I have an odd situation with my local buddy.
He’s a handyman. I’ve met him when I’ve been doing my custom kitchen project with my friend Nick, and we were hugely fucking it up due to the lack of experience, but plenty of overconfidence. He helped us to finish the project, and along the way of doing it, he became some kind of a friend I meet once in a while for a cup of tea or coffee. Nothing special, but I acquired a friend who’s able to help with some handywork, which is cool.
Well, he’s able to help, but with some nuance. His help is very valuable as a (mostly free) advice / consulting, but when it comes to doing, he’s very bad, actually. He’s the kind of a person who can talk, but struggles with doing.
I guess, I have the same issue. But I’m working on it. Which is not too common, I guess.
Frankly, as a consultant, he’s not too experienced either. The value for me, is I’m very bad at these tasks, so it’s really nice to have someone to ask. Or at least to discuss something.
Sometimes, I help generating some money for him. Or opportunities. He keeps gracefully failing them. (As a result, I’m not too eager to help now, obviously.)
In the past, I went to some of his projects as an assistant. As a helping hand. And I’ve been observing fantastic ways to fail or almost fail his projects. I couldn’t even imagine a person can fuck up his own work in these marvellous ways. I might want to write some of them, but some other time.
Today, he failed me as a sub-contractor, so to say. And I have a couple of thoughts about that, as I believe it’s a truly interesting development. To me, it’s a primer story.
Also, I noticed I’m so experienced in someone (especially a sub-contractor) failing me, that I feel almost no emotions. Perhaps, a tiny bits of disappointment. I truly didn’t think you can fail the project that is so easy to do.
I write it, rather because I think it’s a grand example to demonstrate, and I want to have it written, to refer to some other day.
The Project
So, the project is pretty easy. At farm, we’re doing a renovation, since my neighbour, a girl next door, shares the apartment with me. She decided she wants her room to be pitch black, and well, I confirmed her I like the idea.
As a part of that renovation, we need to change all the sockets from white to black. That’s fairly easy task, especially for a man like him. Especially, considering the fact, he helped me with one of those sockets, about a year or so ago.
About a month ago, she asked me whether I have someone to change the sockets, I said I can do that myself no problem. Yesterday she called me, telling me she’s buying the sockets, asking me whether I have someone to change them. Again, I told her I can do that.
She took me by surprise, distracting me from some task by actually calling me. I’m one of those people who prefer when people do actually write when they want something trivial, not distracting me for no reason when it suits them. Since she’s a neighbour, I don’t shut her up (by muting her account, as I do for everyone).
Later, I realised that I messed this by telling her I can do that. I can, and I will, actually. Because, there are some trivial tasks I’m not too experienced in, and I’d like to practice, if I have the opportunity. That’s exactly the ideal situation for practicing.
I messed this because while I’m truly interested in training in trivial tasks, at this point in life, I’m so exhausted with other things in my life. And all these things are rather fancy way of procrastinating. I do have other things to do, and their priority is much bigger. And I’m not a handyman to practice in these tasks.
So, if I’d give this project a bit more thoughts, I’d realise that I don’t really want to do that. I can, and I will to practice, but I don’t really want to. This friend of mine, he’s totally able to do that, and it doesn’t take too much of his effort, both mental and physical.
Here, I think I’d need to provide more context to get this situation properly.
First, my neighbour. She’s the modern relatively young girl (30-something) with Tik-Tok attention span. That makes her personality very typical if you know the type. It could be a very long very separate story. But in a few words, she joined me two months ago, she wanted to move quickly and she tried to, but we’re not past the very basic renovation. She has zero planning, and works out of impulses. And it’s a really weird realisation that it‘s not me who’s slowing things down. She studied at some business school, and I’m a businessman with an inborn talent.
That’s only partially a joke.
Theoretically, we could run a business together. E.g. a microgreen business. Considering she loves microgreens. But it’s highly unlikely. I had some experience with girls like her, and it’s too difficult to deal with the type for me.
The sockets, they does not affect anything at this point in the renovation process. Not that we have no sockets. The opposite, we have them already, all she wants is to have them black. Logically, it would make sense to have them black when the renovation is finished. But she wants them now.
Why? I have no answer to that. My guess is that she wants to see at least some progress. Maybe that makes her less nervous for some reason.
So, when we were talking yesterday’s evening, I said that the earliest I can do that is the next morning, from 9 to 12.
‘Nine would be amazing’ She replied. Which I thought of ‘are you fucking with me or what, gal?’ I explicitly told her that it wouldn’t be done by nine, there’s no chance to do that by nine. I would arrive at the farm at about 9 AM, more likely after 9, and I’d be there till 12 PM. So, if the task is as trivial as I think, I’ll do that within that time frame.
Even considering I have other things to do, more pressing too. I just really think this task is a half an hour endeavour. And so it’s easier done than talking it through for weeks.
Also, yesterday I mentioned that if things won’t go as smooth as I expect, I have this friend of mine to support. So I’d ask him whether he’s free to assist, just in case. First detail about him is I found him a nice apartment in our apartment block, so he lives 100 metres from us. It’s really a 30 seconds walk.
In the early morning, at 7 am as we woke up, it became all too clear that the weather is not very walkable. We have the heaviest rain this year (and parts of our city are drowned!) and it goes all day long. So we messaged to the kindergarten that the kids are going to be home today. Which I communicated to my neighbour, apologising that I’m not going to do anything today, since I’m being with kids all day long.
’What happened? Are they sick?’ she reacted.
No, really. Not your fucking business, right? That’s what I thought first.
At least, that’s rude. The proper reply would be ‘ah, okay, sorry to hear that, hope you guys be able to do that tomorrow then, have a great day and thanks for letting me know blah-blah-blah’ would be a more appropriate reaction.
No, they’re not, its going to be too rainy today, and I’m not in the mood of walking eight times today.
By the way, eight times is not a figure of speech. Let’s count together.
- Both kids to Kdg.
- Me back
- Me there to get Nadia (she has a shorted day in there).
- And walk back.
- Walk with her to her speech therapy.
- Walk back (it’s not far from home)
- Walk there to take her.
- Walk back with her.
- Walk to kindergarten again, to take Hnat.
- Walk back home with him. Ah, so it’s 10 times, not 8. Yeah. Instead, I had only four walks today.
So. I messaged her, I’m not going to make it today, since I’m busy with kids today. And she must understand that kind of work isn’t something of my priority. I do that, because I give her a service. That’s me helping her.
By the way, we never talked money. I didn’t plan to take any money for that. That’s not my profession after all. Still, I’m taking it seriously. Just not too seriously, to put it before my kids and my own needs too.
She must be aware of that, but I’m not too sure. I think Tik-Tok and Instagram, and modern social media, they do wash out some emotional intelligence in people, or at least their attention muscle to use that emotional intelligence, if they have it.
But, to deliver, I told her that I’d ask that friend of mine I mentioned for her as my support group to ensure the task would be finished. Whether he’s busy today.
Then, I messaged him. Let’s name him Mr. B.
I guess I need to add more context for this, but I’m out of energy. I changed all the sockets by myself, within 15 minutes. Plus half an hour to test everything and fix some weird moments.