Basic life skills - or the lack thereof

I am a caretaker.

I caretake buildings.

"But Leah!" you say, aghast. "Didn't you get a fancy college degree?"

Yes. Yes I did. However, I have CHOSEN to work with my hands, problem solving and learning daily, rather than compete in the rat race. I probably earn less than you, but guess what? I don't have to interact with people all day, I get to be alone and do my thing. No one tells me when to do what. And, best of all, when my work is finished for the day, I go home.

Something that will never cease to amaze me is the general population's total lack of know-how or life skills. How did we, a first world society capable of AMAZING inventions, come up with the idea that knowing how things work is beneath us?

Here's a few examples:

1) Knowing how to do basic handyman adjustments. Change a lock, fix your squeaky door, adjust your sink lever, change out pipes. Do you know how many times I've gone in to someone's apartment, and the fix they waited for was LITERALLY for me to tighten a screw?

2) Basic plumbing maintenance. If all you know about plumbing is how to plunge your toilet, then you will overpay people do to EASY fixes for the rest of your life. Cleaning out your bathtup drain - easy. Slow draining sink? SUPER EASY. It really isn't rocket surgery.

3) How to do your taxes, and what everything means. How is it possible that something that LITERALLY EVERY PERSON IN THE COUNTRY OR OUT OF IT HAS TO DO has fallen through the cracks? What are capital gains? What are deductions? What can I deduct from my taxes? I feel like people would UNDERSTAND why they have to pay taxes better, as well as better allocate their money to causes they care about, if they understood, even on the most basic level, tax laws.

4) What to look for in a rental, how to do a move-in inspection, and how not to get scammed by a landlord. And what your rights are as a tenant! This one is huge. So many people have gotten scammed by a shady landlord. I was sitting next to someone on the ferry, as they explained that, even though the carpets were filthy when they moved it, the landlord made them steam them. GUESS WHAT? If you had taken pictures when you moved it, you could prove it.

5) Basic car maintenance. We do driver's ed, and driver's training, but no one seems to think we should be learning how to take care of the machine that is responsible for making explosions less than 5 feet from our faces to make us fly down the road at alarming speeds. How to parallel park? IMPERATIVE! Maintenance of explosion producing, speed machine directly in front of our faces? Who cares!

6) Budgeting. How to track expenses, and set a limit for things. Also, how credit works - and why it's important. I feel like half the people I know have either NO CREDIT or BAD CREDIT. Because no one taught us that a) we should have credit history, and b) bad credit can RUIN YOUR LIFE.

I'm in no way suggesting that I know all of these things. I'm merely stating that our view of what is "worth" our attention seems skewed. I can sove for x till the cows come home - but in my real life, daily existence, what is that really worth?