Following on from my last post about the importance of mastery over a variety of subject areas, I had an excellent example today of why being handy is important.

I'm currently living in a fairly nice block of flats, the tenants are all generally yuppies and mid-20 something people that are doing well for themselves. There are quite a few financially successful guys here, but a lot of them haven't got a clue about most other things. My balcony overlooks the car park and the rest of the gated compound. I am frequently leaning out of it, as it's a good coffee drinking spot. As usual, I was at the balcony today when I spot a bloke and his girlfriend eying up a flat tyre on her car.

I watched this guy for a good 15 minutes as he struggled to even jack the car up. After 3 attempts at failing to find the correct jacking point and somehow managing to get his own jack wedged in the wheel arch, I decided it was time to go and help him out. Plus his girlfriend was inexplicably attractive for such an unskilled goon.

My car was parked opposite, so I nip down to the car park and pop the boot then offer them the use of my jack, socket set and torque wrench. The guy isn't too keen on getting any help, but the girlfriend is clearly disappointed with him and asks me to give him a hand. 5 minutes later I've had the car jacked up, spare wheel put on, sorted out the tyre pressure and torqued all the nuts up, she's ready to go.

This is where it got interesting. The first thing the girlfriend asked me was my flat number and if I'm in a 1 or 2 bed apartment (I'm in one of the big 1 bed bachelor pad type apartments). She was all over me with "gratitude" type attention, she must have asked me 15-20 questions and was all hands. I'd tried a bit of compliance testing while I was helping them out and had told her to get in the driver's seat and hold the brakes on, to which she obliged without question. This wasn't necessary, but I wanted reassert my position. The boyfriend was clearly pissed off with me for the fact that he was now completely emasculated and gives me the least convincing "thanks mate" I've ever heard. I pack up and start wandering off pretty quick, at which point the girlfriend catches up with me, says thanks again and double checks the number of my apartment.

Now, I hadn't gone down there with the intention of attracting this blokes girlfriend, but if this poor sod was actually capable performing a traditional "man job" then he would have been fine. Instead he's got an evening of listening to his girlfriend talk about how nice it was that the bloke from upstairs took the time to help him.

Still, I expect she will find some shit excuse to knock on my door soon enough and I've taught him where the safe jacking points are and how to use a torque wrench properly.

Things to remember:

a) know your shit well enough to confidently take over and deal with a problem. This guy is taller than me, kept himself in shape and probably earns good money, yet he was completely powerless and it immediately lost him the respect of his girlfriend. His confidence was visibly destroyed when it took me less than 5 minutes to complete a task that he had failed to even begin in 15 minutes.

b) having skills will allow you to get through way more situations in life. Nobody is attracted to someone useless, so get good at things that make you a useful person to know.

C) Don't overlook skills that you think are trivial. You will be surprised how often something small will bring a situation to a stand still.