Book Club: Shop Class as Soulcraft by Matthew Crawford
Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry into the Value of Work Crawford, Matthew B.
Finally finished this! Took me a little bit longer to read due to some other books taking up my commuting time, but here are my thoughts.
Shop Class as Soulcraft definitely scratched a mental itch I’ve had about the real value of work in today’s “information” based economy. The author Matthew Crawford did a really good job examining the importance (or lack of) skills in jobs today. This is something I’ve spent a lot of time discussing (ok maybe ranting) with friends and so I was pretty excited to interact with a well articulated book on the subject.
As a technologist, my value and attached pride in the job marketplace is directly attached to my skills as an engineer. Company A is looking for a linux system admin to run their rapidly expanding web infrastructure running on Amazon Web Services. Now either I’ve run big AWS installations and am familiar with scaling architecture or I’m not. If I have the skill, I can prove it in a technical interview in front of them (Company A’s team) and thus qualify myself for the job. Sounds simple enough!
What I’ve been struggling with, is that the VAST MAJORITY of careers it seems, this transaction is not possible. Crawford gets into this discussion pretty deeply, pointing to the trend of corporate optimization. By this I’m referring to the dumbing down of processes so that anyone can simply follow instructions and complete tasks. This is great and efficient for corporations, but produces a workforce of employees who have no real developed skills.
Crawford ultimately recommends that all readers try and grow a passion in some sort of physical trade or hobby, and I definitely agree with him. As formal education becomes more and more meaningless (I’ll write about that later) the time to build skills that are in demand is now if you want to stay competitive and be able to continue to earn a living. And you better make damn sure that you can demonstrate your work to a potential employer, whether its live or through a portfolio of created work (think designs, artists etc.)
Overall I thought “Shop Class As Soulcraft” is a unique but necessary perspective to have on future of what we call ‘work’. Grab a copy and see for yourself, even if you aren’t a tradesman already I recommend reading through it and reflecting on your career and hobbies.
Here's the book (*affiliate link*) Drop me a line and let me know what you think of it!