Proper Responses
I thought the days of scraped knees and blue shins were behind me, like the childhood days of creating a homemade slip-n-slide out of a plastic drop cloth and using dishwashing detergent as a lubricant. That was the last scraped knee, or was a small gash,I recall having. Maybe childishness never really evaporates, we just grow too uptight to appreciate the joy and begin dismissing it in the name of sophistication. I still adhere to some juvenile traits, like sulking. Mature, huh?
We finished the paver path and the end result feels anticlimactic. Nine months of various stages of planning, designing, compromising and redesigning, unadulterated laziness, deliveries, procrastination, begging and pleading. Completion should be a means to an end, but it falls short. Not of expectations exactly, but something like it…I can’t claim disappoint sans expectations, because how can you be disappointed if you don’t anticipate a minimal return on planning.
I’m displeased all the effort didn’t yield some pinnacle of greatness, or golden idol of suburban idealism. Nope. None of those things. Just a fucking path from the parking pad to the front door.
The neighbors have been complimentary, even generous, with their praise, though I can’t help but wonder are the praising the path itself, or the fact that it only took six months to move three palettes of concrete bricks out of the front yard. All I see are the shortcomings, the squandered preparations, and the micromanaging I’ve endured for the past four days. The slowly executed task transformed into a high priority project because the weather was sucky for execution there was a piece of equipment with an expensive rental contract (tick, tick, tick tick). The results feel paltry compared to the effort, but the neighbors aren’t concerned with such trivial details like my sanity, so the proper response is, thank you, rather than voicing that all inclusive, but…
The path should be enough, but I allowed all sense of accomplishment to be tainted by the journey. I thought if I were patient enough, anticipated enough, and knew enough about the idiosyncrasies about the project foreman, I could rise to the occasion, and be a better partner, but in the end, I just wanted wanted to chew off my own leg to escape, all over micromanaging to the hundredth decimal point. In spite of extensive planning, you can’t adequately expect to influence the basic nature of others. If they are accustomed to solving problems in specific ways, you’re unlikely to influence a change. We are who we are, and we don’t change unless we choose to.
May 3rd, 2009 at 10:12 pm
That is probably why my wife and I don’t do big projects together – I have a tendency to micromanage from my position of “superior knowledge”. That, and she cannot stand to be around when things don’t go exactly as I planned and start cussing! She knows that I’ll fix it, but she can’t help panicking all the same. So – she lets me do things myself and is nice enough (or smart enough, both I suspect) to praise the finished product.
Although, having been a manager at work for quite a long time now has taught me that I have to assign projects and then let my people do their thing. Mine isn’t the only way of getting things done, and as long as company standards are adhered to I have to allow them to perform. It is frustrating – and humbling – to see people solve problems in ways I wouldn’t have and recognize that their way was probably better than mine.
I’m sorry that the experience is robbing you of the ability to enjoy the finished product or of any satisfaction of a job completed. Maybe future such projects should be solo ones? Or maybe some sort of pre-negotiated terms under which you would participate? Good luck in any case.
May 4th, 2009 at 10:24 am
Perhaps a few drinks on a beautiful spring evening will help?
I find it amazing what I can live with – for years! – and how quickly I forget how bad things were as soon as they are repaired or replaced.
My husband is this close to being a complete jackass. I am finally cleared for interior painting (probably because he is sick of it), but forbidden from any kind of yard work. But I have to listen to him stress and rant and pray to be electrocuted by the hot tub because there is so much to do.
May 5th, 2009 at 9:34 am
Bob, this project was too big to let him sink or swim on his own. I’m physically able, so…I need to work on not letting his management style get under my skin. Unfortunately that will mean ignoring him which will probably cause other problems
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De, that sounds familiar. When my husband leaves for longer business trips I tackle large projects. I don’t have to listen to him obsess, and he doesn’t have to watch me storm out of the room. I know people who have the good sense not to complain constantly when they have free labor, but I didn’t marry one them.
May 5th, 2009 at 10:10 am
Oh, the things I could do if my micro-manager went away once in a while.
May 5th, 2009 at 10:59 am
Where is the picture of the project that would not end?
The art of working together is a delicate one. Also one we have yet to fully master at our house. Sometimes it works, sometimes not so much.
At least it’s done.
May 6th, 2009 at 10:35 pm
De, a traveling spouse has its perks, but I tend to forget what they are once day four passes.
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meno, maybe later, after the rain stops. If you haven’t mastered it that gives me hope. Now I can live with the consolation of knowing I have twenty years to perfect my sulking.