The Post-NBSS world
James Watriss
>Pulled from the transitional plane thread:
"Aside from transitional planes, I think many of us would be interested in your progress, now that you've graduated from a premier cabinetry school. Do you mind sharing some of your impressions on getting started in the professional world?--I'm really thinking of a new thread. Only if you have the time and motivation, of course.
Wiley "
Well, Wiley, I've been out for 8 months now. I set up shop in a sub-letted space, moved out of the space, and set up my own shop down the hall in the same building. It's taken 3 months to get fully prepared, with the details in place. It would have taken me less time, but I went with Oneida for dust collection, and their "free" ductwork design plan offer was a catastrophe. They went through 3 plans before I finally came up with one myself, and put in the order, and even then it took them a week to get everything from New York to Massachusetts. In short, the cyclone was hanging on the wall for 2 months before I had ductwork in the shop to put up. The dust collector itself works well, and I don't have to think about it, which means that it was well made, I guess. No complaints means success in the tool world. Most working folks don't notice things unless they're not working. But the cyclone is existing technology, and the work they have to do now is originate the shop plans, which they had a very very hard time doing. I emailed them with my complaints, but by that point, damage was done.
I've been angling at the business end of things for a while now. I'm trying a few different approaches, but the short of it is, if you're out to start up a new venture, have adequate savings. Between sublet issues, and waiting for Oneida, it's been a while, without actually building or selling anything, and it's been frustrating. And after setting up shop twice in a row, it's proving difficult to make the mental transition from "I'm setting up shop and not making money," to "I have a shop now, and it's time to make money." Needing money is helping the transition.
The shop has been done for about a week, and I'm starting on a run of chairs to shop around to galleries. I'm also teaching classes at the local Woodcraft. And I'm writing. I wrote an email or two to an editor at one of the woodworking magazines to see what he had to say about getting into writing about woodworking and he had a few things to say. He mentioned that woodworking and writing were hard to make a good living with, and that he was combining the two to make a better living. I threw some article ideas at him, and he responded by saying that I had ideas for a book, not a series of articles. So I'm working on a book for beginners that details getting set up on a shoestring budget, and how to avoid a lot of the hype. My information comes from my years at North Bennet, as well as 3 years of working in woodworking retail chain stores. I saw a lot of weird contradictions, and my frustrations ended in a series of events that led to my getting fired from the last retail job... and it was the happiest and most honest I'd felt in years.
The book is a lovely form of revenge, I get to teach people how to get started, the way I think people should get started, without having to sell them on fancy widgets that might or might not make their life easier. I have a couple of chapters done, but I have a lot of work to do in my basement to do the rest of the research, and get the results in writing and photos. So it'll be a while before it's ready.
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It's a hard road. So many people really like nice things, but so few of them, I'm finding, really know what well made actually is. Fewer want to pay money for it. Woodworking looks like it's going to be maybe half of the work in a one man business. If that. I tossed out a thread in the messages board a few months ago, and got some good responses.
It seems like some of the most successful woodworkers that I've met were successful for a few reasons:
-They worked HARD at the outset, and came in with a full head of steam.
-Some of them went right to work for someone else, and learned a lot from their "master." This advice held them in good stead, and they went forth successfully to make their way in the world. I think that's a pretty time honored tradition in any walk of life. I've been a soldier, worked offshore, gone to college, and now I'm doing this, and in the Army, and offshore, there was always someone there to show me the ropes, and kick my ass when I needed it, and you learn from it. They're usually invaluable lessons, and there's no possible way to repay the person who taught you. The only way to really show appreciation is to pass it on to the next guy, and make sure that he's in a good place to pass it on further. It's part of the reason I'm writing the book. I also wrote a post last June called "Looking Back, and advice to new guys," for the same reason.
