The work called unskilled may require skills its customers have never had to acquire.

RESILIENCE

WHAT THIS MEANS

Unskilled generally means the skills are not certified. Handling people who are angry, moving quickly and safely, keeping several things straight at once, judging a situation in seconds, all of it takes years to do well and none of it appears on a qualification. The label describes credentialling rather than difficulty.

Try doing one such job for a day in your imagination in full detail, or better, ask someone who does it what the hard part is. The answers are consistently surprising. And it is worth removing the word from how you describe other people’s work.

A QUESTION TO SIT WITH

Whose job have you underestimated until you had to do it?

MORE IN DISCIPLINE, WORK & STANDARDS

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