Lamenting the demise of pride in a job well done

I’m old enough to remember when the sharpening man came through our neighbourhood.

He had an old station wagon with his tools in the back. He had a slide-out tabletop that stood on a pair of sawhorses where he worked. He’d pull up to the curb and housewives would run out with scissors or knives or implements that needed an edge, and he would hone them right there at the sidewalk.

He had a couple of kids, and after school or on weekends, they’d run down the street ahead of him with flyers and a hand bell. They’d ring the bell to let folks know he was coming and they’d stick flyers in the mailboxes of people who weren’t home. It was a family thing. You could see those kids were proud of their dad.

He never rushed. He always took the time to talk to his customers. He’d ask about how often they used their tools or utensils. He asked what they were most often used for. He asked if they were happy with them, and if they weren’t, he would suggest other brands.

He cared about people and the idea that his service could help them, if only in a small way.

What impressed me the most back then was that he tried to talk himself out of work. He would show people how to sharpen their own things. He took the time to show them how to sharpen lawn mower blades, ice skates, scythes, saws, chisels and bits. He taught them how to get the precise edge a particular tool required and how to maintain it. He taught them his own skill. He empowered them, and eventually, the sharpening man disappeared from neighbourhoods everywhere.

I didn’t know it then, but what I was seeing was honour. I was watching a man who was proud of his work and the service he provided. I was seeing a craftsman. I was witnessing an ethic that somehow seems to be in short supply in a lot of places and a lot of occupations these days, and we suffer from its lack. Honour. For the craft, the job, the work, the service and, most importantly, the customer.

My wife has dealt with a lot of tradesmen and service providers over the past few years. As a rooming house and a revenue property landlord, as well as a private homeowner, she’s needed to have a lot of work done on an ongoing basis on three fronts.

What’s struck us in our interactions with the professionals is how unprofessional a lot of them behave. She had an electrical contractor who was paid enormously for a refit of the rooming house. He took blatant shortcuts. He did the job as fast as he could so he could move on to the next, and he left marginalized tenants on very low incomes with inadequate wiring in their rooms. When confronted, even though he failed an inspection and was made to do work over, he was rude and took offence at her questions.

She had a general contractor who continued to add costs to an accepted quote. He eventually left without starting the job when she wouldn’t accept the additional costs. Another did shoddy work on countertops and plumbing, yet expected full pay and deeply resented being shown his inferior work. Sometimes when the job she needed doing was deemed too small, contractors just refused to take it on and never let her know. They just vanished without a word.

It’s not just tradesmen either. A car dealer tried to cheat her on tires. The checkout woman at the grocery store held up a long line while she chatted with her girlfriend at the till. Literally everywhere we go in the world of commerce, the idea of honour for the job and the customer seems to have disappeared like that old station wagon at the curb.

I miss it. I miss amiable chatter when a job is agreed upon and finished satisfactorily. I miss people explaining how and why they need to do things and taking the time to show us how to do it ourselves. I miss feeling honoured. I miss feeling as though our job, our money and our business matters. Our world seems a lot colder in the absence of those attitudes.

The sharpener guy cared. His job was maybe insignificant in the whole scheme of things, but he took pride in it. He did the best job possible. He cared about his customers. He took his time and he valued theirs. He was a person first and a tradesman after. Seemed a better world back then for all of that. I miss it.