What Do You Plan to Be When You Grow Up…Post Peak?
Sharon August 5th, 2008
Ok, everyone who thinks that your job will still be there in five years raise your hands. For those of you with your hands up, how sure are you? How secure are you in a deep, systemic crisis? 70% of the economy survives on consumer spending – what happens if 50% or 80% of that dries up – if really all we’re buying is food and oil, and not that much of that?
The truth is that the one thing that all of us should be planning for is a job loss – and by this I don’t mean a short term job change, but a job loss in a deep Depression with extended, widespread unemployment – where there is no unemployment insurance anymore and most of your neighbors can’t get work either. Is this inevitable? No, merely probable, I think. But probable enough that we should be prepared for it to happen.
Now I realize this scares the hell out of most of us – and not much less me than you. My family buys groceries too. But that’s what happened in the Great Depression, and where more than a few people think we’re headed. We can all be happy if we don’t go there, but we should be ready for the formal economy to stop feeding and housing us.
So the question becomes – what are you going to do to keep body and soul together? What are you going to be when you grow up – how are you going to feed yourself and keep a roof over your head? As the formal economy begins to tank, we have to look to the informal economy – that is, the economy made up of subsistence work, criminal acts, barter, under-the-table work, domestic economics, and self employment in cottage industry. That doesn’t mean none of us will work in the formal sector, but all of us need to be able to shift as much as we can to the informal economy – to save our precious cash for the house payment and thus provide food and heat by barter or subsistence work.
If we do have formal sector work, it may be in businesses we set up for ourselves, as more and more employers begin making layoffs. In many cases, we may want to (even though it is a Pain in the Ass when you are doing too many other things too) start the businesses now – begin doing a bit of extra work on the side in your potential cottage area so that you’ll have a customer base and experience when the time comes.
How do you decide what to do? Well, it is possible you already have an obvious and marketable skill – either that the work you do now could be done for yourself, or that you have a useful skill set you aren’t using. Maybe you used to buck trees and can set up a firewood business quickly, or your current skills as a nurse could be applied to a community clinic you set up. In these cases, the solution may be obvious.
In other cases, it may seem hard to figure out – what will the job market for marketing professionals look like? What will construction workers do in a housing bust? Now might be the time to reorient yourself, gently or broadly – instead of building new houses, get in on some retrofits and start learning home reinsulation, instead of corporate marketing consider setting up a business providing something useful – bulk food, water filters, fishing worms and equipment, warm clothes, farm-direct products – or perhaps local marketing help for those products – to your community.
The one thing I warn against is allowing your enthusiasm for some project to warp your perspective about its future. I’ve met a number of people who blithely expect to make money marketing high-value organic produce or their exquisite hand knit objects or something like it. And while there certainly will be markets for some knitted goods and food in the future, the truth is that what we are seeing is rapid economic deflation – money is disappearing. That means people aren’t buying stuff – and those who have, up to now, been paying extra for quality may not have the spare cash to do so – so while it might make sense early on to rely on high value, high effort products, the idea that enough people will be going out to expensive restaurants to allow them to pay $25 lb for your basil or $40 to give you a fair living wage for knitted socks is unlikely. The same is true if you do crafty cute stuff with no real use – funky beer mugs and wall hangings are lovely, but they are salable in an affluent society, not a poor one.
Nor should you be duplicating immediately things we have a lot of – adult clothing, for example, may simply not be bought in many cases, since people have enough in their closets for a lifetime. Eventually making clothes may well be an important project again, but short term and long term may well be different, and we all need to be flexible. Think *practical* and be adaptable – be able to produce not just a high value product, but an immediately useful one that people might need.
What might people need in the short term? Food. Warm blankets. Firewood for heating. Insulation. Childcare when both partners are working multiple jobs. Elder care. Medicine. Distractions – theater, gambling, alcohol, sex, dance, drugs, music, things to make them laugh, newspapers or the electronic equivalent, cartoons (and yes, even struggling people will find some money for these things). Shelter. Shoe repair. Security help. Toiletries – obvious ones like soap and toothpaste, and things to make them feel attractive – even under the Taliban, women used perfume. Education – people will still want better for their kids, and training to get new jobs. Tools. Anything that breaks and wears out easily. Handymen, plumbers, midwives, doctors, nurses, ministers of every faith, anyone who can fix, mend and repair. Livestock handlers and dog trainers. Gardeners and people who can teach how to adapt to low energy life.
You may need to do more than one of these things – in the short term, the money may be in helping those who can afford it retrofit their homes, for example, while in the long term it might be in growing food. Or you may find yourself doing several seasonal things – cutting firewood, growing plant starts, building furniture or sewing in the winter, milking spring to fall. The informal economy is going to require multiple skill sets, rather than the single job we’ve been used to – and our ability to get out of the mindset that says “I have this one job, and that is the only thing I can or should do” may be the thing that defines most how well we do in the coming difficult times.
It is worth thinking what you will do in this new economy – maybe only watch and thank G-d you got to keep your job. But just in case, it is worth making plans, and perhaps putting a foot into the informal economy, testing its waters and building the beginnings of a new personal economy along with the old.
Sharon
- adapting in place
- Comments(103)
Just a question- How secure do you think teacher’s jobs are? In a public school, I have some senority so I wouldn’t be among the first to go when downsizing. I feel pretty safe, but then again, you never know.
My husband, on the other hand, builds hand carved spiral staircases for the rich folks along the shore in CT and Long Island. At least he has lots of skills to fall back on, because I can’t see that business continuing in an economic collapse.
My hubby keeps talking about taking a job driving fuel delivery truck for the same company his dad works for. *shaking head* I remind him that with less and less people able to afford fuel, that would be a stupid move, esp. as the company will keep oldsters like his dad (with a VERY good driving record) while laying off newbies (like my hubby would be) with little to no driving record (or a bad record). He’s not perfectly secure in the job he’s got now (loading rail cars with chem. blends for the fuel industry and the military bases surrounding our town).
As for me….. Not a perfect sitch, I know… But I’m working on getting into the local library as a Lib. Assistant. I’ve got yet another application in (this will be my 4th time interviewing for this position, and they’re running out of reasons to not hire me, as I gain more of the required experience with every turn-down). I seem to be the only person who wants to work in this library who lives within walking distance. (And I HAVE walked to this library even at -40 deg. F. in the middle of Jan and Feb., when I started out working there as a page, years ago.) I’m hoping that once I get myself in as a lib. assistant, come the harshest of Peak Oil when others are quitting and nobody wants to drive to NP just for this job, the fact that I live very close and can walk on a daily basis will enable me to keep the job long after others quit or are laid off.
In the mean-time, crocheting, knitting and sewing, baking bread, gardening, canning, learning survival and hardship skills from books and friends….. Doing what I can to best guarantee some sort of life-quality for myself and my family.
So how big a market do you think there will be for outdoor tv producer
Yeah. That’s what I thought. And I won’t miss it.
We’ve discussed this before… police work. Some of us are a part of a sector that might continue to exist, but in what form? I am very afraid of it being a form that I find abhorrent – gun grabs, debtor’s prison, etc. Our personal/civil liberties are becoming nearer and dearer to my heart and I hope that my significant other never has to take a stand between what is right and what his wife thinks is right. Which we’d hope would be the same thing, but I am known to be more, shall we say – “anti” – in my thinking.
I suppose we all need to re-read The Grapes of Wrath and remember that things will be much different. But we WILL SURVIVE. Heck, we might even THRIVE!
I’m hoping to not have this exact job in five years, though given the economy, I’ll take what I can get. Even though I’m not going for the certification (too much internship to do it while working), I’m trying to take school library specialist courses so that I can do both “librarian” and “teacher” (and, while we’re at it, “really overqualified babysitter”). Both of which, of course, pay beans in a wealthy economy, never mind a depression, but at least they’re both varying degrees of necessary. I’m already haphazardly in business with my sister — I spin, and she does every other fiber art on the planet.
Right now, I’m a secretary at a power plant (I know, I know). I’ve worked for this company for 16 years and my job is pretty secure, but …. it’s my heart’s desire to be a midwife. I have 2 little ones, work full time, and we’re trying to get our little homestead up and running, so life is already VERY busy. I’m having trouble wrapping my head around adding another to-do to my already hectic life, but honestly if not now, when? I just need to convince myself that it’s possible.
This is one place where my ridiculous, varied, low-paying resume is going to be a plus.
I am good at pricing pawn items; I can figure compound interest on paper; canning (incl canning over a wood stove); basic welding (and my friend has all the equipment); mending (and I have a treadle sewing machine); teaching basic literacy skills for multiple learning styles; cashiering using just a piece of notebook paper (thanks, anarchist book store!); and guerilla gardening. I walked a coworker through her accounting homework today, and I’ve taught essay and resume writing to people of all ages down to 8 and all sorts of literacy/english skills. My spanish is Not Good but I get by, and if I were using it more it would get better fast.
But really I think my fallback is “boarding house management”. It’s a skill set that’s not much called for, but our house actually was a room house in the 1940s. Plus we have a garage big enough for a herd of bikes, with a hay loft/extra sleeping room. I can feed a lot of people on not much food – once, I made vegan pot pie for 35 out of flour, water, salt, scapes, kolrabi, and two sad carrots; do laundry by hand; keep a diverse dinner table conversation civil; keep accounts; deal civilly with people who owe money; kick out the drunk or unruly without remorse. And thanks to Sharon, grow potatos in our driveway.
