Satisfaction in a Job Well Done

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Over the last couple of days, I was going to post something entirely different on the blog, but a funny thing happened: I got called into work!!  Ahhh....

Now before I go on with the story, keep in mind is that I have never, in my entire life, walked off a job before.  I have never up and quit, or said "I am not doing this any more," or anything like that.

This last job that I was doing, I was working on painting the exterior of a house, and I was working for a friend who has been in the re-model business for over 20 years.  Now here I was working on painting this house with this guy, and this was the second time I have ever, in my entire life, painted the outside of a house, and I was getting so frustrated.

Going into the job, I thought that I was a pretty good painter.  I could put and ever coat down with a brush, and I could cut a straight line, and things like that.  But... when you are working with a guy who has been in the business for over 20 years - a guy who painted an office for Madonna, and who also painted Jerry Bruckheimer's master bedroom - you quickly realize how good you are NOT at painting.

Can I paint a straight line with a brush?  Sure.  Can I do it while 15 feet up in the air, hanging off the side of a ladder, and painting with my left hand!?!?!  Noooo.  And yet, that was exactly what I was asked to do.  We were painting the trim, and I had to paint the trim around the second story windows.  Now to give you a little perspective, the reason why I was doing this was because my boss was doing the hard part.  He was lying on his belly on the roof, hanging over the edge, and painting the fascia upside-down on parts of the roof that were too steep to walk on.

So here I was, up on my ladder, trying to paint my second story window trim, and my boss's head keeps poking out above me from the roof as he paints the fascia.  He is just going along as if it is no big deal, and here I am making a mess.  I would go over my line here, and make a splotch there, and then I couldn't quite reach, so I would have to get down and move my ladder again, and the whole thing was just a mess!!!  Of course all of his work looks perfect, while my trim looks like something out of a kindergarten classroom where they were painting with their toes.

I am usually pretty talented at "stuff" in general, so to feel this inept, this sub-par, this deficient is skills was almost more than I could take.  I wanted to quit.  I wanted to throw in the towel and be done with the whole thing.

Fortunate for me I didn't.  My boss saw I was struggling, let my finish my window, and then took over for my while I when on to something on ground level.  Sigh... what a day....  Now, the house looks great, it is done, and today, we got to move on to something else.  Today, I was paid to crawl underneath a half million dollar home, and chase snakes!  So much better!!! :D