> I know a lot of folks who work every day in the trades and to a person (don't worry, 'tomc1985, this isn't me being woke, I'm acquainted with women in the tra

> I know a lot of folks who work every day in the trades and to a person (don't worry, 'tomc1985, this isn't me being woke, I'm acquainted with women in the trades too) the best folks I know have no stake in gatekeeping. They're excited to bring in new folks to the profession--granted, it helps that they're cheaper to start out, but the folks I've talked to know that eventually they'd like to retire and people are still gonna need drains snaked--and liberal with teaching what they know. My electrician walked me, as a "muggle", through my house's wiring until he was confident that I would be able to understand what my house was doing and explain it to somebody else. Yep, this is a very deeply ingrained part of trades. Apprenticeship is a legitimate portion of one's career, and as such people further along usually have an appreciation for apprentices and apprenticeship. I've never met a legitimate (meaning, person that was trained appropriately and continued to work in their profession) tradesperson that kept secrets. > The guy who acts like 'tomc1985 describes is the guy who does not get called back for a second job. In tech, we used to call them BOFHs and make fun of them while they thought we thought they were cool. Now we just don't hire them. Without getting hyper-political, I fear this is the same problem as the "incel" topic of late. Getting rejected and then doubling down on a persona, rather than introspecting on to how or why a portion of that rejection was warranted, I think causes huge huge problems. I think the "hardcore nerd" persona is similar, as "hardcore nerds" usually don't make it very far. If you go through FAANG companies, you won't find a ton of people that fit the bill. Maybe some kinda-weirdos, but the higher up you go the more comfortable people are going to be educating and communicating (except maybe Amazon). Do you think it's valuable, when shit's super important and hard to do, to condescend to those around you? To pad your ego? I don't really think so.