Submitted by Hardscrabble Farmer
Mike Rowe: America’s Favorite Apprentice
Authored by Channaly Philipp via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
Mike Rowe, America’s perpetual apprentice, has been giving viewers a front-row seat to our country’s dirtiest jobs for nearly 20 years.
The episodes of his show, “Dirty Jobs,” are a veritable archive of the various icky substances in earthly existence—sludge, slime, gunk, and grime—that he’s either had to clean, wade through, extract, or pick away at, often in the dirtiest, hottest, and smelliest of conditions.
Encounters with the animal kingdom are a category unto themselves. Given the close degree of proximity, these engagements are unpredictable: Rowe has gotten bitten by some creatures—ostriches, catfish, snakes, sharks—and gotten up close and personal with others—such as beavers, which he’s had to sniff to determine their sex.
OK, there are clean jobs, too. The yuck factor may be absent, but cue in the petrifying situations, such as scuba diving to the ocean floor and releasing fish blood and guts for “Shark Week.” (Don’t worry, Rowe was wearing a stainless steel chain-mail suit—which helps, he found out, when you’re being shaken like a rag doll by a group of sharks.) Or what about when he walked up 24.5-inch-diameter cables on the “Mighty Mac” bridge in Michigan to change light bulbs atop its towers, 552 feet up, only to realize that he was no longer safely clipped in?
But the stunts are not the point. The premise of “Dirty Jobs,” with no actors, no scripts, and no second takes, is all about showing America what it’s like to do a job that’s needed, a job that’s hard, and often messing it up in the process. The show ran from 2003 to 2012 and returned for a season in 2022. In between, it has never stopped airing.
In all, Rowe has performed more than 350 jobs, learning under the tutelage of hardworking Americans and having fun in the process.
Pop’s Wisdom
“Dirty Jobs,” as Rowe says, is ultimately a tribute to someone he was very close to: his grandfather, Carl Knobel.
Though he had only been schooled until the seventh grade, Knobel had built his own home and was a master electrician, plumber, steamfitter, pipe fitter, and welder—a master jack-of-all-trades.
“He saw great dignity in all jobs,” Rowe said. “He understood, intuitively I think, that we’re all connected to work, and the way we’re connected to where our food comes from, and where our energy comes from.”
Early on, Rowe was convinced he’d follow in his grandfather’s footsteps. He tried his hand at shop classes in high school, only to face an inconvenient reality: “I didn’t get the handy gene,” he explained.
His Pop gave him a dose of wisdom: “You can be a tradesman—just get a different toolbox, because what comes easily to me is not coming easily to you.”
So Rowe set off in a new direction—writing, singing, acting, and narrating. He belted out songs at the Baltimore Opera for years and worked the graveyard shift on the QVC home shopping network selling merchandise. He hosted an evening show on Channel 5 KPIX in San Francisco, a “cushy little job” that took him to downtown museums and Napa Valley wineries.
And then one day, his mom, Peggy Rowe, called.
She said, “Michael, your grandfather turned 90 years old today—and he’s not going to be around forever. And wouldn’t it be terrific if, before he died, he could turn on the television and see you doing something that looked like work?”
“It made me laugh because it was so true,” Rowe said.
Her message was delivered with love and humor, and Rowe, who was 42 at the time, decided to take it as a challenge.
The next day, with TV crew in tow, he was back in action—this time in the sewers of San Francisco, profiling a sewage worker. The footage, he said, was “inappropriate” for his show, but he put it on the air anyway.
Then, something interesting happened. Letters started pouring in, with messages like this: “Hey, if you think that’s dirty, wait ’til you meet my brother, or my cousin or my dad or my uncle or my grandfather or my mom. Wait ’til you see what they do!”
That launched a regular segment, “Somebody’s Gotta Do It.”
Rowe’s grandfather got to see one episode of it.
“He was very nearly blind by the time he died. He was 91. So, he knew I had gone into this direction … and I’d like to think he approved. I’m pretty sure he did,” Rowe said.
‘Groundhog Day’ in a Sewer
The segment eventually led to “Dirty Jobs.”
The Discovery Channel show meant being on the road for much of the year, lots of showers, and even a change of attitude.
“I’ll tell you, honestly, I had to humble myself when my mom made her off-the-cuff suggestion I’d been impersonating a host for 15 years,” he said. “I was pretty good at hitting my mark and saying my line and creating the illusion of knowledge where it didn’t really exist, pretending to be an expert.”
Looking back, Rowe says during those early days when “Dirty Jobs” was on the air, it was jarring for audiences to see a guy who didn’t have the answers but was willing to “look under the rock” and bring viewers along.
“I stopped being a host; I started to become a guest. I stopped being an expert and started to be a full-time dilettante,” he said.
“And so, to the extent people might trust me, or at least give me the benefit of the doubt, I think it comes from the fact that they’ve seen me try and fail for 20 years, they’ve seen me crawl through a sewer. And when you see a guy covered with other people’s crap, you know, that guy’s not gonna lie to you.”
Challenging the Stigma
For the longest time, Rowe’s dream job was to host “The Daily Show.” He worked long and hard, with his eyes on the prize.
“They hired me twice to do that job. And each time, something went wrong—comically it just went wrong and didn’t work out.” He contemplated how close he had come. “But the truth is, looking back, not getting that gig was the best thing that ever happened to me.”
Life had other plans for Rowe.
A few years into “Dirty Jobs,” the recession hit. People were asking where the good jobs had gone. And yet, Rowe knew, they were out there. On every job site where he set foot, he saw “Help Wanted” signs.
On Labor Day 2008, he launched the mikeroweWORKS Foundation, which was essentially a PR campaign for the millions of unfilled jobs desperate for skilled workers. Over the years, the foundation has given $6.7 million in scholarships to nearly 1,500 people with a strong work ethic and the desire to pursue a career in the skilled trades.
Through his show, Rowe was showing the public what it was like to be a skilled trade worker: that in between going to work clean and coming home dirty, they brought pride and passion to their work; kept America connected with good roads and infrastructure, happy with indoor plumbing, and warm or cool depending on the season; and in the process, made a pretty good living, too.
Still, there’s the perception that dirty jobs are not jobs worth doing. As to how to change it, “that’s the million-dollar question,” Rowe said, “and if there were an easy answer, we wouldn’t have 11 million open jobs right now, and 7 million able-bodied men between the ages of 25 and 54 not only not working, but affirmatively not looking for work.”
To some extent, Rowe knows what doesn’t work: “Lectures, sermons, scoldings. Men my age standing on their porch, shaking their fist at the heavens, and complaining about Gen Z and millennials.”
“The real way to challenge these stigmas and stereotypes and myths and misperceptions is to hit them squarely on the head. You need to show people that you really can make six figures. You need to show people that a good plumber today can make as much as he or she wants, and you can set your own schedule,” he said.
Now heading toward its 15th year, the foundation follows up with its scholarship recipients, documenting their successes, and Rowe shares their stories with nearly 6 million friends on social media.
“We can complain about the snowflake culture and the snowflake mentality, but we’re the clouds from which the snowflakes [came], and I think it’s incumbent on us baby boomers—the people who are my age—to hit the reset button. And we have to provide people with better examples of what success looks like.”
One example is Chloe Hudson, a welder at Joe Gibbs Aerospace in North Carolina. Her ambition in high school was to become a plastic surgeon, but a price tag of upwards of $350,000 was not appealing. Instead, she got a welding scholarship from mikeroweWORKS and now makes a six-figure salary.
“She’s living her best life,” Rowe said. “I talked to her the other day, and she’s like, ‘You know, I am kind of a plastic surgeon, except I’m not dealing with flesh and bone. I’m dealing with metal and steel and complicated compounds.’”
The road to prosperity doesn’t end at mastering a skill, either. For example, take a welder who hires an electrician, a plumber, and an HVAC worker. That becomes a $3 million mechanical contracting company—not bad for starting out with a $5,000 or $6,000 certificate.
Rowe added, “If you’ve mastered a useful skill, if you’re willing to think like an entrepreneur, and if you’re willing to go to where the work is—then I don’t think there’s ever been a better time in the history of the country to be looking for work, because the opportunities are everywhere.”
Mike Rowe Gives Relationship (and Job) Advice
Mike Rowe gives relationship advice—why not?
Years ago, Rowe wrote a Facebook post, which made the rounds online, about a good friend of his. This woman had been single her whole life and could not understand why. She was attractive and successful. Rowe suggested a dating service but she said no. He suggested she branch out across town, and try the museums, libraries, bars, and restaurants there. She declined again.
He said: “You’re not only looking for your soulmate; you’re looking for your soulmate in your own zip code. You’ve got a long list of qualifications: what they should look like, how much money they should make, how they should dress, where they should be from. So you just got all of these obstacles that you’ve put between yourself and the person who you believe can make you happy.
“And we do the same thing with work. We identify the job that’s going to make us happy, get the certification or degrees that we need, line up the interviews, etc., [but] we’ve got it backwards. We ask kids to imagine the job they want, long before they’re capable of doing that, and really, in many cases, before they have a good understanding of what their actual abilities are.”
Just as it happened to him, “you might realize that the thing you prepared yourself for is simply not the thing you’re going to do.”
“Everybody wants job satisfaction, and everybody wants happiness in their personal life, but if you start your quest with the notion that there’s a dream job, and you can’t be happy unless you get that job, it’s going to be a hard road—just as it’s going to be very difficult to find happiness in your personal life if you think there’s only one person on the planet walking around who’s capable of making you feel that way.”
Everyone Rowe met on “Dirty Jobs” was passionate, but few were doing the job they had in mind when they were young adults.
As Rowe says: “Don’t follow your passion—bring it with you.”
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He did an episode about the sewer workers in San Fran. So he’s crawling around 50 or a 100 feet underground with the usual assortment of roaches and centipedes but being claustrophobic I just couldn’t stand it. The thought of even a slight tremor that would seal him(me) up down there, trapped and unable to hardly even wiggle was just too much for me. Couldn’t watch it.
I avoid similar situations in shows/movies.
I retired from working in the sewer.
Knobel sounds like my grandad though mine only went to the sixth grade and was master of all those things and many more. Mechanics, woodworking, horticulture, animal husbandry, just to name a few that I can recall. I’m sure though there was likely a lot of men like that back in the day.
My friend from church is like that. Amazing man. He’s 76.
Apprenticeships and internships have been destroyed in this country by tax and labor laws. I have never understood why some politicians find it beyond deplorable that someone should get little or nothing pay for an internship that teaches them actually how to do a real job (and exposes them to dozens of different potential jobs/skills, etc.) but its ok and even “divine” to have a college or university charge someone $50,000 a year to teach them NOTHING that will apply to a future job, with ZERO guarantees of employment after $200,000+ of payments. Well, obviously its because college/university employees vote for worthless democrats and business owners/operators don’t, but they come out in public with their comments.
The economics and politics are jacked for sure but there is also the aspirational social status aspect that has almost completely decoupled young men from the productive labor force.
The dignity of work is just part of it. The prevailing culture – and its brands like launching the whole “information economy” thing, have amplified the ‘white collar v blue collar’ divide such that even families that came from skilled blue-collar work were doing everything to make sure their kids didn’t “end up in a job with his name on his shirt”.
All the globohomo, offshoring, debt jubilee, open borders, death of main street and cheap chinese landfill consumer economy converged sure enough but there is still the persistent class caste of the occupying culture that values midwit college debt slaves doing mindless marketing work for globo corp over a man driving a tow-truck.
Most people even on this side of the divide still subscribe to that status hierarchy though they rationalize it away. They are quick to lament the ripoff of college and all the debt and the same breath are terrified that their kids won’t get into that good college. And they know the kids arent learning shit but commie indoctrination and HPV bingo.
The same plays out vis a vis sexual politics and prioritizing marriage. No, daddys little girl should go to law school before she “settles down” and gets married. It rubs many the wrong way when I bring this up but its true. Revealed preferences all around.
Even so. There is a massive opportunity for young and even not-so-young men to take over the trade businesses of the population of boomers ready to retire. Which is a huge portion of the trades.
I talk to many of these older men and they have no succession plan. Their kids went to college and live in the city. huh.
They want to sell but have no buyers and no clear path. Of course there is also the problem of people not wanting to leave a damn penny on the table for the next guy. The defect-defect globocap disease is rampant. But there are still plenty of these skilled professional enterprises that could benefit mutually from an apprentice/owner, buyer/seller arrangement and it would be none of the goddam governments business.
Our side needs to think hard on how we want the economics of our people to serve our kids’ future. A lot harder than spend it all before you go, or “buy gold”.
I just don’t enjoy fixing or building things. So there’s that.
I do like growing veggies though.
Shouldn’t there be value in some type of specialization in society, rather than everybody trying to be a jack of all trades? Should I feel bad about the guy coming later today for a small carpentry job around the house because I would actually not like doing that kind of work and will be very glad to pay him for his work??? In other words, is it not beneficial for both of us if I pay him with money that I earned (or my husband, by extension, because I work a lot, but not for money) for work that I actually enjoy and am good at for a job that the carpenter enjoys and is good at? I guess I could try to barter with home grown veggies, but it is not the season yet, and the “nails for broccoli” program may not fly.
The division of labor is one of the keys to a sustainable and prosperous society. Anyone trying to be jack of all trades will only suffer poor to mediocre quality in most tasks, or many NOT getting done for lack of time. I’m having a plumber come this morning to install a new kitchen faucet because my back simply cannot take that abuse anymore, I don’t actually have the specific deep socket wrench needed to remove the old one, and I too worked hard at other jobs and have the money to have someone else go through the misery with tools he was able to write off as a business expense.