Unless things fall to the “ravening hordes pour out of the cities” level, we’re in an excellent spot for people biking or walking (or skiing, which happens occasionally after snowstorms) to work almost anywhere in the city. If we had a wood stove already i wouldn’t even be thinking about leaving this house. And I’m one of those people who can’t afford to move unless the market picks up.
We’re both in libraries. Both library admins are talking about frozen positions, finding savings — and a library system a few counties south of us actually went comepletely belly up, and then was reopened half a year later by a private contractor, offering some of the original crew their jobs back at a little over half the pay.
I have only 1008 days to go to retirement. Assuming that money exists for much longer. Our place is paid up and so is our transportation — for now. And we have an acre. These things help if you don’t get the “roving gangs” scenario.
Sharon talked about doing retail from garages. Our garage is spacious and we are pretty good chandlers — and there’s a good wood stove available on which to heat the wax (or tallow, whatever) and we have drying racks for the tapers. And I have a printing press, built in the 1800s, that can do without electricity, and so it’s capable of post-power print jobs.
But we’re nearing 60. No one lives forever. It’s the kids I’m thinking about. I asked one of our sons about this, and he said that he and his friends (all of whom are in the Society for Creative Anachronism) already have a tribe, a plan, and a route.
“That’s nice …” I said.
“And the route comes by your place,” he added.
Well, good. I guess.
A gathering of the clan, and we’re included. But I’m saddened at the thought that, with all that we’re doing here in hopes of being able to feed them, Stony Run might not be, or be able to be, the ultimate destination.
Abbie, there might be a nitch market for your husband’s skills in squeezing in tiny staircases for people who are tying to make attic space livable, at least for a while.
I’d sort of hoped to make a living off my extensive salvaged zipper and button collection.
I’m a county librarian, which is fairly secure for a while, but not forever. I could run a lending library out of my house, but so could most of my neighbors.
Basically, I’m stumped. I don’t have the flexability timewise to catch babies or nurse though I could lay out the dead. I cann’t undertake, though, b/c I don’t have the strenght to dig graves. Do you think there will be a market for mutes? I can teach, but I’m not sure that English lit is high on people’s list of necessary skills. Mending, taking in washing?
Organizing infomation — that’s an oft over looked need, but again, I’m surrounded by librarians.
MEA
risa b
I can set type — or could 25 years ago, I’m sure it comes back. Any chance you 1) live near Trenton and 2) need partner? I can also make paper, but don’t have the equip. for large scale production.
What’s with the rash of library folks here? I’m a cataloger. I can spin, knit, crochet, sew some… what I desperately want to do is learn how to grow food, making the most of space and fighting pests and disease and dealing with weather conditions, on a smallish scale like what people can (but mostly don’t) do in your average backyard. Currently I live in an apartment without any yard at all. I’m desperate to get out.
Here’s my theory about libary folks and PO — we see a lot of books as they pass through our hands — we read a lot, and we are used to making informed judgements. What do you think?
MEA who is thinking about buying a gypsy caravan and moving her household and books into it and being a traveling librarian. I’ll need a team of goodly draft horses.
So many librarians!! Interesting! I retired as a librarian, early retirement, 1 year ago. Adrienne, I was a catalog, too, most of my career.
Maybe because we’re such information oriented people we’re all here?
thanks for these thoughts and this class, Sharon.
cheers,
Shamba
I’m hoping my being a nurse for 35+ years will mean my job might be safe. I figure they can’t kick the poor sick old people out on the street so somehow the state/federal governments will have to pay for their care. Might mean pay cut or reduced hours but I already work only weekends which there is never any help for anyhow. As to the “living” part of my life my husand and I have been homesteaders for 40 some years and there isn’t much we haven’t done in the way of farming/livestock/gardening/canning/etc. He is a beekeeper and imagine his honey would be a darn good barter item. We are slowly finding like-minded people who wish to barter their products or time with us.
Several local libraries cutting operating hours and spending their smaller budgets on paperbacks….I LOATHE them–not friendly to readers-in-bed! Hopefully Amazon and half.com will still be in existence!!!!! DEE
[...] Casaubon’s Book » Blog Archive » What Do You Plan to Be When You Grow Up…Post Peak? Ok, everyone who thinks that your job will still be there in five years raise your hands. For those of you with your hands up, how sure are you? How secure are you in a deep, systemic crisis? 70% of the economy survives on consumer spending – what happens if 50% or 80% of that dries up – if really all we’re buying is food and oil, and not that much of that? The Survival Podcast: Setting and Prioritizing Survival Planning Goals August 5th, 2008 [...]
I’m struggling with this right now myself. My profession (that which pays the bills) is that of IT guy/software and web developer. Tough call to predict whether or not my kind will still be needed. I think some will, but I can’t bank on my being one of them. Besides, we live 65 miles from the technology center of this part of the state. That commute can’t continue. If a website is up but no one is visiting it, is it still there? Probably not for long.
My entire life has been spent learning to be DIY Superguy. For economic reasons when I was younger. But then came stubbornness and later still came the need to be entirely self-sufficient. I have not paid someone to do what I can learn to do myself for decades. Every problem presents an opportunity to learn something new. That has made my personal skills resume quite extensive: welding, plumbing, basic carpentry, machining, reloading, electronics repair, small engine repair, appliance repair, bicycle/automotive/motorcycle maintenance and repair, photography and darkroom… and so on.
I think Sharon may have just hit me between the eyes with this:
“The informal economy is going to require multiple skill sets, rather than the single job we’ve been used to – and our ability to get out of the mindset that says “I have this one job, and that is the only thing I can or should do” may be the thing that defines most how well we do in the coming difficult times.”
Oh. Yeah, that’s me. For some reason I am fixated on turning just ONE of those things into my new job, and am having trouble getting the concept of not having a job title. I mean, that’s what you do! You set up a business doing ONE thing, you advertise and build a customer base that will call you when they need that ONE thing done, right? How do you convey to the public that you’re simply a generally useful guy that would be good to know in a crisis?
I am a pharmacist. I have no illusions that medicines as we know them now will be available. However, I have made a hobby of making various tinctures, ointments, and infusions (not the IV type). These may be useful for family and tradeable with others.
Alas. MEA, we’re in the vicinity of Eugene, Oregon … and there’s not much economic justification for letterpress yet. And these presses were the office photocopiers of their day, doing more numbering, die cutting, punching, perforating, and signmaking –
TUESDAY’S SPECIAL
BONELESS HAM 17 CENTS/LB.
– than much else. Though Anaïs Nin bought one and set up and printed two books on it, with a hired hand, I think.
… there might be so many librarians here because the word Casaubon gets our attention … ya think?
I suspect there is as much danger in getting too far ahead of the curve as falling too far behind. Its when people start being too certain of the shape of the future that they make dreadful mistakes.
Systemic collapse sure is possible, so it makes sense to be able to grow some of your food now, and have the capacity to grow a lot more if you had all of your time free to do it. But right now food is still so ridiculously cheap it isnt worth trying to grow everything you need. Learn basic skills, cook for health and economy, but do it as a pleasurable persuit rather than a frantic dash.
I think radical transformation of the economy is the more likely outcome, with distinct winners and losers in terms of purchasing power and income stability. Think carefully about which sectors have the capacity to keep running, and find ways to make yourself indispensable. For me it means leaving the bloated tertiary education sector and trying to get into the electricity or water infrastructure systems. But at the same time I am growing ~20% of our food on the weekends because I love it.
Take a bet both ways for a win-win outcome….
Literally half my friends are librarians, and I’m looking into going back to school for film preservation/archiving.
I figure if the worst hits, I won’t make any money in it, but at least I’ll have the skills, connections and passion to save what I can. Hell, I’d do what I can pro bono. Not looking forward to the loan debt, but I doubt I’ll be alone on that count.
I would really love to do midwifery on the side, but man, it’s way more expensive than the degree I’m looking at, and takes longer.
In the post-degrees world, should the worst happen, we’ll take whatever midwife is in the neighborhood, my dear.
I have books – I can be a lending library!
I can run a meeting so it doesn’t digress too far. I can run a shelter. I’m lousy at starting seeds, but great at composting and learning how to dry things (maybe someday I’ll master drying without electricity). We already have a home based business, but we do consulting, development, and software for the electronics industry. I’m learning how to use herbs to help promote health/healing, but can’t imagine how to get some of them when trade goes down – I can grow ginger but not star anise in my area, for example.
I’m trying to get $200 to take Master Gardener classes, but son’s college tuition/books, my need for new bifocals (mine are cracking), my need for two root canals (no dental insurance), still paying off a hysterectomy and credit cards, etc, makes that out of reach right now.
I guess I’m just proceeding to venture into whatever appeals to me-I have no way of knowing what will happen down the road really. I think that making career choices based on some notion as to what the economic landscape will look like even 5 years from now could be a mistake- we could be right or very very wrong…… So given that, I’d rather go with where my interests lie.
