Splendid Isolation

Category: Trades

It’s Not Hyperbole

Food & Drink, Marketing / Advertising, Patriotism, Trades

When I first referred to Jeremy Clarkson as “The Greatest Living Englishman”, it started off as a nod to his unflinching honesty when it came to everything he looked at, such as his (non-)review of some Vauxhall car model back in the 1990s:  “If they’re not going to bother to make an interesting car, I’m not going to bother to review it.”

That caused Big Business (in this case, Vauxhall’s then-parent company General Motors) to go apeshit, because that’s not the way car reviewers are supposed to behave.

It’s that same unflinching honesty that he displayed in his first bumbling efforts at farming which turned his Clarkson’s Farm TV show into a runaway smash hit, and along the way almost single-handedly changed the way the British regard both food and the farmers who produce it.

So when he turned that same agricultural ignorance towards brewing beer — simply because he had a barn full of unsold barley which he needed to sell — one might think that it was just another celebrity using their name to sell a product.

In this case, one would be not only wrong, but spectacularly wrong.  And if you want to see a case study in marketing that, in hindsight, never had a chance of failing, then I implore you to watch this video.

Time and time again, “the experts” believed that Clarkson was making a mistake, and every single time he proved them not only wrong, but spectacularly wrong.

He turned a few thousand pounds’ worth of unsold barley into a £75 million company, and in the process, changed the way British people think about farming, about beer and about the people who farm and the people who brew beer.

And he did it all with his usual unflinching honesty and openness, which gave the lie to the usual corporate veneer of respectability and care for both their employees and their customers.

Which is why he truly is the Greatest Living Englishman.

I can’t wait to try it the next time I go over to Britishland.

Playing Sherlock

Drive Time, Trades

Okay, as a longtime data geek and mechanical moron, this video had me enthralled.  What was it all about?  Some guys asking themselves “Why?”

This brand new L87 engine with ZERO miles never even made it into a vehicle before it was condemned by GM. It failed one of their quality control Pico tests and we want to know why. In this video, we tear it down, take some measurements, and run tests to uncover why it was tossed in the trash — and how this single engine design ended up costing GM over a billion dollars in recalls and warranty repairs.

I don’t have the faintest clue what any of the technical pieces or terms are all about, but the search is absolutely thrilling.  It’s when these mechanics start looking at the data gathered from analysis of the different engine components that my inner data geek gets excited,

It’s the kind of stuff I used to do at The Great Big Research Company in my initial job in the Stat department:  picking at the data, looking for stuff which shouldn’t be there and is, and/or stuff which should be there and isn’t.

My favorite quote:  “These are big numbers.  Are they big enough to ruin an engine?” (He’s talking about a hundred thousandths of an inch, which in the real world would scarcely matter except when you’re looking at precision-made machinery.)

I’m not going to post a spoiler, here, but it involves the level of chamfering around some holes.

What I truly love is the level of expertise shown by all the guys in the video — and when they bring in Dave himself, his explanation of the problem is absolutely brilliant.

Go and watch the video.  It’s half an hour out of your day, and I promise you that you won’t be disappointed.  Even if you’re not the slightest bit interested in the minutiae  of engines — which would make you similar to me — the journey is worth the time.

Not To Mention An Actual Life Skill

Good Stuff, Trades

Longtime Readers will all be aware of my support for the trades — electricians, plumbers, carpenters and so on — so you can imagine my grin of satisfaction upon reading this article:

Skilled tradespersons tradesmen* such as welders, plumbers, machinists, and carpenters “are in super-high demand,” Sasse observed.  Take-home pay for skilled trade workers is typically between $80 and $200 thousand per year, Sasse determined.  He said a construction superintendent in South Dakota recently informed him that concrete finishers were being paid $75 per hour for a particular project.

And let’s not even mention the financials:

“Most trade schools are six-to-nine months versus a four-year college,” Sasse stated, “but the minute you get out of that trade school — guess what — you get to go to work. So you’re going to make money for three and a half years while your buddy, who’s in a four-year college [program], is just racking up more and more debt. So you get this massive three-and-a-half-year jump on anybody that’s the same age.”

Yup. Not to mention the fact that at the end of the day, you could also start your own small business, to make the serious money.

And by the way, I like what Sasse’s organization stands for — follow the link for more detail.

Good stuff, indeed.

*Yeah, I know women can do most of this stuff too (see below).

But that’s not the point.  This is.

