Who's Gonna Know?

[SSScout]

As you Scouts grow up, you will probably get summer jobs, maybe even "permanent" jobs. I recommend finding some work, sometime in your young life, in the building trades. Plumbing, carpentry, masonry, surveying, you can even earn Merit Badges in them.  "Helpers" can earn serious money, and you learn how things work, how they go together, and how to take pride in your work, no matter how small a contribution you might think it is.

One summer I was  carpenter's helper.  I worked in a crew "bossed" by, oh, I'll call him Mr. Smith.   Now,  Mr. Smith was by then in his late sixty's and had learned his trade back before power tools were so common.  He told me his partner and he could frame a roof with him on the ground and his partner up in the rafters, calling down measurements that Mr. Smith would cut and then send up, by his HELPER (!), and the parts would fit perfectly. He often said that was the secret to reliable construction: trust in the measure and trust in the craftman's  skill.  

 

One day our crew had just finished some wall frames and had tied them together for the first floor of a house.  Mr. Smith came up and looked around.  Then he asked me,  ME!, to hold the zero end of his tape measure "right there", while he measured. Then another place. Then a third place. And a fourth.  He then turned to the foreman of our group and said "tear it out and do it again". 

"Why?  What's wrong?"

"It's an inch out of square in two corners"

"What?  When the rockwall  is up and the corners plastered and painted,  who's gonna know ?"

 

Mr. Smith straightened up and looked the crew carp in the eye.  "I will, and you will.  Tear it out and do it again."

 

We tore the frames out and re-measured and renailed that floor. 

 

How about you?   What will you know after the job is done?   

Edited July 3, 2016 by SSScout

[skeptic]

Just share this on FB; thanks.

[NJCubScouter]

Good one. My father used to come up with this kind of thing when he was SM. Sadly it is a mostly lost art today.

[blw2]

Good one. My father used to come up with this kind of thing when he was SM. Sadly it is a mostly lost art today.

yep, I think it takes time to soul search and think of stuff, and a lot of folks just don't take that time to do it.... just find a cute story to read instead.

[jr56]

Reminds me of the first house I had built.   The frames on the woodwork for the windows had gaps of 1/2 inch where the mitered cuts didn't match up......THEY LEFT IT THAT WAY......until I told them to do it over.