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Skilling Right

One of the rites of Spring in my town (and maybe elsewhere as well) is the emergence of Girls Scouts selling cookies outside grocery stores. The other day, I saw a group when I was making my last minute run after work and one young lady was distinctly uncomfortable asking passers-by like me to buy the cookies. She was sulking in the corner and one of the adults was trying to have a conversation with her. 

The sight brought to mind an article I had read about the shortage of plumbers and variety of skilled tradespeople in the country. Jobs that are future-proof in that they cannot be automated away. And unlike many technology jobs that still pay well, these jobs involve real and tangible work where the results are unambiguous. You either have fixed the leak or not. There is no lying and fudging about it. You have solved an actual problem for a person instead of providing a service that the person did not even know they need.

Maybe kids should be encouraged to learn some real skills - go past the lemonade stands, car-washing and cookie selling. The reluctant cookie seller was far to young to join a community college class to become a plumber but if a strong DIY and maker mindset can be instilled into young kids too - its just that they tasks they undertake will be what they can safely undertake and still accomplish results. My father was always fixing and repairing things around the house along with rigging up jugaad workarounds where materials to do the job right were unavailable. 

While I watched him with some curiosity, I was never eager to participate - and not for his lack of trying to bring me into the projects. It was not something I saw my peers do, so at that age it felt awkward. But in hindsight, it was a big miss. These skills can be learned later in life but the level of fluency a person achieves will be very different - they will never quite be natural at it. Back to the reluctant cookie-seller, she could definitely be enlisted to help on a project, have meaningful contribution and fundraise for her cause why learning skills that she could turn into a business someday. 

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