Crooked Handle Careers

Easy question for Halloween—if you see a broom with a crooked handle resting against a wall what immediately comes to mind?

Back in August I saw a row of beautifully crafted ones, all suitable transportation for Elvira Gulch, at a local craft fair, but having just been to an exhibit about the Shakers my first thought wasn’t of the Wicked Witch of the West.

What got my attention was how these handmade products stand out in our mass produced, made-in-China world.

The woman manning the booth had left a corporate position in sales and marketing to become a partner in a broom-making business because it enabled her to combine her business skills with the craftsmanship she had learned growing up in rural Vermont.

When people build businesses that connect the relationship-building and critical thinking skills they learned from liberal arts studies to something they’re excited about doing, they have a pride of ownership in their work that is rarely experienced by those who are out there chasing the next “hot job.”

Her story fit the profile of the business owners Paul Solman interviewed in the PBS News Hour story, “Could Brooklyn Hipsters Help Save the Middle Class?” about how an abandoned pharmaceutical factory in Brooklyn has become an incubator for young entrepreneurs who are crafting not only new products and services but their own careers.

There’s a name for this 21st century revival of making things, the “artisan economy,” and according to Harvard economics professor Larry Katz, it is a trend which shows promise for replacing many of the mid-level professional jobs that have been lost in the economic downturn.

Solman asked Katz if he thought the average college grad could carve out his or her own career and Katz replied, “I think every human being for the most part has that capability.”

When people build businesses that connect the relationship-building and critical thinking skills they learned from liberal arts studies to something they’re excited about doing, they have a pride of ownership in their work that is rarely experienced by those who are out there chasing the next “hot job.”

The broommaker told me that the flat brooms she sells were invented by the Shakers in 1787 through the inspiration of their leader, Mother Ann Lee, who taught that sweeping was a way not only of cleaning the floor but the heart as well.

The guys Solman interviewed told him how they’d turned their childhood love for frozen treats into a thriving business selling trendy “green market” popsicles and alcoholic slurpees.

A woman who invented the career of “dementia coach” trains nursing home staff and private clients on how to care for people with Alzheimer’s disease so they can “have a life to live and still be who they are.”

All these people have a unique story to tell.

They are as connected to the work they do as I am when I put my hands around the individually crafted, crooked sassafras handle of the traditional broom I bought.