Manual labor and "Knowledge Work" get a lot of attention as skilled work, either as artisans or as professionals. I'm here to say that's stupid. Social skills are the only skills that matter. I'm not talking about salepeople skills, though those are related. I'm saying that if you can't work well with others, you have a deficiency that makes you a literal tool, and without a hand to wield you, you are as useless as the stones in the ground.
Yes, I am saying that learning to become a doctor is not a skill that matters. Learning to become an engineer is not a skill that matters. Learning to become a mechanic or a plumber or an accountant is not a skill that matters.
Unless you can pair it with social skills.
Tesla Was Useless
Nikola Tesla was brilliant, and what he did for the world was nothing short of magnificent. Yet he was a loner, and could not reason about social life. He famously turned down sex in a life of celibacy. He was taken advantage of by Thomas Edison and to a certain extent by George Westinghouse, though I would argue Westinghouse was quite nice to Tesla, but none of that is the point.
Tesla would have been nothing without either of them. Tesla was a tool that needed to be wielded by someone else who could bridge between him and the rest of the world. He couldn't sell his services, he had to have someone see that potential and make an advantage of it. Maybe he'd figure something out on his own, maybe, but that's exactly the issue. Until he learns to take social skills seriously, it's meaningless.
Social Skills on their Own
I know a couple people that are "sales" people by some respects, or deal makers, or at the very least they'll get people together and get them to talk to each other about the things they could do for each other. That sort of thing isn't necessarily compensated, I do that in my meetup groups and online communities sometimes. I don't earn a commission, but it's important work. If I didn't understand software or computers, the social skills would still be valuable on their own. If I didn't have them, my software engineering skills would require being attached to someone with them.
All kinds of social skills on their own are valued. Customer Service is just social skills coupled with some process training. Some kinds of Sales people are just laughably stupid at most of their life, but they make tons of money by being social powerhouses. That's probably negative, but the point is that's all they have. It's all they need.
People are not Fake, You're Just Lazy
One complaint I really want to push back on is this idea that the social games we play are inefficient or fake. What an asinine assumption. The fact that it's sort of correct is the silent killer. I hear it most about dating, so lets start with that very accessible example.
When you meet someone you want to date, there's a certain dance you want to go through before you propose marriage, or whatever. Everyone's weird, but that weirdness is something you want to mask. That's where people think it's fake. Wrong.
If you're weird, and the entire reason we have the concept of weird or gross or whatever, is that it turns out people are awful to each other. There's a balance we all need to strike between selfishness and service to others. I know people that shower once every couple months. Surprising no one, I don't hang out with them often. When I do, it's definitely in a place I can get away from them after a bit.
People expect you won't bring them disease, theft, violence, or undue burden. There's probably endless items we could add to that list, but suffice to say we all want to be with good people, not bad people, and our definitions of those are being renegotiated constantly.
When you do the social dance that gets called "fake" so often, you are actually doing the only thing in socializing that matters. You are saying, "I understand how to be with you, what makes us all safe together, and what trust is built on over time." You can layer in the weird that isn't a detriment later.
Socially Acceptable or Not
There are tons of things that aren't socially acceptable, that one might hide for a while, or for a long time. Deviance is a concept for a reason. If it's not hurting anyone, that's not to say it's accessible to everyone. I'm willing to overlook that you do something a little out of the norm at one stage. I'm never willing to overlook that you do some other things. Where those lines are drawn are the boundaries we're constantly negotiating. Everyone has them.
This dance is super important for everyone, especially the people that think it shouldn't matter, that we can just be open and honest and it should work. That's so dumb I don't even want to grace it with a response. Yet, here we are.
Tesla Was Protected Because of Social Skills
The fact that we have these dances is always pushed back on in the basis of one person not wanting to. This is false as a premise. Social interactions are one to one sometimes, but social skills never are. We are not doing this social dance between us, we are doing it with society. If we agree that this weird behavior is fine, that's in reference to the norms we perceive as society. Without society, the indirect dance and the direct honesty can not happen.
More importantly, that same reference protects those without the social skill investment. You can choose to be a social idiot, and you will not be exploited as you would be in a direct system like so many seem to want. Even without formal slavery, Tesla would have become essentially beholden to whoever could control him and abuse the hell out of him, because being direct goes all ways.
If someone sees they can exploit you, they also see that others don't want that exploitation, so it becomes a game of hiding it and then fighting the backlash if it gets exposed. Does that seem like a better system? That's the more base, animal side of humanity at play. That's the balance. We put on the mask to become self-disciplined and thus make sure everyone else can be to. Otherwise, the only answer is enforcement of values through violence.
That may seem extreme, but it's not. It's one of the more straightforward known behaviors of humans we have. Just think of it in dating. In pure honesty, you just have a bunch of horny actors that can take what they want, and they are open and honest about it, and you have people that can either prevent that or you don't have such people. What's the negotiating power? Violence. Why would it be different in any other arena of human social life? Can you sell goods in this arrangement? Can you build a house? Raise kids?
Not Taking Social Skills Seriously is Just Weakness
We all benefit from the social contract. It's hard for some people because they're lazy. It's called being comfortable. All growth comes from conflict, and because not all conflict leads to growth it's really easy to dismiss. They look at the psychological pain of having to do this dance they don't understand and instead of working through that discomfort and building trust bridges and relationships like the majority of us do, they skipped those classes so they think it's stupid.
Social skills aren't hard. They just aren't. It's like saying riding a bike is hard, or learning to eat is hard. For very few people these are true. For everyone else, what an asinine assumption. Common, but asinine.
Is it painful? Falling off the bike is painful. The aches and pains of any workout is of course very uncomfortable. Learning math can be psychologically painful. Being stuck in a foreign country we don't speak the language of can be horrifying. Yet it happens, and people navigate it just fine many times.
Fear is fine. Giving in to fear is weakness. We are all weak sometimes, but that doesn't make it not weakness. Everyone should learn social skills, or if they don't want to, fine, but they should appreciate the benefits of them from others, and they will need to consign themselves to being the tool they are choosing to live as. Be careful what wielder you find yourself held by.