Fortunately, maybe, I tend to be the type who has multiple skill sets- it doesn’t pay in this current economic climate when one single well honed skill such as web design or something is rewarded, but perhaps my natural tendency to be bored doing only one thing will be useful…
In any event, I plan on continuing to run my small organic produce farm. I wouldn’t mind teaching others how to grow, can, etc- basically do it for free now…… I think I want to get back into doing some writing again. And finallly, I am exploring getting some training and experience in crafting and repairing string instruments(violin etc) and /or bows- I am really drawn to that and think I want to eventually be able to do this as a small business. The thing is even if money is tight, musicians gotta play music- and bows have to get rehaired and fixed, etc- so I don’t see this as disapearing in terms of a need for this service unless we were truly in a “mad max” scenario- and then at least I could keep mine in good repair!
MEA said: “MEA who is thinking about buying a gypsy caravan and moving her household and books into it and being a traveling librarian. I’ll need a team of goodly draft horses.”
For all you librarians, have you seen the latest American Girl movie? “Kit Kittredge, An American Girl”? In theatres now. There’s a “mobile librarian” in it, and she’s funny. Great idea.
BTW, everyone here should see that movie. It’s about the Depression years. The American Girl books are historical fiction for girls ages oh, 6-12 maybe. They’re excellent!
For those studying herbal medicine, study what grows wild in your area as much as possible. This is so important! You won’t believe what value common everyday everywhere weeds have. Look for a local herbalist to teach you. Get a book like _City Herbal_ by Maida Silverman, avail. on Amazon. Or Steve Brill’s books on wild plants. Get less into exotics, more into local. What grows in your environment has adapted to your environment and makes the strongest medicine for you anyway.
That said, I’ve had a feeling that my herbal medicine studies are going to be extremely important to me in the future, though they are now too. But more so, later. Also I can garden, raise chickens in the city, put up food, knit, bake bread and am willing to try my hand at a lot of other things too.
My DH who is a public school music teacher is also an extremely handy around the house, “jack of all trades” kind of guy. Since he teaches music in the last two years he’s gotten call after call from parents wanting him to teach their kids private lessons so he schedules one day in summer and one night a week during the school year to do private teaching. Now, parents may not be able to afford this for long but this will be a great barter skill. If nothing else, he can stand on street corners, play his flute and put out a hat for change too. Believe me, I’ve thought of all of this.
Lots of folks had to re-train in the midst of the Great Depression and in depressions before that. If you’re strong and willing to work hard, that will help a great deal. We should all get in good shape!
Lisa in MN
I’m planning on running a travelling brothel called, “The Chicken Tractor”.
Finally! My skills as a seamstress, milkmaid, horse handler, veterinary technician, trumpet player, herbal medicine maker, writing teacher, and angler will come in handy.
Well, we’d be in a bit o’ a pickle. DH drives delivery for a local office supply company (they supply the schools in a 4 county area as well) and works PT at that big store with the smiley face. I stay home with the kiddos. Yep, we would be in trouble if these were our only skills.
We’re both pretty handy when it comes to broken appliances, herding cattle (though DH is afraid of cows) and general farming stuff. DH can do hydraulics work, but really how much of that will be called for.
I knit, sew, crochet a bit, make soap, garden, preserve food in various ways, know my herbals and do most of the home repair. Plus I homeschool the kids. Not big huge qualifications but enough that between the two of us we’d be able to make a little money. Whether or not money would be useful is a different story.
Think once we finally get the homestead ready enough to move into, we’ll be honing the skills we have and more.
I teach high school chemistry. The pay isn’t much, but it comes with medical insurance, is as stable as a job can be these days (desperate shortage of high school science teachers, especially of chemistry), and the high school is 1.6 miles from my house. Also, knowledge of science is essential in the society we live in now and any society we construct later, if it’s to be above Stone Age level. Also, I enjoy it.
Trying to learn to grow food. When I know enough, I’ll teach that, too.
I have been thinking that I think perhaps I would be more useful in that society than I feel like I am now.
My herbalism training should be useful, especially as I am starting to grow and wildcraft more of my own herbs. I totally agree with the poster above who talks about becoming the most familiar with herbs that grow in your own area. Being an herbalist isn’t very useful if you have to depend on herbs that come from a store. Most folk herbalists focus on the herbs that grow well locally. One of the things my husband and I want to do is to start some goldendseal rhizomes under some some trees we have behind our house. It grows here but those who are lucky enough to have it, tend to hoard it.
My gardening skills are improving and *keeping my fingers crossed* hopefully I will be accepted into our local Master Gardeners program this fall.
I think that of everything I have done and do on a regular basis, I would really like to make toys. I did a fair job on our hobbit hole and my first attempts at making Waldorf dolls, although finding materials might be difficult.
Well, I don’t really have a job right now, as I’m in school; but I’m pretty sure I’ll be alright in the years to come. See I’m studying ecology and agriculture, and where the two come together, in other words, sustainable agriculture, organic farming, etc.
One of my dreams is to have a organic farm; and since I grew up on one, I already have a lot of the skills and knowledge necessary.
[...] at Causaubon’s book bloggers have been answering her question What do you plan to be when you grow up, post-peak? I think it was the first time I ever thought about there being a practical reason for the way I [...]
We’ve thought about this often. My husband is a music teacher and performs. This past spring he went to shearing school and has been working with sheep farmers in our region to build up his shearing skills. My skills are more domestic. Cooking, gardening, food preservation, But I have built up the fertility in our soil, developed a composting system that yields a fair amount of compost. I knit and have a knitting machine so I can come up with volume. But my favorite item is knitting and darning wool socks; something that is really needed during cold winters. I used to work on a maternity unit and have some experience helping women learning breast feeding.
Homesteading is all about building skills. One of the most important skills has been learning to barter effectively so that each party comes out square.
I looked at my skills. My life’s gonna suck. I may have to see if Crunchy can use a has-been in her herd.
But I’m good with weapons and I do have chemical warfare training. (Sorry, not real popular in a peaceable crowd, I know)
My husband is an LNA working in a nursing home. We think his job is pretty secure, but if not, he has many years of landscaping experience he can fall back on. He makes noises about starting his own landscaping company part time so he can be outside again, but we have no place here to store the equipment he would need. He desperately wants to learn blacksmithing, and I want to get him a forge and starting equipment with our tax refund next year.
I myself am a jack-of-all-trades. Currently (and for the last 5 years), I stay home with the kids and homeschool them and try to keep the house running smoothly (as if that is even possibly with 5 kids from almost 2 to 12 years old). I have worked in retail, restaurants, factories, office reception, traveling salesman, quality control, just to name a few. I can sew, knit, crochet, cook, bake, draft sewing patterns, etc. I am learning gardening, preservation, and how to stay sane. I want to learn herbal medicine, soapmaking, candle-making, spinning, quilting and weaving. I have lived without electricity and running water. I have raised a herd of ~30 goats (well, I was 10, so really it was my folks who did most of that work, but the exposure is still very useful). I remember the pointers my dad gave me on how to safely cut down a tree with a chain saw. Is any of this monetarily rewarding right now? No. I hope someday it might be, though. But if not, at least I will have the skill to make the most of whatever money my husband can bring home.
When I was a kid, I was blessed to have a stay-home mom until I went to college at 17. All the time I was growing up, I knew exactly what I wanted to be when I grew up. It is a job that will never go out of fashion or need no matter how bad civilization gets. I just wanted to be a mother.
Meadowlark – I can totally use you as one of my peeps. We’re going to need protection on the road and your weapons training will be most handy. I’m not so sure about the chemical warfare training, but you never know. You’re hired!
We used to have a gallery that was called “Stop Laughing This Is Serious” …. my husband now jokes that we can do comedy funerals instead.
Orlov is fun reading on this subject. Black marketeer, anyone?
A la Orlov, my husband is a great scrounger and repurposer, as well as being knowledgeable (the skill comes on quickly whenever he has any actual time, as tends to be the case when you’re unemployed) in a wide range of metalworking techniques. He has put some thought into keeping his shop low-energy, too. Besides repair work and odd jobs, we thought it’d be nice if he could establish a little line of garden tools that don’t fall apart if you actually use them. On the whole, though I worry about mortgage payments if/when his decent-paying high-tech defense contractor industry job goes poof, I think he’ll be happier in the informal economy.
Me, I certainly don’t define by a career, although my actual job experience isn’t too useful, unless you count being able to reliably pinch off 4 oz of pretzel dough over and over. I do grow and use herbs, and am actively trying to learn more about that (as a rule, I try only to use herbs I grow or at least could grow, which is also much cheaper). I figure that really, as always, food is my thing. Growing, yes, but more processing–preparing and preserving in ways that are important but not widely practiced right now.
I don’t think this is me, since at the moment I’ve yet to ever successfully make cornbread, for pete’s sake, but I think there could be real security in a wood-fired bread oven and the know-how to use it. People will not readily give up bread, but most also won’t want to make it all the time.
I have always thought that I was born either too early or too late…I’m not a member of SCA but I am a big fan, and my skills include: brewing beer and mead, herbal infusions and tinctures, local wildcrafting/foraging, sewing, darning, knitting, spinning, dyeing, weaving (small scale at least), crocheting, baking, solar oven construction, gardening, rainwater harvesting, nursing, paramedicine, and more.