-Some of the really successful woodworkers were SMART, and they were able to figure a few things out for themselves. I took a class with Brian Boggs over the summer, and went to Chris Scwartz' bench seminar at L-N later on. M. Scwartz and Thomas Lie-Nielsen both told me that M. Boggs is "pretty much the smartest guy we know." He started out making chairs with chisels made from old screwdrivers, with a small tool bag of hand tools. Now he has a full shop and employees, and he's figured out a lot of things along the way, including how to make his own spokeshaves and a very superior shave horse. Having sat through two weeks of lectures, and listening to him talk about how to tune up tools, and use a shave horse, and break down logs, and... and... and... well, it's clear that he's a very, very smart guy. And that a lot of what he knows was not learned by sitting around and drinking coffee. If I didn't have a serious girlfriend and an established life where I am, I'd pack up and go to work for him in a heartbeat, and live in a tent for year if I had to. Even with the girlfriend and all, it's still very tempting.
-Business sense is huge. I don't have it yet, but it's obvious that I have to learn. Anyone can strut and fret their hour upon the stage, and give a masterful performance, but if their stage is in their basement, no one will ever know. Good performance is only seen when you have the stage and the lights, and without good business sense, you won't get the stage.
-My perspective is a little skewed on this, because so many of the woodworkers I've met are teachers. But it seems ot me that a lot of the really good woodworkers are also teachers, or writers, or both, or more. It seems to me that there has to be a real passion, but also an outlet for that passion beside the work itself, and the ability to run the business.
-There are a couple of approaches to take. Either go for high dollar supremely custom jobs that are immensely complicated (or at least seem that way) or be a good enough furniture designer that you can design something that's very sell-able, and good enough in the shop to know how to design something that lends itself well to batch production, so that you have some hope of selling something for a price that's attractive enough, and be able to make enough of them to sell that it's possible to see a profit. Again, maybe I'm way off. Or, maybe I'm only beginning to understand. I'll let you know in a year or three.
Basically, woodworking skill is required to be a professional woodworker, but it's very clear to me right now that there's a lot more to it than that. To earn your right to work for yourself, successfully and independently, there's a whole other skill set, and a whole other battle that I'm just beginning to arm myself for.
If you asked me, in a word, how I felt right now, the answer is "Behind."
Other words include grateful, terrified, hopeful, but concerned.
Romanticizing over a fantasy night with a beautiful girl is not the same thing as actually being in bed with a good looking woman who's cranky after a long day.
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As for NBSS, and its well earned reputation as a premium school, and going out into the world in general, I think the real world is a much darker and scarier place, and it's been an interesting ride so far, with more bumps and bruises than anything else, but I'm still happy being here.
One of the problems with North Bennet is that in 2 years, there's no way you can learn everything. You can't even learn the list of things you don't know yet. And North Bennet is very, very fussy.
One of the problems that some graduates run into when they get employed later is that they're much slower than their bosses would like. Detail takes time and patience, and the more detailed you are, the longer it takes... and some of them are simply too detailed in their work. Some employers are fast to criticize, and I was told myself by a finish carpenter, that the NBSS grads all have perfume in their blood, and he wouldn't hire another one. (I heard this before I went to NBSS. Note, I went anyway.) Other employers understand that graduates have a core skillset, but that they aren't fluent in production work practices or technology. The instructors mentioned production techniques once or twice in lectures, but there's a lot they didn't mention. And in the end, maybe those are techniques that the instructors simply didn't know. I have no idea.
I have to compare North Bennet to any other college, despite its status as a trade school. You may learn a lot, about the topic, and about yourself, and your ability to work, but it won't teach you about your first job, or your second job. There's so much that has to be learned on the job and in person that may or may not have anything to do with what you learned at school. You come away with a solid skill set, but the real world is always different from what you learn in school.
North Bennet was a good base to start from, and I'm glad I went. It is not the be all and end all, and it's not the same thing as having extensive experience. And if there are things you're still figuring out, it's possible that working for someone else may be the choice for you. But I think there's more money to be made in working for yourself, if you can figure out how to make it work. (I'm still figuring it out, but I think I'm getting there.)