Frankly, “doing the actual work” is much less important than you’d imagine. I have yet to hear someone start with “I’ve been doing this job for…” and not end with something stupid.
Plenty of tredies know a lot, and I’ve met a bunch of tradesmen who did try uni but quit. But also, plenty of them have a need to tear down engineers because they feel threatened, and plenty more think an engineer is an idiot because he wants things done differently than “the right way” which is, of course, “how I’ve always done it”.
Frankly, “doing the actual work” is much less important than you’d imagine. I have yet to hear someone start with “I’ve been doing this job for…” and not end with something stupid.
Plenty of tredies know a lot, and I’ve met a bunch of tradesmen who did try uni but quit. But also, plenty of them have a need to tear down engineers because they feel threatened, and plenty more think an engineer is an idiot because he wants things done differently than “the right way” which is, of course, “how I’ve always done it”.