I don’t use “chairperson” because the position is “chairman” OR “chairwoman”, “spokesperson” because the function is “spokesman” OR “spokeswoman” (if we’re going to be pedantic), and “head teacher” when the correct words are “headmaster” OR “headmistress”, depending.

“Tradespeople”?  Nonsensical, as so much PC bullshit is.

Two Strikes

Business, Trades

Oh, how pleasant.  First, from the Democratic Soviet of Minnesoduh:

About 15,000 nurses in Minnesota walked off the job Monday to protest understaffing and overwork — marking the largest strike of private-sector nurses in U.S. history.

Slated to last three days, the strike spotlights nationwide nursing shortages exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic that often result in patients not receiving adequate care. Tensions remain high between nurses and health-care administrators across the country, and there are signs that work stoppages could spread to other states.

Interesting, that.  It’s not like the hospital administrators can just round up random people in the streets and say, “Hey, wanna job?” (although I suspect that Parkland in Dallas has been doing just that for years already).

Round about now, I bet those same hospital administrators kinda regret firing all those people for refusing to be guinea-pigs for an untested vaccine.

Anyway, the next bit of end-of-summer cheer comes from the railroads:

The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) said on Wednesday that its members rejected a tentative deal by its leaders intended to avoid a nationwide railroad strike.

BNSF, CSX, Norfolk Southern, and Union Pacific — four of the nation’s largest rail lines — announced embargoes on certain shipments earlier this week as negotiations continued, although 10 of the nation’s 12 largest railroad unions had tentatively endorsed an agreement outlined by the White House. However, IAM — which was originally among the 10 unions — announced its members rejected the deal.

Strikes could begin later this week if union leaders and rail companies fail to make a deal. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) said on Monday that Congress, which has the authority to block strikes, would intervene “if needed.”

Supply chain bottlenecks driven by labor shortages and worldwide government lockdowns have impacted the American economy over the past two years, leading to inflationary pressures as consumer goods fail to reach shelves. The daily cost of a nationwide rail shutdown could amount to $2 billion, according to a report from the Association of American Railroads, which noted that trucking companies and other alternatives do not presently have the capacity to carry freight previously handled by rail lines.

Hands up all those who think that the current Administration has the ability to prevent either of these — oh, none of you, huh?

Me neither.

Working Off Debt

Men & Women, Trades

Here’s an interesting little morality tale.

My wife slept with our mechanic to settle a £500 bill we couldn’t afford to pay

We’ve been struggling to make ends meet ever since my wife lost her job last year.  My salary won’t stretch to cover our food, rent and energy bills.  That’s why we’re £2,000 in debt on our credit cards.

So it was the cherry on the cake when we were told our car failed its MOT last week. The mechanic told us his repairs would cost us nearly £500.  To add insult to injury it was obvious he fancied my wife.

Panicking, I asked if we could pay in instalments.  While looking my wife up and down he cheekily suggested if we didn’t have the money he could think of another way we could pay.  He said we could think about it overnight. Walking away, I asked her what she thought.

Her answer shocked me: “You know I’d do anything for us, babe.”

So the next day my wife went to his house while I waited in the car outside — it was the longest 30 minutes of my life.  I consoled myself with the idea that she’d be hating this as much as me, but when she finally emerged she seemed defiant and said: “Now I know I’m contributing just as much as you.”

It broke my heart and I’ve only got myself to blame.  Now she thinks it’s the answer to all our financial problems.  She even suggested I could manage her diary of clients.  I’m worried she even enjoyed having sex with this mechanic.

Well, that’s one way of “taking one for the team”, innit?

I actually feel sorry for the guy, because it seems to me he’s uncaged a tiger — and it’s small wonder, when all the Brit newspapers are full of tarts making X thousand a month for showing off their bodies and doing the dirty on prostitution sites like OnlyFans;  and in truth doing nothing on SugarBabies different from Mrs. Debtfire above.

It’s always gone on, only now it’s out in public.

I just wonder how these people account for the revenue on their tax return… because if they don’t, it’s called “tax evasion”, and the collection agencies (I mean tax offices hem hem) of both the U.K. and the U.S. respectively take quite a dim view of it.

Welcome Reminder

Advice, Trades

…that among the larger paradigm shifts of recent years, the “go to college after high school” mantra has been largely debunked in favor of going to a trade school:

More than a million students have held off from going to college since the pandemic problems arose, and many of those students are seeking training in the trades instead. Their skills are in high demand, too, as nearly 90 percent of contractors are desperate for competent workers.

I said this back in 2008.  And no, it’s not just for boys.

   

After all, it’s not like this is some new thing, either: