Erin and the girls got back from Seattle Wednesday after a nice time on the red eye. At that point the closet was a little behind schedule. The color we (I) picked out (the picture doesn't do it justice) needed a third coat. The closet doors were piled into the room where my friend had helped me deposit them a couple of days earlier. Tools, drop cloths, etc were scattered all over. I think Erin just about had a nervous breakdown from the mess. But, she took a nap and by the end of the evening the doors were installed, new lights were working, and the mess cleaned up. It was a sheet of plywood kind of day. For those of you unfamiliar with The Sheet of Plywood Theory, let me explain: A lazy foreman in a yacht yard I was working at once told me about this theory. Before he was foreman he had to actually pretend to work in order to get paid. He and one other guy were working on a hull. The other guy (who was a hard worker) was running all the electrical and other systems below decks. Important and tedious work that didn't look like a lot when you were done. The lazy guy did almost nothing all day. But late in the afternoon he started putting up some sheets of plywood where the joiner bulkheads would go to separate the staterooms, etc. That evening the owner came with the head of the yard to look at the progress and was ecstatic to see the interior taking shape so quickly. It didn't matter that the sheets of plywood took almost no time and probably weren't even correct or permanent. The client had SEEN progress. This man was congratulated by his boss on a job well done and the hard-working guy in the bilges got no credit for anything. The moral is that while all that other necessary stuff takes a long time and is really what makes the project successful in the end, it doesn't make the same impression on the client (spouse) as those days when big pieces (sheets of plywood) come together and allow her to visualize the end result.
Erin lives for sheet of plywood days. Now to install and paint the trim. With any luck we should have our clothes in there next week.
That sheet of plywood theory applies to fancy reports as well. No one cares how long the data took to collect and analyze, as long as you have a fancy graphic in the header.
ReplyDeleteI think most women prefer plywood days. But more importantly, most women only get upset at messes made by their husbands. :)
ReplyDelete