I spent a lot of time on a farm as a child, and grew up eating mostly what my family hunted or grew…been talking to DH about getting another shotgun and hunting quail/pheasant this fall. He is actually up for the idea, amazingly.
I had a talk with my oldest son about the fact that I am the ‘conspiracy theorist/paranoid mom’ but that if they NEED to come home, I am preparing for that eventuality and they will be welcome…he surprised me by saying he and his wife had already talked about the possibility and they have an ‘escape plan’ in place.
We live in a very economically depressed area, and have 10 years worth of equity in our home. I figure that if, in 5 years, neither of us has a job, that they will have to arrest us to get us out — and I doubt they will bother. There are houses in this neighborhood that have been vacant since before our loan closed. In fact, I am seriously considering farming on the vacant lots across the street and next door using rainwater harvest if need be; the owners are dead and I am friendly with both surviving families.
I trained as a teacher and my husband is an engineer with the hydro-electric company that supplies the power in our home state. Both useful now, but not so crucial to survival that I feel safe relying on them in the future. As I drive my children to school in the morning I can imagine the day that we will no longer be able to afford the petrol and so will organise a small school for local children in my lounge room…..
I have started to learn about herbal remedies and my husband is becoming pretty nifty with diy stuff- although he glazes over when I begin to talk (rant?) about peak oil and things that I am a little crazy. He doesn’t understand why I continually try to convince him to use hand tools instead of electric ones
My husband is an academic with a secondary skill is as a concert pianist and accompanist, and I’m a writer by profession, but we’re looking into and learning beekeeping and winemaking.
I have some skill in herbology and making medicines from scratch as well as home remedies, which may come in useful, but I’m pretty much assuming that our value-added income will be from alcohol and food growing. He may earn extra income from keyboard skills at churches – we’ve noticed that in the past religion usually becomes quite popular again!
We are currently 100% debt free (no mortgage, no credit card debt, nada) and are looking to buy our next own house and land outright, after many years of careful saving and scrimping while many of our friends went holidaying, bought luxury items, and partied on. Do you think I am a bit proud about that? Absolutely!
Other skills we’re learning at the moment are tight budgeting (hehe) and water management.
As an aside, a teenage woman who I was mentoring a few years ago and over whose career I was fortunate enough to have some input has chosen the career of midwife, and is now in training, aiming to be a homebirth midwife. My husband and I talked her out of fine arts, which she was going to study. I am now very glad we did so, in light of what we now know – her skills will not go to waste in a post-peak world.
I have been watching a lot of Clint Eastwood westerns lately and the guys that always have work despite the ensuing chaos are the barbers, the prostitutes and the coffin makers…so Lis and Crunchy are onto something…we just need more hairdressers to come forward.
I’m a chemistry student about to go senior, so far I’ve learned how to work in normal chemistry labs as well as microbiological ones and industrial installations.
I could synthesise certain fertillizers from very basic supplies, some simple anaesthetics and drugs , maybe even certain antibiotics as well as clothing dyes, paint, artificial resin, glue …
A brewer might have use fo my skills with a still and analysis capabilities (no blindness inducing liquor here!) and I could piece toghether AC units, refrigerators and radiators (car, house, w/e) with a little mechanics training.
I could also synthesis explosives (removing tree stumps, well digging, demolotion, …
So, my education could get me far, provided that I can get the necessairy supplies.
Some things are very simple and can be improvised (stills, condensors, electrolysis devices, gastraps), but I’d still need some standardised things (thermomethers for example, scales)
Oh I forgot:
My microbiology training lets me set up efficient yeast beads for brewers or bakers, algae farms, yoghurt production, mushroom farms (edible or others)
I can help docters, nurses and midwives keeping things sterile and acting as a nurse/assistant
Seriously, chemistry is very usefull if you think outside the box!
Wow! I am so impressed by the skills and foresight of the folks on this blog!
I am retired and living on savings and social security. I feel the SS will be continued as long as possible, that is until the gov’t is totally insolvent. I keep the savings divided among 3 local banks in FDIC insured deposits. Also good as long as the gov’t survives.
The house in this rural area is paid for, likewise the car and truck, for as long as they are useful. No debts.
I am a retired teacher with a store of knowledge and the ability to teach almost anything. I could teach home schooled kids in areas where the parents don’t feel competent, maybe in some sort of barter artrangement. But that’s about it.
With our heavy equipment, we’re thinking about grave digging. Seriously.
What worries me, Michael Hawkins, is finding synthroid for DH’s thyroid problem. It doesn’t keep well, I understand. Is that something a chemist or pharmacist could synthesize?
With a recipe and some specialized (not always hard to find) supplies it would be possible, thinking up a simple way to make it is beyond me at the moment … looking at the molecule, I can see what would need to be done, and I know most of the reactions to make it all happen, so I do suppose somebody with more serious experience in organic sythesis should be able to do this.
Fact is, there’s going to be a much higher (mass) demand for things like bleach, soap and glue than complicated drugs that require a lot of work, have a limited market and only sell in tiny quantities, so the latter may become prohibitively expensive with labspace and equipment being limited.
Thyroids … hey, does rocksalt have iodine in it? I’ve only stocked up on ‘regular’ table salt with iodine, so it’s not an issue here at this time. But some sources out there have suggested getting cheap rock salt for preserving and such. But it just struck me that goiter used to be a huge problem pretty much everywhere from lack of iodine. I can preserve meat with rock salt, but then I’d not be salting meals with the ‘regular’ salt…
I was happy to see your list, because about half the jobs listed either my husband or I can do, and/or are doing on a small scale now.
My husband is learning to make cider and wine (his apple cider from our neighbors “drops” got rave reviews
. He’s also planning to set-up an beehive next spring for honey production. By profession, he’s an electrical engineer, which might translate into something. Worst case, he can certainly teach math skills or science-y stuff. He’s still young enough and spry enough that he could do things like chop firewood. He’s proficient with a bow and arrows, and he has experience with dressing an animal and tanning hides – rabbits, at least. He also knows a thing or two about carpentry. He won’t have any trouble making a couple of bucks.
By training, I’m a teacher, but I’m currently self-employed and provide secretarial and transcription services, mostly to medical providers. I have no delusions about the future of my “job”, and I’m pretty certain that it won’t exist. I’m currently homeschooling, and I could, in a pinch, fall back on my teaching credentials and do some tutoring, but that wouldn’t be my first choice for a paid occupation. I’m taking a correspondence course in herbal medicine, and that’s my career choice for my future – oil-starved or not. Someday, I’d like to train as a home-birth midwife.
As a potential side-line of work, I’m thinking I’d like to talk to the local diary farmer where I get the (raw) milk my family drinks and collaborate with him using his cows’ milk to make cheese and yogurt and maybe offering to provide delivery services of milk and cheese to people in my town. I already have a bike and a trailer … and come to think of it, my husband keeps them both running in tip-top shape. He could always go into bicycle repair
.
We’re also learning small-scale, suburban gardening techniques, and we’re surrounded by maple trees, which we’ve learned to tap, and we made about a gallon of maple syrup this year – from just two trees. I imagine maple syrup will be a good barter item
. Oh, and we’re raising chickens (for eggs and meat) and rabbits.
I was worried, but now, after having read your post and kind of hashing it all out here, I think we’ll be just fine
. Thanks, Sharon!
I think one thing we need to develop is a sense of “knowing,” of listening to a deeper mind within us. No one can guess what we might actuallly have to face, but we all have an innate sense of guidance inside – if we only listen to it. Call it your higher self, intuition, spirit, call it your connection to a higher power – whatever you call it, it knows what you should do in any situation.
This is sort of a scary way to go through life, never knowing how you might have to respond, but, really, that IS life, isn’t it? We can plan, organize, save, garden, preserve, learn new skills till the cows come home, and life will still surprise us.
So don’t get too attached to a plan or expend a lot of resources on a narrow path that might not be flexible in the coming times. Basic preparedness is essential, and learning new skills is valuable. But don’t get busy juggling so many balls that you don’t take the time to be still. To go within, to ask yourself what you really know, as opposed to what you think or what you want.
And listen to that inner voice, expecially when a decision has to be made, and especially when that voice tells you something that conflicts with what you want. That is how you will know it is true.
Yet another library worker here! I work in the book repair dept of a University-and it’s a ridiculous drive to get here-so I’ll be priced out of of job sooner.
But it’s a transferable skill and something I could do locally……
Michael, don’t forget processing raw latex into useful objects. That’s a basic chemistry skill.
In one of Marge Piercy’s novels there’s a woman in a tenement in the lower east side of New York who makes latex condoms in her kitchen. That might be a very useful skill, depending how bad things get.
I’m counting on things getting poorer, but not apocalyptic – if things really fall apart I’ll just be another refugee.
Yes, I am yet another librarian (with a focus on reference and collection development in academia and strange little non-profits). Right now, however, I am not in a librarian role, but working for a non-profit that runs study abroad programs in ecovillages. I am planning on the field of study abroad to go belly-up along with the airline industry, or possibly sooner as families cut back on spending and have difficulty getting student loans.
