...and the kitchen sink

It’s never been my goal to live in a big, luxurious house, or in a planned neighborhood with gates and an HOA. So when I started looking for a house to buy in Austin, I gravitated towards the comfortable south Austin neighborhoods I’m most familiar with. And found a darling little place, built on a hillside, that looks oddly like an English half-timbered cottage. It was in respectable condition, passed the VA inspection anyway, but terribly plain with white paint and generic fixtures. Happily, the owners took our low-ball offer, and after the usual amount of paperwork and frustration, we moved in.

The entire neighborhood was built in the 80’s by a developer whose mantra must have been ‘fast and cheap.’  We knew that new cabinets in the kitchen would be high on our list of priorities. I wasn’t expecting the plumbing to be so substandard. A leaking kitchen faucet that was corroded in place led to a weekend project to replace both the sink and the faucet. As usual with such projects, three trips to the hardware store and considerable frustration ensued. Finally, the new deep, cast iron sink and tall, curved faucet were installed and the various adjustments completed. It’s the best looking thing in the house, and makes the rest of the kitchen look pretty shabby in comparison.

As I look around the house at all the evidence of shoddy workmanship, I feel discouraged at all the work ahead of me. But my new sink is a pleasure to use. I can easily fill up my tallest stock-pot. Washing dishes is no longer a tedious chore. The smoothness of the white porcelain reminds me of my grandmother’s kitchen every time I do the dishes, and recalls happy memories. And for some reason, the traces of my fingertips in the caulk around the edge of the sink gives me a warm sense of accomplishment.

And that, I think, is the difference between a craftsperson and a laborer. My house was built by corporate laborers, hired at the cheapest possible rate, who were no doubt encouraged to work quickly by a foreman who was incented on the number of houses he constructed in the least amount of time. While I do not claim to be a highly skilled plumber or carpenter, when I’m working on my own house, I use the best quality materials I can afford, work slowly, and do the best job I can;  not just because I’m going to live with the results for many years, but also because I enjoy the work. There’s something very satisfying about figuring out the proper geometry of the plumbing, or finding the right router bit to shape the wood just as I wish. There’s something very real about the stickiness of the caulk on my fingers, the smell of the pine as I cut it, the creative potential in a newly opened can of paint. No one’s telling me what to do, or how to do it, or setting a budget for me, or paying me anything but compliments for my work, and somehow that’s part of the satisfaction. And well, that leather tool belt is pretty macho too.

When I read those helpful articles on social media or quotes by Steve Jobs advising people to find a career that they love, I tend to get a little hot under the collar. It sounds so simple when stated by a person who was blessed with exceptional intelligence, looks, educational opportunities, and luck. So many people today struggle to find any work at all. Any number of educated, talented people in my circle of friends and family are unemployed, underemployed, and financially desperate. No matter how creative, smart, or entrepreneurial they are, they can’t make something out of nothing, can’t start their own company with no funds or support, can’t focus on the deepest desire of their hearts when their brains are fully occupied with where the rent money will come from this month. Many others are working at jobs that are just jobs, because they have family to support and bills to pay. How are people to find the kind of creativity and satisfaction in their work that I experience when tinkering in my house? How is it that American productivity is so high when Americans’ satisfaction with their careers is so low? What is it that we are so busy producing, exactly? And why does it have to be such a miserable experience?

In contemplating this, I did a little research. As usual, the answers I found just let to more questions.

Fact: In 2012, corporate profits hit an all-time high, while employee earnings were at their lowest ever.

Fact:  While workforce productivity has grown steadily since 1945, wages have remained stagnant since 1975.

Fact:  In the past year, my home state of Texas has seen job growth, primarily in the services, leisure and hospitality, and mining industries.

In other words, we’re working our asses off at increasingly menial and low-wage jobs.

For most Texans, this is probably not news. The question is, what are we going to do about it?