Rob The Plumber

I try not to fall into any “should have done this” or “could have done that” thinking, but I’m really starting to wonder about passing on the plumbing thing.

My father owned a small plumbing business, and a couple of summers as a laborer convinced me that I wanted nothing to do with it. All I could see from my narrow slice of the world was a pathway that lead to a life in basements and under sinks —but what I didn’t see was the opportunity to be a businessman. My thick teenage skull couldn’t understand that the goal was not to be the guy doing the work, but the guy making the money.

I was reminded of this after the NY Times did the inevitable plumber story after Joe the Plumber became a national celebrity. But the plumbers the Times wrote about? These were successful, Einstein-quoting guys with 4,000 square foot offices running shops where their top employees “clear two, maybe two-and-a-quarter every year.” Yes, the workers, not the managers.

But, no…I had to go work in TV.

Anyway, no point in having regrets or in making the obvious TV career vs. plumbing career crap joke. Life is life and when you get right down to it, it’s just a matter of which end of the pipe you’re looking through.

8 thoughts on “Rob The Plumber

  1. The Looters

    People that actually do things-perform real and necessary functions-have been reviled, belittled
    and disrespected in this Country for years.

    Ironically, these are those who shall survive and
    thrive in the coming economic devastation (you
    ain’t seen nothin’, yet).

    The multiple layers of do-nothing and inept “management”-types who are causing this imminent collapse will be knocking on Real Workers’ cellar doors, begging for food; or, wielding expensive and alien-to-them fine weaponry, as Looters in Lexus’s.

    The excesses and incompetence they showed
    in causing this approaching debacle will serve
    them not in their quest for survival. One clog,
    and they’ll freak. These are the people who do
    not even know how to pump their own gas.

    They only know how to raise the price.

  2. coda:

    Yes, they may try to ‘Rob the Plumber’, but
    traditionally, also, he is more than likely to
    be prepared for just such an eventuality.

    JS

  3. Come on, get real Justin.
    People like you have been predicting the big fall for way too long to be taken seriously. Your narrow sighted, Marxist attitude is getting old; rich bankers and lawyers didn’t cause all your problems We’re all out there just trying to make a living, not everybody needs to work with their hands.
    Maybe this financial downturn was the fault of the lending institutions but those relaxed restrictions were aimed at providing the American dream for people not just profiting at the expense of the working class.
    Before you go completely blaming the executives ask yourself how many Lexus owners defaulted on their home loans. My guess is that even though they may not do a hard days work they know enough not to take a loan they can’t pay back.

  4. Rob, I have the EXACT same thought at least once a week. Man I wish I paid attention on all those jobs, I was just trying to get to the end of the day without pissing off my dad.

  5. Middle Class:

    You will be as extinct as the Dodo. Marxist?

    Do you even know what that term means?

    And I have no problems, Sport. It is your ilk
    that will be at The Mission.

    Home Loans as Cause? Not even close. You
    are lost , “Middle Class”. Your Willful and
    Permanent Ignorance has possessed you.

    RIP

  6. And, just to end our fleeting encounter on a more positive note, Mr. Muddled Class, the
    only Marx I even admired was Groucho.

    The End.

    Justin Stark

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