I think there is a preponderance of librarians here because librarians kick ass. Seriously, most of the librarians I know are extremely intelligent, flexible, pragmatic, and resilient, and tend to be generalists who are interested in a wide variety of topics. Oh, and sexy, too. I think we should combine Crunchy’s Chicken Tractor brothel with MEA’s gypsy library caravan, and we have a FOOLPROOF business plan.
One can make renusable condoms out of lamb skin (which makes one wonder just how useful they were in stoping the spread of VD). Could we combine that with the brothel-library?
Jen H. – Sexy, flexible librarians? I could use a few of you. Did I read something about latex, too? Michael, I may need your services as well. I better start working on my business plan while I can still get money from the banks…
I actually know someone who’s started making simple, inexpensive coffins as a side business …
peace,
Lamb-skin condoms were not very good at preventing even ‘traditional’ VD, and are not good at all for preventing the spread of HIV.
I guess that being a health educator and having used NFP for years I can teach women how to prevent pregnancy naturally, but we’re going to need that latex to stop STDs.
Can we store condoms in plastic buckets with oxygen absorbers, and put the buckets in our root cellars……
Seems the whole community would have to band together, some teaching the skills, others contributing general labor until they gained more proficiency. Also, I think some things could ONLY be done in community (spinning, wheat farming, for instance).
Do you have any other posts on how our survival will depend on rebuilding our communities?
Hey, another librarian here!
My husband is a professional librarian and I worked in academic libraries as a paraprofessional before our two homeschooled sons were born.
~Vegan
Well, I guess we’ll just keep the lamb-skin for parchment. I was thinking we could color code the ribbons used to tie them on so you could signal your preferences at the annual village orgey/books swap as Chruncy et al trundled into town. In fact, we could have also signaled which patrons were delinquent with this color code.
My plans? When the inevitable economic crash comes, I plan to shoot some of my neighbors, the ones that voted for George W. Bush.
Zach, out of vulgar curiosity, are they coffins (6 sides, which I like) or caskets (which I think look tacky). The site said coffins, but people use them interchangable.
TIA
Zach, out of vulgar curiosity, are they coffins (6 sides, which I like) or caskets (which I think look tacky). The site said coffins, but people use them interchangable.
TIA
Wow, what a lot of ingenuity! Very exciting stuff.
As a serial nano-capitalist entrepreneur, here are some crib notes from the trenches:
1) Get some basic small business training. This is often free, look around for seminars from the SBA, SCORE, minority outreach, community colleges. Read as many of the applicable Dummies books and similar in your library (starting a business, accounting, marketing, etc.) as you can stand. Particularly useful are the hippie capitalism classics. The Incredible Secret Money Machine by Don Lancaster is the best even though dated, but Guerilla Marketing and all the books by the spin-off crowd from the Whole Earth Review are relevant. The Shipping News by Annie Proulx is supposed to be fiction but in it the protagonist has a close encounter with the informal economy.
2) All that boring stuff about return on investment, keeping track of expenses, staying on top of marketing – even more important in nano-capitalism. A spiral notebook suffices for record keeping and a file folder with handwritten lists of past clients is all you need at a basic level. Keep all your receipts in a folder and log them in promptly. You need to know how you are doing. Keep a calendar and make notes to yourself: Coop newsletter deadline is the 20th of February for 1 May edition ads. December 2008, make growing plan and order seeds. Start calling past clients in February 2009 for May pick up. This is nice, not hard sell, “Suzie, how’s that boy of yours doing? I’m taking orders for..”
3) Seriously consider getting a business license as a sole proprietor. This allows you to order supplies at wholesale prices and without paying retail sales tax. It is also a requirement in some states for buying some materials, such as medical alcohol for making tinctures. Find out what the state tax and reporting requirements are so you don’t get bit in the seat. Usually, states bend over backwards to make reporting easy for very small businesses. It’s worth the effort, because paying retail plus sales tax really chews up your profit margin, and there will be some major things that have to come through the formal economy. If you live in a rural area, you probably already know what you have to do to maintain status as a farm for tax purposes.
5) Try to pay your utility bills ahead and build up at least a month’s cushion on everything, at winter rates. I know, accountants tell you to keep the money in the bank and make that .5 pc interest. The accountant has no idea what it’s worth to know that if you have to chase some client for the money, you aren’t going to have the lights turned off. Similarly, get out from under any car payments. An old station wagon or light truck is much more useful for hauling the inevitable stuff than than a nice car. If you can park it most of the time, so much the better. Keep a credit card, things happen. Back in the day, the grocer kept a ledger and the doctor took time payments.
4) Start. Do something. Consider it your lemonade stand. Nano-capitalism is like gardening, if takes a while to get the hang of it.
Best,
Shira in Bellingham
Boy, I can sure see that a lot of people have no clue as to what the future holds. Teaching jobs? Library jobs? I’ll bet that in a lot less than ten years, none of the school systems will be able to heat those big buildings, or afford fuel for the school buses. Same with libraries.
Not to mention that as more and more people are out of work, most governments — local, county, state, and fed — will have very little tax money to spend. Look at California already — just fired 22,000 workers, reduced many thousands more to minimum wage — and a lot of people think the whole state will go bankrupt next.
Forget any sort of government job — even police work — where will the money come from to pay them? All the cops will be reduced to riding bicycles and working for peanuts — or what bribes they can get.
I think the safest bet is small-scale, organic farming. And you don’t have to sell for fancy “organic” prices — after all, you don’t have the expensive chemical inputs, so if you have some chickens and pigs, you’ll have all the fertilizer you need.
Since this seems to be a librarian love-fest (Crunchy? You paying attention?), I’ll add that I’m also a librarian but currently not in a librarian role. I’m coordinating a new non profit library network in Alaska.
I used to be a member of the SCA for 20 some odd years and came out of that with lots of sewing skills (and a bunch of other things I haven’t kept up on – music being one of them). Never quite got to the weaving of fabric skills but can work with a weaver to create clothing and other textile items. I’m learning to knit which hasn’t quite grabbed my interest but I LOVE handwork – I’d almost rather hand sew clothing than use a machine. Haven’t done much mending but that sort of small projecty stuff would be a snap.
One thing I have been doing is making kefir. I have my own “herd” of kefir grains and make both kefir and soft kefir cheese. Kefir, since it’s fermented, will last several days without refrigeration (then it gets so sour it will suck your entire face in to the back of your skull – but it’s still consumable). I live in a city so the possibility of being near a milk producing animal is pretty slim but, who knows, the city might just allow dwarf goats at some point. Or goats might just sort of “appear.” I’m also learning to make kombucha but that requires tea and sugar, neither of which is local to Alaska. Both beverages have great nutritional and health benefits so I can foresee some trades or cash for them.
I also make beer but haven’t quite figured out how to develop local sources. Barley will grow in Alaska but there are no malting facilities. Hops, on the other hand, don’t like this lattitude. They grow like weeds but don’t produce cones that mature before freeze up. Yeast can be harvested from previous batches but should be replenished about every five batches or so. BUT if I could get my hands on those things, I can produce some tasty beers!
And I can cook. I’m no gourmet arteest type but if I have some sort of fat, some vegetables and maybe some grains and fruit, I can make healthy, tasty meals. I can grow my own herbs and find spices and hope to have my own chickens some day. I’ve even done some cooking for large groups so perhaps I can find work at Rosa’s Boarding House
I’m learning about growing vegetables, medicinal perennials and fruiting trees and shrubs. I seem to have a knack for getting seeds to sprout so might have some business with plant and vegie starts. It would be useful to use excess produce for trade goods, too.
One of our tribelet (love the term!), is considering growing marijuana. He understands the implications and would not do so where we live but thinks that in a post peak world, weed will have much trade or even cash value. He’s also considering learning distillation since potatoes grow really well here (vodka anyone?). I should pass along the Orlov vodka recipe…
Trying to gather up a group with enough skills to help the whole group out is more my concern. But I’m working on it!
Kerri in AK
Wow, great advice from all. I’m a registered lactation consultant and while that will be a needed profession I’m consentrating on helping my family learn to survive hard times. Although my sons have expressed interest in being amateur boobalogists
I’m trying to teach them how to make beer, grow vegetables, fruit and herbs (which has a learning curve as most here are aware) and currently we are also raising chickens, rabbits and dogs. Self sufficiency isn’t just something you are instantly successful at, we lost 6 chickens to dogs and 2 of our rabbit does died during a heat wave and I don’t want to even talk about my bell peppers! I think it all comes down to making our lives as resilient as possible so we can survive the inevitable setbacks.
Harmon, these people don’t all plan to be librarians forever; they are just commenting that they have been. (Wow, there are a lot of them.) However, if you are right that Certain Approaching Doom (TM) will make current large-scale schools and libraries non-viable, then there might indeed be plenty of teaching and library jobs available, if at pathetically low wages. There were schools and libraries in this country long before oil was in use, and there will continue to be schools and libraries after oil. Schools used to be local, much smaller, often one-room (which makes them much easier to keep warm enough to work in, at least with coats on). If the students from a megaschool are split up into two dozen neighborhood schools, society will almost certainly employ more teachers. But it will have to pay each teacher less. Elementary school teaching used to be a job done by teenage girls who were high achievers in high school, who would get room and board during the session as part of their compensation.
