Re: Is \"Pretty Good\" \"Good Enough\"?
Yesterday this topic was bouncing around in my head like a BB in a boxcar. I was being a little obsessive, almost a little crazy.
You see I believe most of what doesn't kill us makes us better as a human being--species. I see obesity as our genetic knowledge encouraging us to eat because there were times in our genetic past when food wasn't always available etc.
From my perspective perfectionism is more about efficiency than anything else. Folks think I'm obsessive about my post holes. I want them deeper than the post and I want them regular shaped and I don't want any loose dirt in the bottom of them.
That sounds like being obsessed from a lot of really dumb folks perspective. But it's experience talking.
If you're concreting in posts the posts will last longer if there's concrete under the bottom of the post. If a posthole is cone shaped, bigger at the top than the bottom, then the natural heave of frost, clay drying, or just dirt shifting will find it easier to lift the post out of the ground over time. If there's loose dirt in the bottom of the hole over time it will compress. The post will drop.
Yesterday I set about forty posts for a couple of three sided dog runs at a condo complex. I ususally don't do chainlink but this particular project my specs and prices was way above the competition and they wanted quality. Such a small job means I don't get to use the tractor to dig the holes and bringing in the concrete mixer is more trouble than it's worth.
So I use Maximizer sacrete. Some of you might remember a couple of years ago my adventure with TXI over Maximizer. On one job alone I used twelve hundred bags. I found out that their quality control on the mix totally sucked. One batch would be heaven to work with while the next was miserable. I emailed management.
They responded. I got a meeting with the powers that be. We had bar b que. I got a tour of the plant. I found their problem. They ignored my advice. I left with some free t shirts, some complimentry bags of Maximizer, and they felt better.
The Maximizer I got yesterday was as bad as any I've ever gotten. I was so mad I could chew up nails and spit out screws. This was after the nice lady at Lowes charged me fifty two dollars or so for twenty bags. I told her she'd made a mistake. She pointed out she'd charged me for sacrete. I explained that I didn't use sacrete. I use Maximizer. She found the right SKU. Costs me ninety two dollars instead.
Of course one bag of good Maximizer replaces one point six bags of sacrete. So it wasn't forty dollars more, more like eighteen or so, half a buck or less a hole let's say.
For that buck I get easier to handle and mix in the wheelbarrow concrete. It's fifty five hundred psi mix versus the twenty five hundred of sacrete. It sets up harder faster, another plus or two.
Unless like yesterday it's at the end of the run and the stuff is mostly powder. It doesn't go as far. It doesn't want to mix worth crap. It's just miserable and one pays extra for the misery.
I guess what makes me so mad is I went out of my way, spent most of day, four to five hundred dollars wages for me and my equipment, to help them out with a problem they never knew existed.
They took my information and put it in the folder labeled "good enough for most folks, this guy's just obsessive". I'm sure when they messaged each other after our visit their consensus was "the t shirts and complimentry Maximizer was a good enough compensation."
My dream is now Toyota or Honda will go into the concrete mixing business. I heard one time that on their assembly line that anyone can see a problem and stop the line. I think that's a good idea.
At the TXI plant in Hurst Texas they are prouder'n a little billy with two, well, two instead of what the rest of have only one, of their temperature controlled dust free control room. That's the puppy where it all happens and where the cubic dollars was spent.
But, the only place where they have any idea of the type of mix that's actually going into the bags is where the bags are filled. A single hispanic laborer sitting on a carriage loading bags onto the filler tubes is the one who's on top of the situation.
He's only a dumb laborer lucky to have a job. How in the heck could the ultra smart management at TXI trust such a person with the responsibility of ensuring their reputation for a quality product?
Toyota or Honda could. But then they've got a reputation to protect. I guess understanding teamwork, leadership, and that perfectionists are at the leading edge of society is something taught but never expected to be learned.
