[MD] New work, old work

[John Carl]

I went and applied for a job last month, working on a new
permaculture-oriented farm, real close to where I live.  The interview took
place in a house that the owners were converting into a business.  I got the
job, partially based upon the fact that I built the house and shop some 20
years ago, when I was just starting out as a contractor.


This shop was my first contract, and one reason I got that job  way back
then, was I figured out an economic way to build a shop with 18 foot
ceilings which nobody else wanted to take on.  I made this big scaffold
shaped like a sawhorse only 14 feet tall and then tacked the 18 foot studs
to the scaffold plank temporarily and then after the top plate was nailed
and the new wall braced, moved the ensemble on down the line.  It worked out
good and I got the big job of building the house a  year or so later and
then this job, like I mentioned, 20 years down the line.


You never know when good work is going to come back and reward you.   Part
of the remodeling into office space entails installing new flooring, and
shelves in the closets, and everything is square and the studs correctly
spaced.

Yay me.

Many times I used to debate quality issues with my old partner.  He read
ZAMM, most of the way through, and we'd talk about the significance of
installing quality patterns into what you do.  At the time, the idea was to
be successful as a business.  But as it turned out, caring about the quality
of your work isn't that conducive to building up a good construction
business.   Business runs on profit and profit comes from skimping, hiring
illegal aliens to work cheap while buying flashy-looking equipment that
looks impressive to intimidate your clients into signing; taking shortcuts
and cheating.

I have a lot of contempt for the majority of practitioners of my chosen
profession.

My partner and I split up in '94.  I broke my ankle and took a web-design
class and tried a different career path for a while, just to see.  When I
went back into it, tired of sitting on my butt in front of a computer
screen, I worked for other contractors mostly.

My dream was to one day have a shop like that first one I built.  Something
big enough to swing logs around in, and work on just about anything.  The
shop also had an apartment adjoining and I always thought that'd be the
perfect home - about 1200 square feet of living space adjoined to 2400
square feet of shopspace.  Man heaven.

And here I am, working in it now, I've got it mostly to myself.  The bread
cast on the waters has come back to me after many days.

Quality doesn't guarantee success in business, but in life.