I’ve been a Registered Massage Therapist, Shiatsu was my specialty, and am familiar with several other healing modalities like Reiki and Acupressure. I’ve done Doula training and studied Midwifery as well, so I’m hoping I can offer those skills in the future. Herbs have been a big part of my own life, but I’d need to study more to be able to offer them to others.
I’m living in an tiny apartment but I’ve got quite a green thumb when I’ve got some dirt to work with. I can make all kinds of concoctions of the toiletry nature too.
I can crochet all day long, knit and sew and all that, however it seems that most every woman who’s posted also has the same skills, so perhaps it will be useful to those in my immediate vicinity.
Wow! Some really excellent posts here!
Hubby and I are retired early (he was law enforcement and military with pensions) and have been simplifying ever since. We cashed out of the “waterfront estate” with the ARM loan in early 2006 and paid cash for the next home. We have virtually no debt. We saw this coming and started early.
I am studying homeopathy and herbal medicine because I think there will be a tremendous need for good basic healthcare. I am also a life coach and metaphysical minister currently studying crisis counseling. I believe there will definitely be a place for the “Sanford and Son” junk dealer in the future. We garage sale and often pick up items we think might be good barter items in the future.
The more skills the better! I don’t know how “bad” things are going to get, but we are having a heck of a good time learning new things and making preparations. It has become quite the adventure at this time in our lives.
While I agree that public schools as we now know them are pretty recent (we homeschoolers can go into great detail on how they were put in place to create obedient factory workers), organized education goes rather farther back. I don’t know if we’re going to go back to the one room schoolhouse idea, if we’ll see education be another small business on a barter system, if we’ll see mostly homeschooling, or whatever.
All of this will be well and good for elementary school, and large parts of high school. The question will be how will the next generation of dentists, chemists, doctors and the like be trained. Will there be families who can afford to have one of the surviving children NOT work the farm/family business long enough to train? Will there be excess resources (like refrigeration for cadavers!) to use for training them?
I think we’ll go back to the apprentice system — even doctors used to be train that way. As for cavaders, cut them fresh and plant them quick used to be the motto.
I think we’ll see a lot more people following in the parents’ footsteps (as Miles said, “a star ship captian like my mother before me) becuase they’ll have one the spot training, the tools and good will to inherit. And, as you imply, that means a lot of people will be stuck on the land or working someone elses land, generation after generation.
You forget about the nuclear war (mitigation). If our country goes, it will go insane (MAD) first. They do plan to use those missles sooner or later on China (we have enough warheads for all their people and they have enough for our few people). Starvation will be the greatest threat for everyone in the world – only a nuclear mitigation will clear that out.
Michigan might be a good place to be because the great lakes will act as a heat sink. There are not many valid targets in upper part of the lower peninsula. Winters are skimpy here now, global warming will melt even that. Apples, Cherries grow here, so do most “staple” crops. I can farm but have my cache too.
For farming I have a radiation detector to figure when the ground is “cool” enough even if it has to be tilled (radio-active soil buried). The battery is a super-cap (can be solar charged forever). I have a solar installation (some of my neighbors could get electric
I have a solar oven and am getting solar hot air, solar hot water. Working on a laser based weapon system – look ma no bullets, ZAP (I mean zap – there is no pop or pow).
I don’t think that I will last long but they may call me the Omega Man.
I just stumbled across your site and am glad i found it.
Herbs have been my hobby for a long time. Despite the drought here, I managed to grow some. I hope to do better next year. I’m focusing on plants native to my area.
We had considered moving, but that’s not in the plans right now. Our house is almost paid for and we have a reasonably sized yard. Also we are currently close to shopping. At least we live in a longtime settled neighborhood.
Interesting posts here- I still think one of the main issues though is what one thinks will happen in the future or if one recognizes that they have no clue and anything is possible…..
It would seem to me that if we are looking at an energy constrained future with high prices and diminished services due to those high prices, we are anticipating a different scenario than a total collapse of society, nukes, etc- the job scene would definitely be different in these situations.
I would think that it would be best to assume energy constrained world with high prices/less services rather than mad-max- and plan accordingly. Even with high priced oil, etc I can’t imagine the end of public school education for instance- although I do doubt that expensive but not exceptional private shcools would fail. So too I would imagine that the Harvards and Yales would survive as well as community colleges and such but that expensive but lower rated private colleges might go under.
It seems to me that the same sort of thing would apply to medical services- cosmetic plastic surgery might diminish but there will still be a need for appendectomies. The issue may well be access to medical services for the uninsured but I doubt medicine will go away. I think that if we look back to the Depression years we see that schools and hospitals as well as movies and theatre all were present . It would be a mistake I think to assume we will all be tilling the back forty with oxen and in a total barter economy. If I’m wrong and total collapse happens- well all bets are off anyway….. at least this is the way I see it….
A lot of interesting comments here. Myself, I expect I and my veritable smorgsbord of skills and hobbies to be a lot more useful after the Peak. That includes my love of storytelling; no matter how bad things get I expect people will still love a good story.
Funny with all the librarians here. I actually intend to open a lending library someday -not for money, just because I can. I all ready have about 5000 books. That’s a good start, no? I started collecting books as a teenager becasue a) I love books and b) I figured civilization was going to go to pot sooner or later during my lifetime.
Other things: psychology won’t be happening in a few years. I made the decision to leave school because of it. But I’m good at growing food, I’m an amateur herbalist, I know a lot about chemistry and engineering, I’ve got lots of planning, leading and organizing experience, I grew up on the streets so I know a LOT about surviving that didn’t come out of a book and have no problems becoming a black marketeer if and when the need arises, and I can shoot. Well.
The librarian theme is hilarious. I actually have several librarian friends. I was talking to one of them the other day about forming our own little ideal dream commune, and said I wanted to invite another librarian to join us, and would two librarians be too many? He said of course not, you can never have too many librarians around! As evidenced by this thread…
I’m not a librarian, personally, I’m a translator/transcriber at the UN and an ex-social worker (women’s shelter, Brooklyn). I have no idea how long my current job will last. In today’s terms, it’s a very, very secure job, I have a permanent contract and a pension and all that jazz that died out in every other industry back in the 60s. I would be retarded to leave it now. So I’m not. I’m just learning how to grow stuff and preserve stuff and manage my anxiety about what’s headed for us.
I think there’s a lot, a LOT of mitigation that can be done by simply readjusting our expectations. And I think all of us here are doing that. I’m trying to keep from thinking of scenarios that involve a nuclear bomb and me out in the woods with nothing but a penknife. From what I can tell, that’s just another form of wishful thinking.
I shouldn’t be wasting my time with that kind of worrying, I should be thinking more about “hunh, deodorant really isn’t a necessity. it really isn’t. it really isn’t. it really…” See? If I say it enough times, it makes it true.
I know what my skill is: organizing and hosting people. I can’t stand knitting, I’m a half-ass cook, and my gardening skills remain to be proven, really, but I can throw a party, make sure everyone brings a dish, introduce people who should know each other, deal with the drunks, talk to the shy people, and clean up afterwards. My friends who come to this blog are going to laugh at me, cause it is pretty much the only thing I shine at (besides giving my opinion on everything under the sun), but it’s true. I’m really good with people, all kinds of people, and I don’t mind having them in my house.
So all I need is a few introverted, introspective, shy librarians to balance me out, and we’re good to go. Good thing I know a few. And now I know where to come if the ones I know don’t work out and I need some librarian back-ups….
Oh, so to answer the original question, when I grow up, I want to run a tavern/traveler’s inn. Lots of new people every day, lots of food/drink, foreign languages a plus, an ability to make people feel welcome a must. Right up my alley.
CB, I have the same concern. I have a close friend and a relative who are both dependent on thyroid replacement medication to survive. I asked a similar question on a peak oil forum a while ago, and someone answered me saying that most thyroid medication should be stable for years, if kept at room temperature and shielded from light. I have no idea if that’s true. I guess I should ask my friend who has a phD in microbiology and see what she can find out. Feel free to write me at sylviahanratty and then the at symbol and then hotmail dot com (hi, spambots!). I need to figure this out too.
MEA,
Peter talks about the design of his coffin here. He’s designing it to be economical (think “pine box”) and to double as something useful — cabinet or bookcase.
It’s clearly far too sensible to catch on.
peace,
Zach
Well, between Crunchy and Peter, we’ve got two of Helen’s three Old West untouchable professions covered … who’s going to take up barbering?
peace,
Zach
I can cut hair too, but I think I’ll be too busy managing my main business. So I’ll leave it up to someone else (librarians?) on giving good head, I mean haircuts.
I’m a teacher too, and I’ve read that we’ll be the last to lose our jobs, depending on how much seniority we have. We’ll be at the mercy of the community in terms of what they’ll be able to afford as far as schools go… but schools as institutions will be the last to go.
My problem is that I work over an hour away from where I live. There are job openings where I live, but I’ll be giving up 19 years of seniority in a big district for no seniority in a district whose population is shifting.
I guess I’ll have to switch when we run out of oil.
diary note, 08/07/2015
Hard to believe I was an engineer for a major auto company. But that is all gone now, I live kind of like the native Americans did hundreds of years ago. Today is quiet – no raiders – scavangers who will eat just about anything. Today is hot. It might explain the lack of activity. The nuclear winter is over but has left the weather seemingly spinning around the world. In this world there is only one profession left – survivor.
