Editor’s note: This continues Jack Dunigan’s series about unsung heroes in the workplace, and the 16 traits they all share.

When I lived in the Virgin Islands, I learned that almost all luxury yachts in the world are finished by women… and the reason is not that they will work for less money.

No, luxury yacht builders use women because they are more temperamentally suited to detail work than most men (who find it tedious and boring). Jobs require skill sets strengthened and validated by temperament.

I hired many people who could sand and finish, but there were two or three who were exceptional, and I kept them busy at that phase of the job. One was a young man who came to me while he was still in St. Croix’s high school. It is a technical high school for training aspiring tradespeople to be hirable and the school does a decent job at it. Its hospitality and catering training is exceptional, and the boat building department is run by Sean Connery’s stunt double for the underwater scenes of Thunderball. How cool is that?

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