In the spirit of the story about the little red screw (meaning this whole story is a metaphor in case you don’t feel like clicking, although I wholeheartedly advise it) we can’t help but notice some things going on outside of Substance World HQ. It’s a long and fascinating story really, involving a landlord who lives overseas, his army of unsupervised contractors and their ability to do things in ways that leave average folks standing and scratching their heads in awe and wonder. And not in a good way. But I’ll spare you the details and get right into the meat of it…
We’re getting a new parking lot. From what we’ve seen of the plans it’ll be pretty spiffy. The city of Portland requires building renovations to be accompanied by green measures so we’re getting some nice additions to the vast parking lot outside our big windows. Plants, trees, grassy knolls and shrubs are all in the cards for our viewing pleasure. But the process for getting their has been very entertaining, not to mention puzzling.
A few weeks ago the construction started. We were told the parking lot would be closed for approximately 3 weeks while it underwent renovations. Someone hired a guy with a little backhoe and a big ass dumptruck to be the “master excavator.” We’ll call him Dale. He wore a cowboy hat, a salty gray beard, a tattered Carhart jacket and a decades long smoking habit. A couple guys showed up with some big saws and cut into the old blacktop while Dale proceeded to dig. And dig. And dig. Since he was clearly working alone he would dig, fill up his truck and disappear for a spell only to return with an empty truck and dig some more. Dale was skilled at working his little backhoe. Impressively skilled in fact. He rocked. But then there were days when he didn’t show…
This is where things got interesting. On the days when Dale wasn’t around a couple of other guys would show up. Mostly this was on days when it was raining torrentially, but that didn’t seem to stop these hard knuckled workers who insisted on cursing in the rain wearing nothing but sweatshirts and jeans. Oh, and the guy who showed up in tennis shoes with no belt. We honestly thought he was a homeless dude that they picked up on the street. Seriously. So anyway, these guys would work in teams of 2– one with a shovel and one with a wheelbarrow. One would dig, the other would play human dirt mover, and this would go on for hours. In the pouring rain. With them cursing at nature and one another. What these guys accomplished in entire days Dale would execute in mere minutes with his skilled hands steeled against the weary controls of his little backhoe.
I’d go home at night and share observations with my wife. Her answer was that those guys were probably paid hourly, so why not drag it out. My response would be, “fine, drag it out and stick it to the man, but why not at least dress properly for the task at hand rather than do it begrudgingly because you’re wet and miserable?” Her answer was always the same. “Maybe they’re not very smart,” she’d say. Whatever the real reason, these guys worked their asses off only to accomplish a small percentage of the task at hand. I have no issue with them sticking it to the man, but where was the man while he was getting stuck, and does he even know that those guys were out there sticking it to him? Who is ultimately responsible to the person footing the bill for all of the work and wouldn’t they be pissed to find out how much of their time and money had been wasted by people doing busy work?
Dale on the other hand, that guy knows what he’s doing. He works for himself, makes his own hours and gets the job done. He’s probably happier and better off than most of us. He dresses for the weather, he has the right tools for the job and he knows how to use them. Those other guys work for the building. They fill their days doing whatever they can to stay busy. They don’t take the time to think about the right way to get the job done but instead they just dive right in and flounder until the day’s over and they come back to do it again the next day.
So here’s the thing. When it comes time to hire somebody to do a job, any job, who will you seek out? The usual suspects lurking at arms length or the cowboy with the skills and the tools to get it done right and on time the first time?
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