Why is it taking so long?

[John Christian]

my job ( 11 hrs a day including travel) involves coordinating 50 to 60 people a day everyday. it involves compromise. i answer all the questions. i deal with minor ( and major ) imperfections in workmanship and design all day every day. my workshop is a refuge from that. my wife can see the difference in me pre and post shop in an evening or on a sunday afternoon. she has stopped asking about the money going in and the nothing coming out. there's someone on here who made the comment that "i am the only person i have to please in my shop" i second that and add that in my shop i seek the zen of small perfections.

[Jim Foster]

Show us some pictures.

My bench seemed to take forever... and it probably did! And, if I make another one, it will go much faster

[Rich Engelhardt]

Larry,
Sorry - it's not cumuative - it takes that long for them to housebreak us .

[John Lifer]

A couple of comments, finish the workbench. If it takes a while, it takes a while. Do it right, or you'll do it over.
Second, you need your own space and the garage isn't it. Throw her that bone to chew on. Next, for your next project, do a small item, one that won't take you but maybe a week at the most. Something for her. Small box or something like that.
Show her you appreciate her giving you time to relax in the shop, er garage. Mine puts up with me, but still fusses every time she has to step over the stack of lumber to get into her car. And Don't bitch at her about anything she might be doing that ticks YOU off.

[Barry Daniels]

My wife was always asking, "Is it done yet?" Finally, one day I said, "Honey, I will never be done. I may finish one project but I will have already started three more". It only took using this explanation about three times until she realized that I was revealing a deeper truth. Now she does not ask that question anymore.

[Brian Weick]

I am making my dream workbench and also working 50 hours a week. I am constantly being reminded that it sure is taking a long time. This was also the story for other projects. How do other people handle this situation? I am tired of trying to explain.

Don't take it personally, know one knows what your life is like what your dealing with, how picky you may be as a craftsman.........etc...etc...etc....


Take it with a grain of salt Dexter........and keep moving forward, at your own pace.

I started my Moak BS restoration in Sept of 2011 and it still isn't done......work , dealing with my father,assisted living, my home, etc,etc,.....I could go on & on.....

Let it roll off your back......their only opinions , and you know what they say about opinions, their like "cake holes"...... everyone has one....


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cf-eX...a_player...LOL


Carry on.....



B,

[frank shic]

my job ( 11 hrs a day including travel) involves coordinating 50 to 60 people a day everyday. it involves compromise. i answer all the questions. i deal with minor ( and major ) imperfections in workmanship and design all day every day. my workshop is a refuge from that. my wife can see the difference in me pre and post shop in an evening or on a sunday afternoon. she has stopped asking about the money going in and the nothing coming out. there's someone on here who made the comment that "i am the only person i have to please in my shop" i second that and add that in my shop i seek the zen of small perfections.

i love my "fortress of solitude" even it's messy!

[David G Baker]

Irreconcilable differences is what I used to solve that problem in my last two relationships. Fortress of solitude is a much cheaper way to handle the problem and this is my current method.

[ian maybury]

It's in the end I think very much a Zen issue. Once we stop enjoying the activity of working, and start stepping out of the moment into deadline/objective chasing (and our mind becomes focused on these) the enjoyment goes out the window.

There's the little matter of life balance too. I've been down the road of burning myself out by trying to support a time intensive hobby (competitive R/C model aerobatics) and a very stressful and demanding job. The bottom line (for me anyway) was that while I could certainly raise the will to work very hard the body couldn't hack it and I ended up ill. it increasingly becomes an issue as we get older.

Speed seems in the end to be reflection of skill and experience - one of those things that may well come (especially if we think about our methods), but tends to escape us if we chase it. We're capable of what we're capable of at a given time.

It seems too like it's a one way trip - in that it's necessary to learn the skill/how to do the job right first before trying to speed it up. We have a whole country full of so called craftsmen here who during the property bubble started out rushing - there's not a hope they will go back to learning to do it right. On the other hand the older guys that learned properly are pretty much as quick, or quicker in some cases.

