Why? Because he is one of the few people I know who will work with me and do whatever is necessary without complaint. We have a septic system at one of the office parks we maintain that pumps sewage fluid up a hill to a septic field. Occasionally the pump goes out, and the two of us have to pump out the tank (through another line to a secondary septic field), hose down the inside of the tank as best we can, and then climb down into the tank, which is about ten feet underground. We wear rubber boots, but we rarely wear any gloves. We have to detach the pump from the piping and replace it with a backup pump. The smell is........ well, memorable. Afterwards, we climb out, hose off our boots, wash our hands, and go about our business. It's really not nearly as challenging as shoveling piles of poop from under a house, but we've done that, too. Have I got a great story about............oh well, maybe later.
After thirty-five years in the construction industry I have stories that are mind-boggling and often hysterically funny........but only in retrospect! Once a week Carol and I have dinner with another custom construction contractor who is our age, and we laugh almost nonstop for two hours. We each have so many funny stories, that we only stop when we become exhausted from laughing so much. Here are our most often repeated dinnertime truisms:
1. Everybody lies.
2. Construction causes dain bramage
3. Everybody is strenge ("strange" pronounced somewhat differently and sort of stretched out---stre......nnnnn.......ge)
4. What a custom construction contractor is thinking when s/he meets with a new customer, "However much money you have we're eventually going to get all of it."
5. Sooner or later all contractors learn how to do stupid with zeroes on the end of it.
6. There is no end to what we don't know, and what we don't know is going to hurt real bad.
7. No matter how much we know, the next project is going to show us many things that we didn't know that we didn't know.
8. We have proved that we are more stupid than most people by the fact that we became contractors.
9. To be a contractor it helps to be very now now. (from the Pink Panther movie line by Peter Sellers, "That man is very now now.")
I could go on and on, but I'm sure you get the gist of what we enjoy commiserating about over a glass of wine or two........or three..............or............
After thirty-five years in the construction industry I have stories that are mind-boggling and often hysterically funny........but only in retrospect! Once a week Carol and I have dinner with another custom construction contractor who is our age, and we laugh almost nonstop for two hours. We each have so many funny stories, that we only stop when we become exhausted from laughing so much. Here are our most often repeated dinnertime truisms:
1. Everybody lies.
2. Construction causes dain bramage
3. Everybody is strenge ("strange" pronounced somewhat differently and sort of stretched out---stre......nnnnn.......ge)
4. What a custom construction contractor is thinking when s/he meets with a new customer, "However much money you have we're eventually going to get all of it."
5. Sooner or later all contractors learn how to do stupid with zeroes on the end of it.
6. There is no end to what we don't know, and what we don't know is going to hurt real bad.
7. No matter how much we know, the next project is going to show us many things that we didn't know that we didn't know.
8. We have proved that we are more stupid than most people by the fact that we became contractors.
9. To be a contractor it helps to be very now now. (from the Pink Panther movie line by Peter Sellers, "That man is very now now.")
I could go on and on, but I'm sure you get the gist of what we enjoy commiserating about over a glass of wine or two........or three..............or............
