A tool can be found, a book can be read, but a skill learned over twenty years can't be replaced. In a crisis, what runs out first isn't equipment. It's people who know how to use it.
Why trades matter
A modern society spreads knowledge across thousands of trades. Each person only knows a small part of what keeps them alive, and it all works because others know the rest. When exchange stops, a group is only worth what its members can do with their hands.
What follows says, trade by trade, what they know that you don't. Each trade will get its own sheet over time.
Caring
- Nurse: injections, drips, dressings, watching a patient day and night, spotting when things get worse. The most useful trade day to day in a group, even more than the doctor, because most care is care that lasts.
- Doctor: diagnosis, choice of treatment, technical procedures.
- Midwife: pregnancies, births, newborns. Knowledge that saves two lives at once. See Accoucher sans médecin.
- Pharmacist: which drug replaces which, doses, interactions, what keeps and what expires.
- Vet: surgery, anaesthesia, antibiotics, on patients who can't talk. They know much of what a doctor knows, and they're used to making do with little.
- Dentist: toothache makes an adult useless within two days.
- Physiotherapist: immobilising, rehabilitating, relieving a back.
- Firefighter, first aider, paramedic: the first minutes, the injured, fire, transport.
Building and maintaining
- Plumber: water in and water out. Without them, disease comes fast. See Assainissement et eaux usées.
- Electrician: wiring without killing anyone, connecting a generator or solar panels properly. See Câbler et protéger une installation.
- Heating engineer: stoves, flues, gas, and the carbon monoxide that kills people who heat badly.
- Mason, carpenter, roofer: a watertight roof before winter, a wall that stands. The roofer is the one you notice missing at the first rain.
- Mechanic: engines, pumps, generators, vehicles. Also the most resourceful with parts that aren't the right ones.
- Welder, metalworker, blacksmith: repairing what broke, making what can't be found any more.
- Electronics technician, phone and radio repairer: bringing devices back, communicating. See Radio, without the jargon.
Feeding
- Farmer, market gardener, livestock keeper: producing food season after season. The knowledge that takes longest to acquire, and the one people most regret not having. See La germination et le semis and L'élevage.
- Baker: sourdough, the wood oven, bread for a hundred people.
- Butcher, charcutier: slaughtering, cutting, salting, smoking, wasting nothing of an animal. See Abattre et transformer.
- Miller, beekeeper, fisher, hunter, forager: each a whole branch of food.
- Canteen or army cook: feeding many people, every day, with whatever there is, without poisoning anyone.
Making
- Seamstress, tailor, cobbler: clothes and shoes that last. See La couture.
- Joiner, cabinetmaker: furniture, tools, handles, carts.
- Potter, basket maker, tanner, soap maker, brewer: forgotten trades that become precious again as soon as the shelves empty.
Organising and passing on
- Teacher: so children keep learning, and knowledge gets passed on.
- Stock manager, logistician, bookkeeper: knowing what you have, what you use, and how long it will last.
- Radio amateur: talking far away without a network.
- Soldier, police officer, security guard: guard duty, discipline, tense situations.
- Psychologist, social worker, mediator: holding a group together when everyone is at the end of their rope. See La violence dans le groupe.
Taking stock of a group's skills
- Don't ask "what's your job?", ask "what can you do with your hands?" An accountant may be a passionate gardener; a retired nurse may be the best seamstress in the neighbourhood.
- Count hobbies: hunting, fishing, gardening, DIY, sewing, radio, hiking, volunteer first aid.
- Note the tools each person owns, and what they're willing to teach.
- Pair an apprentice with each person who knows: knowledge carried by one person disappears with them.
What people who rebuilt know
- Retired people are a goldmine. Many learned their trade without computers, with hand tools, and know how to fix what younger people replace.
- Maintenance trades are missed before prestigious ones. A town lasts longer without a banker than without a plumber.
- A skill is currency. In a trade, an hour of a roofer's or a dentist's time is worth more than many objects. See Trading, negotiating, keeping your word.
- A skill is learned by watching someone do it, then doing it under someone's eye, not from a book. Phenix sheets give the map; apprenticeship is the ground. See Organiser un petit groupe.