Tuesday, December 19, 2017

“Maturity is when you stop wishing and start doing.” – Anonymous

From “The Human Condition: A User’s Manual,” by Arnold Kunst
19 December
The look of maturity. I had a summer job working for a painting contractor during my high school, and then college, years. One year the company submitted a bid for painting the exterior of an entire condominium complex. The complex was called Whispering Pines and they were over the moon when they found out they had won this job. The company was led by three brothers who had, between them, no less than 15 kids - lots of mouths to feed. Bob - he was the one who had taken and passed the contractor's exam and so, nominally, was the boss - told me that they liked to nail down a super-big contract like this one every year if they could, one that would stretch out for six months, and then they could build the rest of the year around that one contract.
There was one little problem, though: they learned eventually that their winning bid was lower - considerably lower - than the next lowest bid. In fact, $40,000 lower. It seems John, the estimator, somehow had forgotten to include a figure for the windows. The good news was, they had the gigantic job they could build their entire year around, just like they wanted. The bad news was, they went into this six-month commitment at a considerable disadvantage: they were starting out in a $40,000 hole, and nothing they could possibly do would ever dig themselves out of it.
I particularly remembered Bud, the third brother – the best painter I ever met - who was slated to be the job foreman.
What impressed me was how Bud had to get up every day, drag himself off to a job he KNEW was losing $40,000, and that, no matter what he did - and he was a wizard not only with a spray gun but also as a leader of men - the thing was a dog from start to finish. Like all the other 16 guys on that crew, I was happy enough to be off to a job that would last my entire summer and leave my bank account sufficiently swollen that, if I got six cents from every nickle, I'd be able to limp my way to the following summer when these three brothers would work [hopefully] their magic once again.
For me Whispering Pines was a cash cow. It was something very different for Bud, the one who - largely because of how he carried himself during those six grueling months - became my hero that summer. He taught me a valuable lesson: maturity isn't always pretty, or enviable, and more often than not it happens largely out of sight.


No comments:

Post a Comment