What's your skill?

What’s your Skill ? ©

By Michael Casey

I was talking to somebody the other day via the DT and he made me think, in fact he’s given me the idea for this piece, though he doesn’t know it yet. Yesterday’s piece “I have children” was inspired by going to the cupboard while making a cup of tea and when I opened the cupboard  what I saw made me smile and thank God, because I have children. An hour later I’d written the piece.

So today I was thinking about skills, trades, talents, flairs, not the old trousers from the 70s either. Some of us are gifted or talented in one direction or another, at school the school report said I had a flair for French, the truth was we were tested every week for 4 years, 20 questions. So it was the teacher Mr Notzing who made me good, I just did what I was told. So my generation of Casey siblings were good at languages.

Little did we know that we’d all marry foreigners, so my girls are bilingual in English/Mandarin. The next generation, our kids, seem to be going into science, my nephew has decided to do Bio-Chemistry at York, because it has a big lab there, I did mention that my own wife has a degree in the subject, my friend from grammar school has a PhD in it, that made him smile. My daughter is heading in that direction too.

But where does the knowledge come from? It’s partly in the genes, and not the Levi Strauss ones you are wearing. Grannie in Shanghai was the accountant for the bus company after all. So gifts or flairs or even talents can come to you via the genes. The greatest gift is your looks, ugly parents have beautiful children and beautiful parents have ugly kids, its God’s sense of humour and balance after all. My own kids take after the wife, thank God for that, I wouldn’t want them to inherit my hairy back.

I’ve gone off at a tangent but that’s the way my mind works, and it’s fun to see if people stay with me, or drift over to the bar, or go and fetch an iron bar to hit me with, it’s never happened yet, but you never know, you never know. So a talent, what is it? A talent is something that you are very good at, better than your experience level, if you like it’s a plus 20% and more that comes from somewhere else, maybe the ether.

People can be jealous, and snide about a talent. Oh, he’s just gifted, he didn’t have to work at it like the rest of us. Beckham had to practice to be able to bend it, he’s having elocution lessons next, he wants to be an announcer on Radio 4, well in my imagination he is. Rooney practised his heading technique too, maybe that’s why his hair fell out, but its grown back, must be the shampoo he’s using, I hope he puts it on his website then we can all buy it.

You do still have to work at your skill, your trade, your knack with this or that, you’re knackered by all your hard work, and because you’ve put the hours in then it seems so easy to an onlooker. Perhaps firemen would be good pole-dancers, all the sliding down pole practice, ask any firemen friends you have. Which brings the obvious to mind, policemen would be good at bondage, all the handcuffs and so forth. I’ve gone off at a tangent again, are you hunting for that iron bar in the boot of the car?Sometimes people are down on themselves and say they cannot do anything, I suppose girls are more sensitive and can be more self-critical. Image/size issues and so forth. I’d just say STOP. Yes you can, if I can steal Obama’s   saying. You just have to make good with what you have got.

Any organisation needs all of us, the cleaner, the guy at the door, the cook, the secretary, the lawyer, the general manager, the everybody. In my hotel days I was like a puppy dog, a 17stone puppy dog who greeted everybody within 15 seconds of them entering the hotel. Once our boss went to the Hilton over the lake, and nobody approached him for 20 minutes, which is enough time to have a meal and conceive a baby, but not simultaneously, not unless you are a chef. In fact a lot of guests thought I was the manager because of the silver hair, being 20 years older than the reception crew, and the lack of a uniform, because I was the wrong shape, ok fat for the uniforms they did have.  

It takes all kinds of everybody doing everything, if I can mangle Dana, to make a hotel, or a law firm work. Yes you need the high skill guys, the university trained folks, but without everybody with their skills and talents, the jigsaw, the mosaic is not complete. Certainly at the law firm I worked at they knew this, everybody was looked after, anybody who did not fit the bill would never get through the interview process.

Carpenters are gods, ask Harrison Ford, he was one before he hit the big time. Chefs now they are gods too, and if you work in a 4star deluxe hotel you can to sample their creation, then you realise just how true it is. They also carry knives, lots of knives, so respect them, and did you know they live on biscuits and never cook at home, as they spend a lifetime in the kitchen, and yes gas is best.

Musicians are gods too, having been influenced by Eric Clapton from the age of 10 the power they have at their fingertips or with their voice is amazing. My claim to fame is that I once almost carried Eric Clapton’s bag when he stayed at our hotel. Only I went to the wrong end of his car, the boot was in the front. The car was worth twice what my house is worth. So I smiled and said, sorry sir, the wife drives a Skoda, but he did laugh.

So we all need to remember that we all can do different things, though actors have to learn to do many, but they are acting after all. Think about a film, and I have yet to write a Hollywood Blockbuster, it could be a 20 year pregnancy though, but I live in hope.  After the writer writes the film or the book upon which the film is based it takes 100s of people to produce it.

Next time you see a film, stop and watch the credits, count how many people it takes to make a film. If it’s an action film there may be 50 stunt people alone, or if its Jackie Chan just himself. The maths is interesting though, a film can be relatively cheap, but the returns can be a factor of 10. So a 10m film could make 100m, which 1000% return, which is better than the 2% which you’ll get on your Isa. That’s why people invest in films, rich people gamble 100k each and if it works they could get 1m back.

So as you watch the credits look at all the different categories, the butcher the baker and the undertaker is the name of my 1^st book, just as that is a collection of trades and callings so are all the folks who work on a film. So if I ever get lucky, then one person, me, I could give work to a whole host of others, and all because I balanced a typewriter on a stool as I shivered in my living room, sat on an old barn chair with a broken back in front of the gas fire, as I wrote The Butcher The Baker and The Undertaker. And best of all the writer gets at least 5% of the initial budget.