[imgabe]

Having skills saves you both time and money in the long run. Let's say your toilet is broken. If you can fix it yourself, you need maybe a couple hours. You can do those couple hours any time, for example, on the weekend when you weren't going to be working for money anyway.

If you don't have any skills, you have to pay a plumber to come fix it, for maybe $200. That's already four hours of working at $50/hour. Plus, you have to be home to let in the plumber which is most likely during business hours, so that's maybe another 2-4 hours that you're not at work. Total time cost: 8 hours.

How long does it take to learn how to fix a toilet? Remember, you're a freaking engineer. A toilet is not that complicated. You should be able to watch a youtube video and learn just about everything you need to know in 10-15 minutes. Time spent learning to be self-sufficient pays itself back very quickly.

There's also additional risks to being overspecialized. What if the thing you specialized in becomes obsolete? Now you have no way to trade your time for money and you're absolutely useless for doing anything else.

[gaius]

Programmers routinely underestimate the complexity of every other field.

[imgabe]

This is true, and if you wanted to be a professional plumber there is definitely a whole wealth of information you'd need to know. The threshold for the level of competence required for basic home repairs is much lower.