On being supervised from 'indoors'. It's hard enough for some of us to avoid sucking ourselves into mentally unhealthy ways of relating to work and life without being hassled into it. Practical input is another matter, but I don't think I'd last long at that...

ian

[glenn bradley]

I am making my dream workbench and also working 50 hours a week. I am constantly being reminded that it sure is taking a long time. This was also the story for other projects. How do other people handle this situation? I am tired of trying to explain.

Stop explaining. It takes as long as it takes; this isn't a commission that someone paid for and is hot to get. tell 'em to mind their own business ;-) I am working on a chest of drawers right now. When people ask me when it will be done I tell them 2 months ago.

[frank shic]

Irreconcilable differences is what I used to solve that problem in my last two relationships. Fortress of solitude is a much cheaper way to handle the problem and this is my current method.

i would prefer to avoid this route at all costs

[Jim Matthews]

Might I suggest one date night per month?

Even if you're not fully engaged, at least she'll be out of the house. It should be scheduled, so she can look forward to a date.
That, and get her into knitting. Time is the only thing we really can't replace.

Knitters appreciate time consumed in pursuit of a craft, and (unlike making bigger sticks into smaller one) it is a very portable hobby.

I'm no fan of spending time on making tools, but it is an essential part of the infrastructure. This cannot be explained, and is an endless point of frustration.
It's why so many of us buy a basement full of tools, but never make anything more than a spice rack or kitchen cabinet doors.
That said, you need to make SOMETHING that can be seen and used.

Compute the amount saved, and take SWMBO out to dinner where her friends can see you.

While sawdust and shavings are the antidote to estrogen excess, company is the antidote to loneliness.
Ya pick yer pie-zen, ah guess.

Good luck,
we're all in this together

[John Piwaron]

you'll end with a nice shop full of tools.

That might make it worse. When he finally has his shop fully equipped with the best, and the heating, lighting, electrical and ventilation are all top notch, how's he going to answer "why's it taking so long?" the next time?

[ian maybury]

Pardon my posting a second time - a less philosophical view this time. People don't seem to have any appreciation of the sort of labour input involved in woodworking.

It potentially creates problems not just with the better half.

I decided just over a year ago to embark on a complete shop kit out with a view to going commercial. The whole lot - dust system build, bench build, new machine set up, wiring, lighting, storage etc etc. The decision came from the heart, and from a set of circumstances that conspired to make possible a long held ambition - it certainly wasn't money driven.

There's a couple of friends into design and make that have been fine, but it's pretty disappointing just how many got judgemental - lasted about a month of 'is it finished yet, then lapsed into impatience, then piss taking, then thinly veiled sceoticism, then superiority and then peeled away having seemingly decided it wasn't worth the effort to maintain the relationship.

The fact that you're busting a gut day in day out seems to count for nothing. Luckily my wife while there has been the occasional lapse into mild impatience has been broadly supportive - despite the fact that our economic crash and busted property bubble reduced here teacher's income on which we are depending to make the transition.

These are not nasty or inconsiderate people, just normal guys. It's a bit scary though to realise how much of your social acceptance hangs on your being seen to be 'making it' - or at least maintaining your position in the hierarchy/pecking order.

Maybe I haven't done a good job of selling/communicating the nature of the undertaking, but I thought that the obvious level of work going on would speak for itself. That and the fact that I was heavily committed to looking after an elderly mother now recently deceased during the time...

ian

[John Piwaron]

I am making my dream workbench and also working 50 hours a week. I am constantly being reminded that it sure is taking a long time. This was also the story for other projects. How do other people handle this situation? I am tired of trying to explain.

Who's reminding? Your wife/significant other? Or friends? With friends I'd get a little flip. With the wife I'm much more respectful.

After 25 years of making things my wife knows how long things take. I do hear "I wish we could/would hire a contractor. In, out, done.". For the first time *ever*, I have a project list posted on the refrigerator. #1 is the router table I'm on now. the next 2 are things she says we need. After that are things my son wants. To answer your question - I tell her "it'll be done when it's done and not a minute before."

Mostly I work fairly quickly despite a full time job. Right now project work is at a stop 'cause of my table saw, but that's another post.