The Tools to Take on a Messy World
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
By SeattleTool
By SeattleTool
Pulitzer Prize winning author Russell Baker is infamous for once forgoing the obligatory inspirational commencement speech he was invited to give to the graduating class of Connecticut College in favor of a more pessimistic view. “'The best advice I can give anybody about going out into the world is this,” he said “Don't do it. I have been out there. It is a mess.”
The warning, of course, was calculated to shock. Graduation speeches are the breeding grounds of hyperbole. A buffet of cliches. So if Baker wanted to get beyond the well worn trail of old ideas, the only choice he had was to turn convention on its head. If he didn’t have everyone’s attention when he took the podium, he certainly did after uttering those words.
If you’re graduating this year, chances are you will likely forget everything you heard on graduation day sometime between your first job interview and your first mortgage payment. The good news is, your education should have equipped you for both.
A lot of people talk metaphorically about having the ‘tools’ one needs to get through life - good communication skills, the ability to creatively solve problems, for instance. But those of you graduating into a trade know all too well that, beyond those assets, many of the tools you’ll need are made of cold, hard steel.
And they cost money.
There is no set standard or guideline outlining the cost of hand tools for particular trades. But even the most conservative numbers from North American technical schools estimate the investment in thousands, if not tens of thousands of dollars for an apprentice starting out. And automotive technicians are at the top of the scale.
We’re making an extra effort to market our tools to graduates because we like the idea of linking our products to such long term potential. It’s good for our business and yours. As new professionals, the fact that high end tools represent an investment (and cheap tools eventually become a liability) is a practical lesson you won’t hear in a commencement speech.
So even if you subscribe to Baker’s view of a messy world, you’ve got the tools and know how to fix it . . . one corner at a time.
The warning, of course, was calculated to shock. Graduation speeches are the breeding grounds of hyperbole. A buffet of cliches. So if Baker wanted to get beyond the well worn trail of old ideas, the only choice he had was to turn convention on its head. If he didn’t have everyone’s attention when he took the podium, he certainly did after uttering those words.
If you’re graduating this year, chances are you will likely forget everything you heard on graduation day sometime between your first job interview and your first mortgage payment. The good news is, your education should have equipped you for both.
A lot of people talk metaphorically about having the ‘tools’ one needs to get through life - good communication skills, the ability to creatively solve problems, for instance. But those of you graduating into a trade know all too well that, beyond those assets, many of the tools you’ll need are made of cold, hard steel.
And they cost money.
There is no set standard or guideline outlining the cost of hand tools for particular trades. But even the most conservative numbers from North American technical schools estimate the investment in thousands, if not tens of thousands of dollars for an apprentice starting out. And automotive technicians are at the top of the scale.
We’re making an extra effort to market our tools to graduates because we like the idea of linking our products to such long term potential. It’s good for our business and yours. As new professionals, the fact that high end tools represent an investment (and cheap tools eventually become a liability) is a practical lesson you won’t hear in a commencement speech.
So even if you subscribe to Baker’s view of a messy world, you’ve got the tools and know how to fix it . . . one corner at a time.
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