When it comes to identifying that one group of people we value above all others, the answer is obvious.

No, it’s not nurses or doctors or paramedics or carers. Volunteers who sacrifice their time and money to help people in need? Not them.

What about those brave souls who run towards things the rest of us run away from? The police. Rescue workers. Firefighters. Soldiers.

Sorry. Not them, either.

It’s the people you call when the pool floodlight dies. Or when you need a fence mended. Or when the dunny won’t flush.

Tradies.

They are not only an invaluable asset to the community, tradies are the very backbone of civilisation.

Indeed, if it weren’t for tradies, we wouldn’t even have civilisation.

Who do you think built civilisation?

When a Pharaoh wanted to renovate a pyramid or a Roman emperor needed a new hot tub, who do you think they called?

Same with the medieval king who desired a road to take him from his front gate straight to his favourite Pilates studio.

Early humans might have lived in caves, but who built the patio decking? Who installed the BBQ fire pit to grill all that mastodon meat?

Yet the respect tradies deserve wasn’t always there.

When tradies were treated as second class

Back in the Dark Ages — also known as the 1970s — anyone who knew how to hammer a nail or fix a fuse was regarded with vague contempt.

Even if they were saving a front room from collapsing or a bathroom from flooding, the tradie was deemed a lesser being, their overalls an emblem of their inferior status in a society defined by class snobbery and ruled by people who didn’t know one end of a screwdriver from the other.

It was a real social issue.

If a tradie was coming, people would leave the house or avoid the area where they were working. There were even houses and homesteads with a “tradesman’s entrance” designed to keep them out of sight entirely.

Not anymore.

Now the tradie calls the shots

Today’s tradies occupy an exalted station in society, their services valued as essential to the running of an efficient household.

There are also not enough of them.

This means they can charge a premium for their work, the tell-tale sign being the Lamborghini they pull up in when they turn up to give you a quote.

And they can set their own schedule. You need your spouting repaired in a hurry? Funny, so does everyone else. See you in three weeks. Discounts for cash payments. Gold bullion preferred.

The job AI can’t steal

In addition, the occupation of a tradie has the rare benefit of being future-proof. At a time when so many jobs are being rapidly replaced by machines, tradies are safe from the digital onslaught.

After all, what are you going to do? Ask an algorithm to get a rat problem sorted? Get a multimodal AI system to 3D-print a brick fence?

Hire a large language model to climb a ladder?

And while generative artificial intelligence assistants might provide advice on how best to maintain a garden, can they pick up a hose or prune a begonia?

So when it comes to tradies, remember — we owe them everything.

Think of that the next time you chow down on a mastodon burger.

And for the record, “tradies” is short for tradespeople. In the unenlightened times — also known as the 1970s — it stood for tradesmen, a term that, if used today, would result in the loss of friends, social isolation and, possibly, prison.