If the Stuff Hit’s The Fan (SHTF), what would your profession be?
What would you do if you didn’t have your ‘day job’? I don’t mean “How would you survive.” At least for a while a prepper should have food and shelter covered. But what would you do as a means of earning the services or goods of others that you might need or want? How would you add value to your community? What would be your new profession?
This kind of thinking can be useful in every kind of prepper situation, be it the personal Stuff Hits The Fan (SHTF) of a job loss or the End Of The World As We Know It (TEOTWAWKI). All of us either have or can develop skills that could be of value to others. We’d all be wise to figure out what they are, develop them, and be ready to employ them. Expanding your skill set is also highly portable and very much a stealth prep.
Regular professions can be prepper professions
Having a conversation isn’t really an option when you’re getting your teeth cleaned. You’ve got time to think. What I was thinking this morning was “Hey, if she had her own tools, a way to sterilize them, and a mirror arrangement for light, she’d have a great service to provide if there weren’t government regulators looking over our shoulders.”
She started it. Even if the American Dental Association folded, I’d still need the services of my dental hygienist.
Some people already have great skills that they currently employ for pay; but could freelance if the job went away. If, that is, they are properly supplied with the tools of their trade. Is this you? If so, what would you need to ply your profession on your own behalf? Those things might make great preps; especially if you get versions that will work even if the usual utilities are unavailable.
Besides tools, there are also supplies. A good seamstress can do a lot using repurposed fabric, but she probably can’t produce a zipper or good quality thread in the quantity she’d need. A carpenter’s tools can last a lifetime, but he’s got to leave screws, nails, and hinges behind in each job. Physical therapy can do a lot of good for low-tech, but a selection of walking boots, braces and the like would be a great help. What does your profession need that you know how to use but would have to use up?
Extending your profession
Professional skills can be employed to meet new needs. A dog trainer today works a lot on keeping dogs from eating the couch and jumping on strangers. She could also teach a dog to be a good sentinel or herd the ducks back into the coop. (In fact, dog herding competitions often use ducks; they’re easier to transport than sheep.) A baker who does fancy cupcakes now might make a good business of baking bread. A landscaper that mostly works with ornamentals can surely help fruit trees thrive.
You rock at teaching him to not chew shoes. Are you ready to teach him to guard?
This approach does call for some additional preparation. Herding training probably requires some special techniques; one a dog trainer could easily incorporate but might want to study up on first. I’d probably want some of those big paddy suits if I were to train attack dogs, but then I’m a wimp that way. This sort of thing is probably good professional development anyway. I’ve certainly learned a lot relevant to my day job as I worked to extend my expertise in a prepping direction.
Hobbies can become professions
Sadly, most of us don’t get paid for fishing. If food were tight, you might; particularly if you were good at it. Love trees? Maybe playing around with learning to graft would be fun. Lots of folks like to tinker, fix, and refurbish. Stock a good set of tools and some of the relevant spare parts and those could be *very* valuable skills. Gunsmithing and reloading are obvious good choices in this category too.
I know a lot of people who really like to cook (none of them named Salty or Spice). If we were living off of our stores, I’d happily give some of them a share of the materials for making something actually nice to eat out of them. And that baker? Heck yes, here’s some hard red wheat; feel free to take your tithe! But that’ll only work if the cook/baker has the materials and expertise to make do with emergency contingencies. I know several people who have real fun (their style) cooking while camping, so perhaps that’s a skill to develop for some of you?
Then there’s the people who are into historical re-enacting. Here in northeast Missouri we have a Viking longfort, a Trappers and Traders group, people still fighting the Civil War, and some Middle Ages re-enactors (they leave out the Black Death part). I certainly hope not all of that is useful — I never hope to need an armourer who can make me a set of chainmail. Many of the re-enactors also craft though, and some of those are excellent skills. Our Vikings can take a sheep from “bleating” to “delicious!”, “good boots!” and “nice cloak!” with minimal materials and considerable skill. I hear the Civil War guys even make coffee without a Keurig! They’ve also learned to camp out in pouring rain with good humor and some comfort, and under the right situation those skills are Gold.
In the afternoon, they mock battle. In the mornings, they make Useful Things.
These are things people do mostly for fun anyway. If that’s your groove, why not lay in the extra supplies and work on the extra skills to make it a profitable proposition? It might be a nice supplement in a layoff or retirement even if The World As We Know It does not End.
‘Soft’ professions can be valuable too
Prepper-world loves its guns and scenarios of tough survivors in desperate situations. Many emergencies have a softer side. Historically, those skills were significantly undervalued and underserved. No time like the present to improve on that.
If you’re involved at all with counseling – how’s your skill set with high stress, anxiety, loss, and uncertainty problems? Those will be needed! How about management techniques that were/are effective without the usual medication support?
I bet it won’t take that long away from Sirius and networked music services before live music starts to sound pretty darned welcome. Will you people with talent along that line Please be sure to stock the acoustic guitars and such, and plenty of strings and reeds? If you do, I promise to not sing in public! You’re welcome!
