If I were a marketing person buying television advertising time for my client, I would do whatever I could to get them to advertise during live sports, because that’s the only time I ever really see or process commercials: when I can’t fast-forward through them. And the truth is, with a two-year-old running around, even sports I usually watch taped, after the tyke has gone to bed, so even that doesn’t work so well.
But I do have these vague memories of TV. One memory I have, because the commercials used to run during sporting events, is of a guy wearing a wrinkly baseball hat, directly addressing us in a fatherly manner, telling us a little casually that we ought to think about buying a Ford truck. For years I noodled over this: what was Ford up to? Did they think they could just pick some leathery-faced kindly man off the street, put him in an aw-shucks cap, and trick us into buying domestic?
It turned out that this guy, whose name was Mike Rowe, was a celebrity. A host of a TV show called Dirty Jobs, which I had never heard of. Also, this kindly, fatherly, gently nudging pitchman was born in 1962, only 11 years older than me, i.e. not old enough to be my father. And that’s how I knew I was finally actually starting to get old. Thanks, Mike Rowe.
I suppose not knowing who he was another sign of aging. There was a time when I was a very good celebrity spotter. I didn’t have to watch a show or listen to a song to know who Curtis Armstrong or Chris Robinson was. But my head is now full, like an 8GB iPod. On the rare occasion that I can cram some new stuff in, some old stuff has to come out to make room. Because I really don’t know who Curtis Armstrong and Chris Robinson are, although I think I did know once.
It turns out that Mike Rowe was an opera singer once. That’s what it says in Wikipedia. I don’t know what to do with that information, but I felt I had to share it.
Mike Rowe also made an appearance recently on Real Time With Bill Maher. Wearing, by the way, that condemnable cap. When people think about what’s going to be their signature affectation, do you think they always think it through to the end? “What’s going to be your thing Mike?” “I’m going to always wear an aw-shucks baseball cap everywhere I go, even on political talk shows.” “Are you sure Mike? That might look a little silly when you’re not talking about dirty jobs, or trucks.” “I’m sure. And I’ll only ever talk about dirty jobs or trucks, so don’t worry.”
I don’t watch Bill Maher, of course, but my sister’s boyfriend told me about it, and he was galvanized by it. Mike Rowe had reached him. And Mike’s thing, besides the cap, is apparently what is known as the American Skills Gap. Basically, manufacturers and trade organizations are looking for people who can work with their hands, and among American citizens they can’t find as many as they need. Mike Rowe thinks Americans should quit going to college, start picking up nail guns and toilet snakes, and close this gap.
There is a part of me that agrees with the hat man. There certainly is a skills gap: I recently installed a thermostat at my parents’ house in Florida, one of the simplest things you can do around the house that involves wires, and a half hour after I declared the installation complete, the device instructed the heat pump to do the opposite of whatever was instructed. (I had skipped a step.)
So yes, Americans — particularly college-educated Americans — are often technically unskilled. And I agree with Mike Rowe that this is a bad situation that should be addressed. I don’t agree with anyone, though, who says Americans shouldn’t go to college.
I had been saying that for awhile. College is not for everyone, and when people go even though their hearts are not in it, they end up throwing away money that will be missed. If the choice is between giving up on college after a year or two, or apprenticing in a trade, the choice should be obvious.
But the best thing to do would be to do both. Go to college and learn a trade if you can, because the statistics are clear: a college degree on average means you’ll earn a better living. This makes sense. If you can fix broken things, and build things where nothing once stood, you can make a living. But if you can also run a business, you can make more than a living.
Mike Rowe’s crusade is incomplete. By all means, let’s get out there and swing some hammers. But what we really need is not a short stack of people who are good at this and a short stack who are good at that. What we need is a bigger stack of people who are good at both. And who taste delicious doused in strawberry syrup. Always, we need more people like that.
