The story of my colleague Sean and I fixing his lawnmower on our own began to circulate in the office the other day. It started with a murmur on the other side of the room, and before I knew it, two of our editors were next to my desk.
I don't want to think about the hours of time in classes they spent (and that I have spent for that matter) to learn a specialization, only to have something so basic to everyday life as getting the lawn mowed be a blind spot of knowledge.
I have a college degree, too, but what makes me stand out in my new white-collar world? I can do something as (what used to be) simple as figure out how to reattach a safety cable with some wire so an engine will keep running. Anything much more complicated, and I would have no clue on how to fix the mower. But I'm the best people got without spending hundreds of dollars.
What I was left with was a sinking feeling. Has our specialization economy painted many of us into a corner? Are we too dependent on our service industries for our basic needs, and is that going to make the recession harder to get through?
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