In a shtf world… who is going to keep the nuke plants from melting down? who is going to be able to get away from a nuke plant area? If the nuke plants melt, is there a map of all nuke plants in America, Mexico and Canada? To figure where a possible safer place to live if that were to happen.
Honestly I do not understand the nuke plant melt down fear thing. It’s not a nuclear strike. Look at 3 mile island, Chernobyl and the Japanese THREE reactor melt down. Aside from the initial plume of vaporized radioactive materials you can walk away from the area to rebuild. Compared to the hazards of crazed humans after the lights go out and trucks stop delivering food and water treatment chemicals the melting nuke plants are a puff of wind in a Hurricane. Events maybe created by the melt down will be your real hazards.
How do you protect yourself from melt down nukes reactors? Map where they are nearby. Learn what prevailing winds are. If your too close MOVE away. Protect your thyroid from radioactive iodine. Look up bomb sheltering information and prepare if needed to hide for around two weeks. Maybe buy a radiation detector as radiation is impossible to detect with your senses.
Would stink post SHTF melt down to have a Mad Max salesman sell you contaminated food eh? In the Great Depression some folks sold lime water as milk and spoiled eggs so I would expect contaminated food stuffs also.
Just my 2 cents your mileage may vary.
American (and probably Canadian, though I haven’t studied them) nuke plants can’t ‘melt down’. Their design is such that they self-inhibit if they get too hot. It’s a very different design from Chernobyl, for example. American plants have a *very* low probability of doing anything worse than a steam escape — which would likely result in less radiation exposure for the properties next door than some kinds of medical imaging. The nuke plants Can make themselves pretty broken, but it’s not explosive or melty. We’re not that far from a couple, and I don’t worry about them at all.
I don’t worry about nuke reactors. I DO worry about the spent fuel pools. If the pumps break, or power is lost, the water that covers the still-hot fuel rods boils away, and then they start to burn…. ask Japan about that little problem…
Japan’s reactor design allowed reactions to continue at those high temperatures. I don’t think the U.S. uses this design at all. Our power-generating reactors lose the ability to sustain their reactions when they get too hot — or so we learned in Physics class. Now, the ones we might use to make nuke weapons; I don’t know about their designs; or if any are currently in service.
https://www.nrc.gov/reactors/power.html 33 of the 100 commercial reactors in the US use a boiling water reactor design, most made by Westinghouse. Most were made in the 60’s. The Fukushima reactors were made by Westinghouse in the late 60’s and 70’s, using the same design by Westinghouse.
But boiling water reactors, or Pressurized Water reactors (the two types used commercially in the US) both have one BIG problem, the spent fuel storage area holding several partially spent (but still very hot) fuel cores, many times more fuel than sits in the reactor (with just one core). And the partially spent cores are basically sitting out in the open, in swimming pools. They keep the temperatures down by cycling surface water (rivers etc) through the pools. If the water stops flowing into the pools, the water covering the cores starts overheating and turning to steam Once the water evaporates, the fuel can start to burn on contact with air (oxygen), and melt. I’d MUCH rather have a reactor core have a problem, buried in concrete and steel, than have 6 or 7 cores melting down in the formerly water filled spent fuel ponds.
Thanks for the information, Steve. It seems the word I got was incomplete … in that it was of a design where the particles got too energetic if overheated, stopping the reactions and further heating. They didn’t mention that whole ‘except this 33% of U.S. reactors which Does keep going if overheated’ part.
Wow Spice! Viking re-enactors how cool! I’ve been to many re-enactments (no Viking yet) and they are so eager to teach folks how to do interesting things. Good people. I’ve always said look to the past to survive and prosper in the future. No matter how high tech we get food, safe water and shelter are required needs to be fulfilled.
As far as my post SHTF professions, Dental care including extractions, vinegar making (food preservation and sanitation) minor surgical care, dowsing, shallow well drilling and general MacGyver skills as a high tech Red Neck! Doing medical care as a missionary in South America shows how much a little help can improve a persons world.
What comes up must come down, the protruding nail will be hammered and never stand before a raging elephant. Think of these things and develop a sense of awareness around you and your family.
Well, I’ve collected a few pocket knives, multi-tools in my years, I guess I could start a barter business. I’ve been an architectural draftsman for nearly 40 years, but many of the materials now used would be difficult to get brand new. I also know how building are put together and know that demolition for saving as much for reconstruction is art too – remove the wrong support and you get a building collapse. Knowing sequence of construction – destruction can be very valuable.
I have carpentry,medical,and gardening skills learned over the years…I love to tinker and learn quick..sounds like a resume huh??? LOL!! all skills that I could possibly trade for items/food etc…
I’m going to be a super model. I figure there won’t be much competition.
Aww, Uncle George, it woulda worked until you went and spread the idea!
Degree in Professional Gunsmithing – a useful skill in the post-SHTF wasteland indeed.