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Professional practice

Skilled trades & repair

How trained eyes judge quality, precision, tools, safety, apprenticeship, and repairability.

12 questions, 162 answers on the record, from 127 members. Every question is asked in FLAPSS wording — nobody answers as anybody else.

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Worth reading

What are you best at that nobody watching would notice?

Jocelyn Bell Burnell

Radio astronomer; discoverer of pulsars

I was very, very thorough, making sure I really understood how that telescope worked, and that it was working properly.

Recorded · University of Cambridge · 2020

Elmore Leonard

Novelist and screenwriter

My most important rule is one that sums up the 10: if it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.

Recorded · The Guardian · 2010

Brian Eno

Composer, record producer and visual artist

I find that you’re a completely different person as a maker than you are as a listener. That’s one of the reasons I so often leave the studio to listen to things.

Recorded · Pitchfork, reproduced in the More Dark Than Shark archive · 2017

Read all 26 →

Every question in this questionnaire

  1. What signs tell an experienced eye that a job was done well? —
  2. What are you best at that nobody watching would notice? 26
  3. Where does precision matter most in your trade, and where is perfection wasteful? —
  4. Which tool most changed how you work, and which skill must remain even when the tool improves? —
  5. What makes you want to keep learning? 9
  6. Which tempting shortcut is never worth the safety risk? —
  7. What bad recommendations do people in your field repeat too often? 32
  8. What should an apprentice be allowed to struggle with before somebody steps in? —
  9. Who makes your work possible behind the scenes? 2
  10. What is the biggest professional obstacle you have faced? 24
  11. How do you decide whether something should be repaired, rebuilt, or replaced? —
  12. How has a setback or failure set you up for later success? 69

Who has answered

Members with enough answers in this questionnaire to be worth arriving at — listed A–Z, not ranked by count.

  • Bill Clinton

    42nd President of the United States, 1993–2001

    2 answers United States b. 1946

  • Daniel Ek

    Co-founder and former chief executive of Spotify

    2 answers Sweden b. 1983

  • David Vélez

    Co-founder and chief executive of Nubank

    3 answers Colombia

  • Drew Houston

    Co-founder and chief executive of Dropbox

    2 answers United States b. 1983

  • Edmund Hillary

    Mountaineer and explorer; first ascent of Everest, 1953

    2 answers New Zealand 1919–2008

  • Elinor Ostrom

    Political economist; laureate of the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences, 2009

    2 answers United States 1933–2012

  • Jensen Huang

    Co-founder, president and chief executive of NVIDIA

    2 answers United States b. 1963

  • John Lewis

    U.S. Representative from Georgia, 1987–2020; Chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee 1963–1966

    4 answers United States 1940–2020

  • LE
    Larry Ellison

    American businessman

    2 answers United States b. 1944

  • Magnus Carlsen

    Norwegian chess grandmaster; World Chess Champion 2013–2023

    2 answers Norway b. 1990

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