construction

Building a house is hard. Or at least it seems like it when you see all the "not my job" moments of dubious professionalism that go into building anything. People really have a knack for putting toilets in inconvenient places. Who knows, maybe it's nice to have a toilet at the top of the stairs? It becomes a place to survey your domain. Either way, there's no project that goes on without a few moments of professional ineptitude.

Work is a necessary evil. Doing stuff basically sucks, but it's better than being hungry, wet and cold all the time, so the choice is pretty obvious. Naturally, most of us try to get through the day employing as little effort as possible, and sadly for some of us it really shows. "Not my job" moments of failure fill up our streets and living spaces, providing at least some ironic consolation that everyone, not just you, is doing the bare minimum. These moments of dubious professionalism are far from our best work, and it shows.

Sure, doing your job the right way is fine and all, but you save some much time and energy by doing things completely improperly. Sure, these become "not my job" moments of failure, but think of all the time and effort saved when you install a gutter system in a way that conveniences no one. These "not my job" moments of dubious professionalism are making it easier for some of us.

Jerry sounds like a real gem of a human being. There's something plain old admirable about anyone who can maintain their self-esteem in spite of difficult, if not outright miserable external circumstances. Jerry was unfazed by all the BS regularly being thrown his way. And eventually he got the karmic reward he so deserved. Love how even when he ended up succeeding while his old boss failed, he still didn't take the opportunity to dance in glee around their messy debacle. 

We don't really think about bricks. In a world where new buildings are steel and transparent, the brick has become a symbol of rugged pragmatism of days past. But in the right hands, a few bricks can become a highly aesthetic thing of satisfying perfection. They're graceful. Very unlike these "not my job" moments of incompetent construction or these OSHA safety failures.

Okay, maybe that person wanted a toilet it in their kitchen, but probably not? It only takes seeing a few unprofessional "not my job" moments of failure to see that the world is absolutely brimming with examples of incompetent construction. It's a good reminder that no infrastructure is totally for sure, and that there could be anything going on with the pipes under your house.

Anyone in an even somewhat physical job has no doubt been told by their boss to pull some death-defying maneuvers. That's not a good thing, but it's also pretty amazing that there aren't more horrible accidents than there already are. We live in a world full of safety failures that would make OSHA faint. Whether it's an over-creative use of ladders or some bone-headed work with the circular saw, there's just tons of OSHA-unapproved moments of safety failure.

Maybe this couple's story about their unfortunate discovery will hit close to home for some folks. The reality is that there are a whole lot of apartments and homes out there that were built by folks that couldn't be bothered to do their one job correctly. So it goes, sometimes. Ignorance is really bliss though. The last thing you want to do is hang that shelf or picture on the wall and come to learn that your whole humble abode is just a little bit off kilter. 

A whole lot of us have looked at some fixture in our home and thought "man, it wouldn't be too difficult to gussie that thing up a bit. I could borrow Doug's saw and crack that baby open. Maybe throw some extra pipes in there. Yeah, I could have a super toilet." Most of us who have that thought realize very soon after that it's not as easy we might think it is. The rest of us go for it and end up with some low budget DIY engineering solutions.

Most of us pride ourselves on being at least halfway decent at our jobs. Sometimes things get forgotten, done too quickly, or done by exactly the wrong person. What we get are "not my job" moments of quality unprofessionalism. The world is populated with crap infrastructure, stupid signs, and painted over spiders because somewhere along the line someone said, "eh, not my job."

Putting together buildings isn't as easy as it might seem. There are pipes running every which way, irregular sized doors, and real sketchy electrical situations. Most of us want to go home early anyway. That attitude results in some pretty wild "not my job" moments of incompetent construction.

People make a lot of mistakes while working, and that's even when they're doing things for ourselves. Throw in a third party or having to do something on behalf of a boss you don't like, and things start to not get done at a fantastic rate. Thanks to these unprofessional circumstances, we have just tons of instances of incompetent construction as well as "not my job" moments of quality unprofessionalism.

Jobs can be tedious and time consuming, and they can require a lot of annoying decision-making. When we decide to say "whatever, good enough" we leave ourselves open to creating some impressively unprofessional "not my job" moments. This world has a whole lot of stairs and doorways to nowhere.

When it comes to construction work, it helps to have an idea of the end result in mind. Without that you get some impressively unprofessional "not my job" moments. There's pipes going every which way, extremely inconvenient toilets, and unsafe maneuvers being attempted all over the place.

Half of us couldn't bothered to be better at their jobs, and the other half have been bothered so much about it that we do a bad job out of spite. These "not my job" moments of professional ineptitude are good reminders that nothing's for sure in this crazy world. Toilets get installed backwards and road signs get misspelled. Anything goes when it comes to unprofessional moments of failure.