I wanted to live like a king in my hideaway but forgot the fact that there were a thousand people, against my one, who did not prepare or even care to hear the “facts”. Millions starving, cities burning, the masses moving like one severely hurt creature out to bite the thing that hurt it.
Ani brings up a good point, one I’m going to talk about today – scenario planning. Generally I agree with her – the public schools closing, for example, would be a huge psychological blow, and I suspect it won’t happen – but since they may not have buses, they may not have heat in the winter, etc… I wouldn’t be surprised if a *lot* more people homeschool, and the districts lay off teachers – certainly if you teach art or music or anything anyone can get away with not teaching, that would be tough. If you want more than for your kids to be taught in a cold room with no bus, you may have school fees – and if you can’t pay them or transport your kids… Harvard and Yale will probably survive, but I suspect a vast attrition in the ability of people to send their kids to college (already happening) so smaller colleges, especially high price private ones may go out of business or reorganize. Medicine will keep going, but a lot fewer people may end up with access to it – so they may need fewer surgeons, simply because most people can’t afford an appendectomy.
My feeling is that basically, imagine what it is like to live in a very poor, disrupted society and you’ve probably got a good guess – with the caveat that some of us will stay rich, some of us will still get appendectomies – we just don’t know which ones.
This would be my bet, anyway.
Sharon
Sylvia — Sharon posted about medication a while back. Thyroid meds could be made on a fairly small scale — a well-stocked college chem lab will do it — but won’t keep very long. You can also, if you have access to sufficient critters, just use dehydrated animal thyroid (Armor Thyroid is usually either pig or sheep, I believe). The standard replacement dosage is one grain per day (random factoid courtesy of my dad the pharmacologist…one grain is 64mg). You should, of course, find a medical professional to confirm said dosage before trying this at home.
[...] Another thought provoking post from Sharon Astyk. Ok, everyone who thinks that your job will still be there in five years raise your hands. For those of you with your hands up, how sure are you? How secure are you in a deep, systemic crisis? 70% of the economy survives on consumer spending – what happens if 50% or 80% of that dries up – if really all we’re buying is food and oil, and not that much of that? [...]
Cindy wrote: “I am studying homeopathy and herbal medicine because I think there will be a tremendous need for good basic healthcare.”
I don’t want to disdain your laudable efforts, but homeopathy is not really a good choice for that purpose. Current scientific knowledge suggests that it cannot work except as a placebo, and in fact the evidence that it has any other mode of action is rather weak. I could say the same thing for reiki (mentioned above by someone whose efforts I likewise don’t wish to demean). If these things are “only placebos,” they still may be of value in helping people to feel better. However, since there is little evidence that they provide substantive benefit beyond that, they are not a good first-line modality for “basic healthcare.” If your kid has appendicitis, you want a doctor – and I think such simple and essential surgeries, which could even be done in a home, will be available to the working class one way or another, because there are plenty of doctors who will have both humanitarian motives and a strong desire to eat. A TCM practitioner with access to suitable medicines would be a distant second. A homeopath would not be on the list. If you have chronic heart trouble, you might want either an MD or a good herbalist. For flu or liver disease, you might rather have the herbalist; for back pain, you might rather have an acupuncturist. There is really no condition for which you would most prefer to have a homeopath available.
If you want to be of substantive help to those around you, I would suggest studying herbal medicine, emphasizing natural remedies for minor infections and chronic conditions you or your loved ones suffer from. Secondly, take a first-aid course. You want to know how to care for your and your kids’ minor injuries yourself, and how to determine when something is serious enough that you should take on debt to have it professionally treated. Finally, you want to know how to take care of sick people at home. When I was a kid, my folks had a family medical book that talked in detail about things like how to move a patient to change his sheets without having to get him up. These days, such references assume that if you are too sick to get up, you should be in a hospital bed at $2000 a day. Those are the most important things you should learn to minimize your need for the medical industry. Things like homeopathy are the fluffy whipped cream on top of the cherry pie. If you like it there, fine, but make the pie first, because pie without whipped cream provides much better value than the reverse.
Crunchy, have you found a good PO sugar subsutite? Then I can sugar the scalpes of those who don’t pay their fines. That will learn ‘em.
MEA (who actually supports a fine-free policy and has her doubts about the mortality of sex for money, but is sooo taken with the idea of the library-cum-brothel that she just can’t let the idea drop)
Well in our family it is already becoming reality. My husband has 10+ years working for a large school bus maker. Seven years ago when I quit my teaching job to be a SAHM/homeschooler, we were making about $70K a year (which is good income for our area) and had awesome benefits and FREE insurance.
Flash forward to now. Summer is my husbands “busy” season because all the school systems want their new buses over the summer. And he is on a layoff because NOBODY is ordering school buses or municipal buses. Makes me wonder what the always-slow winter will be like this year.
Now, seven years later we’ll be lucky ducks if he makes $35K this year. I am returning to work next week as a school teacher. I am sadly quitting homeschooling and heading back to work, but there is not much else I can do, except sit back and lose the house we worked so hard to get, and starve.
So I choose to be a public school teacher again. My kids will be fine, I will be fine, and we’ll move forward in a new way we never, ever planned for.
(yeah, I’m a little bit bitter about it…)
I’m creating my own job so I’m not worried. I’m going to invent my own bank to put my money in, loan it to proteges in my community to finance farmers, aquaculturists, gardeners, home health aides –all the real productivity that makes a place prosper and have fun doing it. I’m looking for two experienced partners to do this with in Sonoma County California:
Permaculture Investment Bank
The following is an idea for setting up a local Investment Bank that would finance small business start-ups under a Brand such as “Permaculture Enterprise Network.” This Bank would provide training and mentoring for its borrowers, as well as an ethical basis for its businesses: “Earth care, people care, fair share,” from Bill Mollison’s “Permaculture, A Designer’s Manual”(1988). Permaculture is a way of designing place-based ecological economies. It is capable of providing sustainable water, soil, food, fuel, and shelter while generating community along the way. Permaculture is intelligence-dense and capital-light. It is a whole systems approach to designing environmentally regenerative support structures for human nurturance.
Under the Bank’s auspices, business plans would be written by prospective owners for specialties such as rainwater harvesting, edible landscaping, firesafing, alternative energy, fertility and energy crops from marginal lands, water sequestration using earthworks for ponds, swales and keylining, aquaculture, natural building, sustainable forestry, constructed wetlands for wastewater treatment, small scale dairies, food processing and preservation: the many basic capacities that make a place prosperous –capacities that add up to real productivity and local security.
There are many proven techniques, not difficult to master, that young people willing to work, could pick up and get good at. The Bank would sponsor the basic permaculture design certification course, an established 72-hour curriculum with a hands-on design project pass-fail requirement, which would be a prerequisite for a basic business management course in which students would learn to write, with expert coaching, the well-thought-out, customized-to-place business plan most appropriate to their abilities. The Bank would retain majority ownership and provide ongoing mentoring for enterprises selected for support until the business passed a financial assessment proving viability, whereupon, with ample cash flow, the owner could realistically buy out and become fully independent. Maintenance contracts for installed systems, since many of the techniques are new, would be a common feature offered, providing ongoing employment and developing experience until systems maintenance for these new approaches has become as familiar and mainstream as maintenance of private autos, septic systems, lawns, homes, and major appliances are today.
The Bank, in its function as small business incubator, would provide bookkeeping and marketing services for its start-ups. These are the tasks business-owners starting out have the hardest time with. The Bank would provide training, loans for equipment (each start-up not very capital-intensive), mentoring, legal services, accounting, as well as customers for each new business. The moral support supplied by such an arrangement would be a powerful insulator against the high failure rate common to small business starts in the mainstream economy.
The Bank, in its function as promoter of permaculture solutions, would also lobby local government to remove regulatory obstacles. It would set up specially permitted model projects to demonstrate quality standards. It would obtain economies of scale in purchasing materials and equipment. It would coordinate flows, one enterprise’s waste becoming fuel for another’s production. It would also help with allocating labor between enterprises as needed. The different specialties once launched, might form their own professional associations, interact with experts in their fields, sponsor research, and participate in developing innovations within their area of expertise.
The Bank would be a conduit for philanthropy as well as a source of information about available subsidies and tax credits. In its function as an investment vehicle, The Bank would provide a secure home for local investors to place their money: They would own a share of locally productive, visible hard assets. In its function as holder of an ethical mission, The Bank would assure customers of its protégés high quality, reliable service. As a part of that mission, it would demonstrate financial transparency, for the purpose of building trust.
An apprenticeship program would build local skills and provide a structure for meaningful inventiveness and culture-creation among the young. Child care services could be integrated with these activities, allowing adults in their most productive years maximum convenience and peace of mind as they work.