Had my arse kicked by my pappy when I was young because of sloppy work I’d do. Constantly telling me that it takes longer to do a crappy job than a job done well. And he was right.
Had a great employer when I did my electrical apprenticeship. No running wire as the crow flies, all the circuitry planned out so that you could follow each circuit to its end by its position, plenty of wire in the boxes and panels for pigtails and the like.
Had some work done last winter and had three contractors. I don’t think there are any real professionals anymore. All bragged about how good their work was, ALL were brought back in to fix deficiencies, like leaking gas fittings, flooring fixes, tile replacements and poor grouting. Things that as a real professional I’d never do or leave a customer with.
The poor quality work is why I do all of my own work on my house. It is also very satisfying. Doing construction work in my early years has really paid off.
Leaky gas fittings?!WTF!While a carpenter by trade will do small electrical work/plumbing ect. for friends but I will tell them when beyond me skills.
I recently replaced a gas dryer for friendand tested 3 times fittings ect. for leaks
I have been lucky to work with electrical guys who let me pull all the runs ect.back to box and they do actual hookups ect.,saves me monies and lets them focus on the final hookups and safety.
Leaky fittings from an A ticket gas guy, top ticket you can get here in BC. Long story short he did the install, went home at 4pm and would be back in two days cause he had to take his wife shopping the next day. Left tools scattered all over the place, across the floor. I kicked them into a pile, figured if he had no respect for his tools then neither do I.
About an hour and half later we smelled gas. So I took a soap solution down and swabbed all his joints, two bubbled. Shut the gas off and called. He was ‘surprised’ and said he’d take care of it the day after. Wanna guess my response. He was there the next morning.
I am so pissed with all the trades here, from sloppy work to them cleaning up more than whats theirs. No professionalism any more, no pride in workmanship. Just get the job done and collect the cash and cya.
Glad you smelled the gas quickly!I turned back on to “fill”new line to dryer and let out a burst so friend would know what to smell for leak wise in future.I ran dryer and tested joints 3 times as it went thru it’s cycles and then when finished.
I try and avoid these kind of jobs but explained all to friend and he could not get anyone for weeks so agreed to do it but also made him check joints the next day and all good.
As a carpenter usually the worst I can get is a door that sticks or something and adjust it better before finally sending it and then trim home,did one time cut a line with sawzall and it killed breaker,sparky was there and did a junction with a plate that luckily didn’t look like hell!
Now that the plumbers have left (2 hours worth of work and a lot of swearing), I am more than happy to have paid someone to put the faucet in. I have NO DOUBT that my swearing would have been 10 times worse and the job would likely still not be complete. Hooray for the division of labor. Wife is happy to have a new faucet and a husband with intact hands.
That takes all the fun outta the DIY.
You’re supposed to try, screw it up royally, then call the pro to fix the problem, while trying to convince him it was somebody else that did the screw up and you just discovered it. Never in a million years would you touch anything like that, thats why you called the pro. Actually heard this more than a few times working electrical.
Glad you got it all sorted out.
Actually, I had already tried. I got the two anchor bolts off, but didn’t have the right tool (super deep socket) to get the main stem removed (not just one of those sideways crescent wrenches on a stem (borrowed one from a neighbor – didn’t work). I knew it was possible, looked at the price of the tool from a couple of places, and realized that I just didn’t want the misery this time around. I’ve replaced toilets, installed the R.O. system under this same sink, installed outdoor faucets with sweating copper pipe, etc. I’ve put in full sprinkler systems with trenching, and lots more. Sometimes you just look at something and decide its better to watch someone do it than do it yourself. Spent the time checking out FF on TBP. Time much better spent.
Happy wife happy life.
Carpenter never showed up here.
Maybe I should learn to fix things?
I would say unless accident/emergency carpenter did not show up you are better off,any no shows without at least a call,reasonable reason why is not someone you want working on your home/vehicle/anything!
Best way to find a good trades person is thru family/friends/drive by a home and love the work you see get their name.
Small stuff fixing can be great fun and also at times great frustration,that said,a lot of how to books/video so depending on the job you are trying to get done might be worth a homeowner shot.
I have from a carpenters point of view seen excellent home owner work and freaking disasters(some times due to the dreaded “hidden conditions”),good luck with your project.
Lib, my older brother taught me, that sometimes the most efficient tool we have can be our checkbook, or, if a reduced rate can be negotiated for paying in cash, it’s a win-win.
I figure I’ll have a good idea after 6 decades on this plane, what I’ll be able to successfully do myself.
