The Work Still Needs Hands

The world keeps automating, optimizing, and digitizing. But when the pipe bursts, all that brilliance still waits on someone who knows what to do.  

Remember when the iPhone came out?

For a while, it was magic. A tool that changed how people communicated, moved, and worked.

Then came the wave:

iComfort. iFit. iToilet.

Everything got rebranded with a lowercase “i” and a promise of innovation — whether it earned it or not.

Fast forward.

Now it’s A.I.

"AI is brilliant."

"AI will do everything."

"AI will replace people, industries, entire trades."

Sure. Maybe.

But this morning, there was a slow, silent leak underground.

No map. No beep. Just soft ground and a water bill cutting below, bleeding out on the sidewalk.

No AI showed up.

The problem?

A cracked sprinkler line — buried eight inches deep, carving a fourteen inch cavity below.

Just low enough to stay hidden - until it wasn’t.

Everything above looked fine  - until it wasn’t.

But the ground gave it away.

The water wouldn’t stop.

And someone had to care enough to fix it.

No algorithm solved it.

Just a boot pressing into the earth.

Ears tuned for a faint hiss.

Hands in the dirt.

A quiet repair.

And a retest to be sure.

Because the fix isn’t the end.

The retest is.

AI is brilliant at code, email templates, and spreadsheets.

It’s a hell of a tool when used right.

But it doesn’t crawl under a sink.

It doesn’t sweat through an Arizona morning.

It doesn’t leave a jobsite better than it found it.

It doesn’t look back at the end of a long day and think:

“That felt good.”

The tech is staying. That’s not a threat — it’s a tool.

But the real work?

The stuff that gets done when things break, flood, short out, or wear down?

That still needs hands.

It needs judgment.

It needs care.

And those hands are getting harder to find.

The future might be fast — but when something breaks, it still calls a human.

Have a grateful July 4th!