In the current economy people are losing their jobs, just as a great deal of work needs to be done to get alternative support systems in place. The time for this is ripe. Due to the hole made in the mainstream economy by a falling house of cards, state and local governments, pension funds, financial institutions, even the federal government, are rapidly becoming insolvent and are already being forced to cut services. It looks like communities are going to be left on their own. Investment vehicles that only a year or two ago were fine, now seem uncertain: stocks and bonds, real estate, even bank accounts no longer seem as secure as they once were. The organization described here could start with where we are today, doing those projects which are legal, productive, and financially viable now, while remaining observant, adaptable, and open to evolutions as conditions change. It could safeguard an ethical basis for ecological human nurturance. Permaculture’s whole systems perspective is capable of revealing efficiencies which can then be designed in to effective systems for prosperity in a given place.
The Bank would also be an appropriate venue for the creation of a LETS –Local Energy Trading System: an alternative currency. Once a community of small businesses got local production for local needs up and running, a local currency could protect an area from inflation, deflation, and other disruptions, including failures within the existing financial system. In prosperous areas, the network of businesses would be integrated with the regular cash economy, and evolve as needed. In low income areas with high unemployment, it could operate under work-trade or other types of barter arrangements.
This is an idea that is not very hard to do, not very expensive, can start small and grow, and can end up with prosperity being built up in a climate of cooperation and self-reliance with a secure and understandable moral basis. Two or three good partners could start this with seed capital, get it flourishing, then start another Bank in a different place.
MEA – Yes, I have as a matter of fact. Honey. Or if there are no bees left, then beet sugar. I still have a few kinks to work out with the formula.
Speaking of kinks, I’m starting auditions for the Chicken Tractor in early 2009. I’ll be touring the country a la “American Idol”, but it will have better pre-screening, of course. It’s best to get a jump start on these things instead of waiting until things get really bad otherwise then it will be too hard to organize, what with increased fuel costs and all. Just send your pre-audition tapes to my P.O. Box.
It will be kinda like America’s Next Top Model, except they are brothel auditions. I can already think of what some of the challenges are going to be and I’m sure we can work some librarian action into at least one of them. School-teachers and, dare I say it – bus drivers, are fair game as well.
Sorry, massage therapists, but that is sooooo 1980s.
[...] What Do You Plan to Be When You Grow Up…Post Peak? [...]
[...] will you do if you lose your job? How will you grow up, how will you care for yourself and your family? I’m always planning (remember my whole, Living Life lament), but sometimes its good to [...]
I’m an architect, specializing in planning hospitals. It’s a tough call whether my job will still be around – folks will certainly still be getting sick, potentially sicker and in higher numbers as the expense of routine exams is pushed off and we wait longer to get our little issues checked out. At the very least, I may need to switch over to a government job rather than consulting for private hospitals – there might not be any left in business by then. Or, I can always help people figure out how to make their houses stand up…
Meanwhile, I’ll figure out how to grow my own food and maybe pick up knitting again.
My dad actually started to build a coffin that would double as a glass-topped coffee table until needed.
My mom nixed the idea.
Another (ex-)chemist here….
I see a lot of “I can garden, knit, can food,” and while those are great skills that will be needed more in the coming years, they won’t be paying jobs. Maybe at first people will look to the knitters and gardeners for education, but soon we will be teaching all our children these skills* and they won’t be sellable.
I think that we need to look back 100 years to what sorts of jobs would be more available in a post-peak world. What jobs were there before the advent of oil? Butchers, bakers, chemists (pharmacists), doctors, lawers, merchants, and lots of farmers. People involved in transport included seamen, railroads were way more prevalent, people with wagons who moved things from the railroads to the purchasers’ homes. Travelling salesmen. Nurseries.
I also think we need to look forward, as well. Hopefully solar panels and wind turbines will keep popping up. Micro hydro looks promising. People will need to be trained to install and maintain these.
When I think of a peak-oil future, I think of a post-war Germany-type scenario. Schools still functioned. My father-in-law was planning on going to college, but had to take a year to train as a mechanic as a marketable skill. Commerce happened, even with an inflated currency.
Is it just me or are the “prepare and plod on”-ers all women, and the mutually assured destruction, TEOTWAWKI-ers men?
*I was going to say daughters, because traditionally that’s who had these skills, but with gender lines blurred these days…. I was told by a Norwegian friend that back in the 1940s all students, male and female, had to be able to knit a sweater as part of high school graduation – it was an essential life skill.
Kristi — Thinking about this, I’ve been looking at the jobs borrowers have on Kiva.org. In third-world countries there’s lots of food production (especially street food), small-scale agriculture and herding and fishing, brewing, traveling sales of practically everything. I could see myself setting up production of some sort of baked good or crunchy snack to sell on the street or off the front porch in addition to teaching and gardening and whatever. I’m a pretty good cook, though I don’t have the oven to set myself up as a serious bread baker.
Interesting number of librarians. And I know way too many as well.
I’m currently an Economics major in a liberal arts college. Not to use how well that will be. But I’m good at managing things -finances, workload division, and am generally good at getting along with people.
My most-developed skill set though is writing procedures. Mostly for business but I think I can adapt it without too much trouble. People always need to know how to do things, at least.
I’ve also done marketing, and while the trend finding and graph making are useful, but I am not cut out to be a marketer, I learned that this summer.
I’m not a very strong person, but I also dig a mean ditch.
I’m just getting started into gardening and food preservation and medicinal uses for herbs, but I hope to develop those skill sets over the past couple of years.
As any resort, I’m a very decent cook, good with imrpovization and not letting things go to waste. People will always need to eat.
I also can look at stuff and a container and tell you whether or not the stuff will fit. I don’t know if that’s terribly useful though.
/Herbert.
We have spent 30 years getting ready for this so we are pretty set. Farm paid off, no debt, big garden, cellar, wood heat, animals for food and fertilizer and protection, etc. But we are still dependent on fuel for transport to town, running chainsaws and tractors and electricity would be nice to continue to afford! Our jobs are homemade as well so we are used to making due with sporadic income. Problem as I see it is cash flow getting too thin for the necessities such as various hard goods and the big one…paying the property taxes. We will also need some younger bodies to do the hard labor when we get too old, but if times get tough enough there may be more people willing to work for room and board. Banding together with neighbors you can relate to and trust will become ever more essential. Look to the Amish for the solutions for many problems. No need to re-invent the wheel; its all there….except for the electricity and fuel. I’m hoping this country decides to go in a direction of invidual, neighborhood and regional clean and renewable (wind, solar, wave, geothermal, river) systems for electricity generation rather than the current centralized burn and distribute model. No doubt the Fat Cats won’t like that idea but it really is the only way for our grandkids to have a world worth growing old in.
I got nothin’. I’m a “professional patient” with a serious and chronic illness, and my spouse is a computer engineer. Without his insurance and without appropriate drugs I’ll probably just die if anything goes down. Natural selection and all that. Before I got sick I thought I’d like to help out in a dry-goods store. I read too much Little House.
Hairdresser here (somebody asked!). Yeah, I forgot that I had that skill since i haven’t worked in a while. Been studying web/graphic design which will probably be useless. Husband is a bricklayer so that may work out for awhile. I seriously am thinking about going to nursing school, at least as an LPN but somebody mentioned paramedic training to me as well. Kids are being taught some skills, some home things, like sewing and preserving food, and they are being taught the many aspects of masonry, slowly of course. Does anybody have anything to say to kids who are two years shy of college? lately I have been thinking, “don’t go to university, get a trade.”
Yet another library-staff here! I do believe that we are all here because we are all well read and are exposed the the newest books and information to a higher degree than the general population.
We live in a small farming community so we will be well off with locally grown food IF we as a community figure out seed saving. Not enough of this going around yet.
My dh and I both love to garden, he has a market garden now, I have a largish home garden.
We have a fairly large house so renting out rooms is a possibility.
I can a lot so offering how-to classes. Know most forms of handwork as well.
I am planning on increasing our stock of non-electric appliances like a wheat grinder and dehydrator. Need to convince hubby to put in a woodstove, we had one at the farm, not here in town.
We did purchase a few more bikes this year for our large family of 8. Being in town makes riding most everywhere do-able. I like the point raised that those who live closer to the job may hold the jobs longer than those who have transportation difficulties. I see this a bit now as I, who live 2 blocks from the library, get called in for fill-in more than the other part-timer who lives 7 miles out. I can justify biking to work for a 2-3 hours whereas she can’t justify the gas usage for such a short shift.
I try not to focus on this issue too much as I am prone to anxiety attacks, but I do think about it (as anyone prone to anxiety attacks does). I do not know what I will be in any post-cheap-everything society. The jobs I’ve held over my lifetime are jobs that I could get – mostly clerical. I doubt that anyone will care too much about the ability to type fast or compose a professional, well written letter if/when society as we know it evolves into whatever is next. I do have other skill sets. I can, I garden, I knit, I can sew. I can tend to horses and dogs and pigs and chickens and treat reasonably substantial (but non life threatening) wounds in all of these animals.
We have a little over nine acres and I know that with some careful planning this property can supply us and our neighbors with a significant amount of food. For those of you who garden, are you applying some permaculture principles to your properties? I’ve recently come to believe that these will be and are some of the most important food supplying systems of our land. Plant hardy trees and bushes that offer fruit without ridiculous amounts of care. Plant edible and medicinal perennials that thrive with little or no irrigation. And of course, supplement all of that with a kitchen garden.
[...] what I want to b when I grow up [...]