Sometimes, though, we’re better off hiring a competent tradesman who does what’s needed day in and day out.
He’ll have the tools, the expertise, experience and know where to cut corners. When to meet code, and do it quicker, and safer, so his premium rate is usually worth it, to avoid the DIY hassles that are always a potential pain in the ass, and the wallet.
Knowing when to try it yourself, and when to hire a pro is the key.
If physical skills are lacking or risky, that helps the decision as well.
And of course, the budget concern has to be considered in the equation too.
Great post, HSF.
Would have been my first kitchen sink faucet. And you are correct. These guys likely have done many versus me. The faucet was actually leaking internally, and putting water everywhere in a slow fashion. A heavily used sink that I made an attempt at a bit ago but backtracked when I realized I couldn’t finish the job without specialty tools (and an imminent arrival of a guest).
The problem follows the “strong men make good times…..good times make weak men….”
We are in the good times that have created weak men. For example:70% of men don’t qualify for military service because they are fat lazy dough boys who don’t want to get off the couch. Life is too easy (physically).
Looks like we’re on the cusp of the next rotation: hard times will make strong men….. again.
Got my MBA in 1976, no jobs in banking. So, drove a 2,000 gallon tankwagon truck delivering gasoline and heating oil. Loved it. A year later was Office Mgr, two after that GM.
As my rather successful cousin Jeffrey said in IBD back in 2000, find what you love and do it well.
Excellent article Mr Farmer.
The problem is easy money and generations following look at what parents worked for and feel they deserve more with less work. Certain jobs become beneath them to do.
This same thing happened after WW2 in Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong, all dirt poor. usausa corporations looking for slaves to produce their products moved in. The standard of living went up and soon, the slave jobs were beneath the average person living there. Nothing has changed.
What the 30’s an younger see now is they think they should be the CEO of a Fortune 500 company raking in millions in wages and stock options. Or social media influencers because they’re so awesome.
Today the kids in high school are getting a ‘living wage’ of $15/hr or more at McDonalds. Still living at home. Often help wanted signs are still posted because working at McDonalds is beneath them, and theres no shortage of kids wandering around doing nothing. Then they complain that burgers and fries are getting to expensive there. ZERO concepts of work or money, likely because mommy and daddy never required them to do much of anything and bought all the kewl toys for them too.
My Dad explained it this way:
There are two approaches to life and you have to choose one or the other. You can either amass a great deal of knowledge in a narrow field, or you can amass a limited working knowledge in a wide variety of fields.
After observing his life, I knew I’d never want to be an “expert”. I’d rather be like him. The guy was a regular F’ing McGyver.
A person can become extremely proficent in a wide variety of skillsets. All that is required is passion and time.
Over specialization is as much a problem as jack of all tradism, but there are certainly a wide expanse of things for a naturally curious person to become an expert in provided they live long enough and stay busy.
Word’s O’ wisdom.
Hard to imagine anyone NOT branching out a bit from a specialty as there is pretty much NOTHING you can try to fix, repair, etc. that DOESN’T require you to fix something adjacent in the process (and likely something unrelated).
Things do tend to kind of balloon, don’t they?
The young man who purchased that 9-acre strip next to our land puts in septic tanks with his father. He paid cash and plans to build his home with cash in a couple years. He is 24 years old.
Sounds wonderful.
I used to watch these guys every once in a while. Homeschooled kids, Dad quit his job as a police officer to build his home in Northern Idaho with his own hands together with his wife. Wife bought some horses. Seems like a dream come true.
I will say despite decades playing with wood/great tools/licenses/certs ect. I could not build that home in 30 minutes/won’t even watch as would become depressed at how quick building has changed!
Mike Rowe epitomizes what can be achieved when work is not beneath one’s dignity.
No work should EVER be below one’s dignity if you recognize that a job needs to get done.
Urinals will need to be dug.
While folks discuss I will be the guy who just starts digging downhill/away from fresh water ect.,hope the rest smarten up quickly or am then figuring being on me own the best choice.
I always ate the suck,shit jobs so I had “bitching privileges” as me boss called em at the time and was actually many times just the best suited.A case in point,old insulation just didn’t bother me while the rest of crew would go into scratching fits,guess who got the insulation removal gigs?!
The other great thing about “suck “jobs was folks left you alone/I took a smoke break whenever I wanted with no BS from boss or crew/really just on me own which is nice at times even on the best crews.
My oldest daughter sings when cleaning out shitty dog kennels when she was doing dog grooming. Her take, yup its shitty but so what. Kennels don’t clean themselves and shit happens, it doesn’t set my day.