Don’t tell me you haven’t thought about it before.
If the world were to end, who would you want on your team? Obviously you’d pick your loved ones. What about people with other skills that would help your ragtag band of survivors, survive? We all tend to think of the obvious: a doctor and/or nurse, a soldier, preferably one who’s a good shot, an outdoorsman, a farmer, a builder, etc.
My time in quarantine made me think about those people and skills that we never think about until suddenly they’re unavailable. Luckily, the world isn’t ending so we don’t have to worry about finding people with these skills to add to the team. Nonetheless, these are people we may consider adding to the group now that we have new insight as the quarantines slowly come to an end:
Weaver/Tailor
Right now, we almost never need a tailor unless it’s for getting our fancy clothes fitted and our textiles are made by machines. What about when we don’t have those machines?
When your clothes inevitably wear from farming, building up your fort to keep zombies out, and fighting off roaming packs of chihuahuas, you’re going to need someone who can make fabrics and craft them into clothes unless you want to strap furs and rags to yourself like some kind of Neanderthal.
For this purpose, I recommend you find someone with the last name Taylor. That will be the easiest way to identify someone with the skills to do those things.
Musician
Or at least someone who can play an instrument.
What have we been doing since the quarantines began? Binging TV shows, watching movies, listening to music, shoveling ice cream down our gullets, things like that. Somebody who can play an instrument could potentially do wonders for your group’s morale.
And if he or she decides to play the indie crap they did before the apocalypse they’ll still do wonders for morale by uniting the rest of you against a common enemy. Win win!
“Play Free Bird or it’s guard duty for you.”
Cobbler
This one goes along the lines of the tailor. Except for your feet.
In the apocalypse world, gone are the days where international companies with a swoosh for a logo can get Vietnamese children to make shoes for you.
Your current pair of Vietnamese shoes will eventually fall apart from the stresses of running from bears, running from alligators, running from other people, running from Canadian geese, and running from roaming packs of chihuahuas.
You’re going to need someone who can make shoes from the raw materials.
For this purpose I suggest you abdu-
Recruit someone with the last name Shumaker or Schumacher.
Barber
Ah, the haircut. So mundane, yet so important. This one may top the list of things that we never think about but desperately desire now that we don’t have access to it.
Having someone who cut hair for a living will help keep us happy and less ugly.
Barber’s of course having no relation to the Barbary pirates; North African pirates who terrorized the Mediterranean and even as far as England for several centuries.
Yes, I’m sure the word Barber has nothing to do with the word Barbary.
Barbers aren’t pirates.
That would be crazy.
I’m sure it’s just a crazy coincidence that those words are spelled suspiciously similar.
Barbers aren’t pirates.
Plus, it’ll be much better than some teenage girl in your settlement going, “Oh, I can cut your hair!”
I’m sure you could, but I’m concerned that I will look like a monk at the end of it, so no thank you.
Teacher
Although it may be a few years out, having someone who’s learned in the ways of education would be immensely helpful for when there are ankle-biters running around.
In this case, I’m referring to ankle-biters the human children. Not ankle-biters the trembling beasts known as Chihuahuas.
For this one, I recommend finding someone with the first name Mr., Ms., or Mrs.
Honorable Mention: Librarian/Archivist
This one receives an honorable mention because, in the end times, I’m sure we wouldn’t be able to specialize as much as we do today so I think a teacher doubling as a librarian would pair nicely; particularly if they’re an English teacher.
Once the necessities are covered and you begin to rebuild, I’m sure it would be quite nice to have someone recording and archiving your group’s history.
And when someone is being too loud while you’re hiding from a roaming band of chihuahuas, you’ll have an expert ‘shusher’ in the group.
Thank you for reading.