitous that it’s in sitcoms and has been for as long as TV has existed.
The hilarious part about your comment is you’re the one over-explaining to me here. I’m super familiar with about every way a man can be characteristically shitty, happen to have witnessed most of it first hand over the years, committed some of the milder stuff before I grew up and learned how to behave, but here you are kindly helping me understand things about men. Interestingly, of all the things I have witnessed, what I don’t really see often is “mansplaining”. What I do see sometimes is a dude earnestly doing his best to offer help and someone else being totally uncharitable about that, like it’s some affront. And never to the dude oddly enough, only in a mocking, condescending way to others behind his back. The reason I see those ugly hidden reactions, incidentally, is because my behavior makes it clear I’m a solid ally of the people making those comments, and they trust me.
So I dunno. Way I see it, there’s a catalog of valid complaints about stereotypical dude behavior. But being super critical about sincere (if clumsy) attempts to support or help someone just always strikes me as deliberately nasty, for fun. But you do you.
Don’t bother with the TV sitcoms, please. “Bumbling idiot father who fucks up even the most trivial things constantly and is roundly shit on by everyone including his own children” is a core, continuous joke behind so many shows. And fuck it, often it’s hilarious, I’m not gonna get bent outta shape about it. Your “see, look how toxic, it’s been on TV forever” feels pretty weak.
Bingo. Toxic masculinity in the trades is thinking you know everything and acting like it. And it makes working with those people, especially foremen like that, terrible. No one knows everything, and the best tradesmen I’ve ever met are the ones that know they don’t and will never know everything, but they try to learn something new every day.
I have an electrical business, and hired a buddy that was a union operator for years to help out. I learn something new from that dude every day just from his years of adjacent experience, it’s pretty rad.
Lol, I thought it was just me. 😄
I’ve been contemplating sending a business rival a bottle of whiskey for proper capatilization on the word “FastLane” as well as strict adherence to correct PLU usage in the face of absurd custom store-level PLUs, 100% get it.
You should!
Do you have an example of a good and bad PLU, actual if possible?
(I did search engine/LLM it first :) )
More that they’re using the official IFPS PLUs instead of using the random numbers that this grocery store decided to use.
Bananas are standardized at PLU 4011, but this store has been using PLU 14 out of convenience to them at the expense of government agencies that need the correct numbers to approve purchases made with state-run welfare programs that restrict their use to specific produce items, like WIC.
Oh that is goofy! And harmful. Thanks
What made the old electrician’s work especially clean or notable? Just curious what caught your eye as I’m someone not in that industry
Hmm, i used to have pics. Hard to describe with words. Beyond the beautifully square pipe runs and can punches he had a kinda signature with his sweeps and the rooms he musta done looked like he had made a master plan rather than just making it work. Oh and very little evidence of covered up mistakes (short pieces of conduit) that youd maybe only notice if you were doing demo anyway.
We would wonder who this dude was cuz there were like…a lot of rooms he had a hand in in this building. His clean work trademark was one thing, but we never knew for sure it was one of his until we’d pull the old cabinets to find his other trademark, peurile cartoons about how he really felt about his boss.
Man that’s amazing, if you ever do find pics of his cartoons or work and want to comment them, I’d love to see them. It’s incredible how we touch past lives like that.
Not the person you’re responding to, but an electrician as well. The difference between someone who just showed up to get it running and get paid versus the ones who take time to sinch as close to perfect as possible are night and day. A good installation would have the basics like clean pipe runs, level cans and boxes, minimal mistakes (extended conduits, plugged holes in boxes where someone mismeasured, no missing parts, etc). The perfection guys go beyond by having everything laser level with themselves (pipes, boxes, etc), thoughtful layout to make working on it easier, forethought with layout as far as system expansion and futures, sometimes even sizing pipes and boxes a little bigger to accommodate future additions, and often just the little simple details like aligning screw heads where you can tell that the original installer really took their time and had passion for doing things right. Especially compared to installs where it’s a pain to try and do anything and you’re basically putting lipstick on a pig, it’s always a wonderful treat to work on something where someone really gave a shit.
Now when you say goon…