Originally Posted by
Martin Wasner
I'm a slave to protocol. Build it to the best of your ability every time. It's the only honest way to do it, because "I f'd up" is ownership, whereas "I just felt like being sloppy" isn't. I do my absolute best to make sure there isn't anything for the client to question. Once they start looking critically, they'll make stuff up to satisfy their need to find something wrong. Not all, but some. We screw half inch backs onto wall cabinets. They get laid out on a standard. Why? Because it looks better sitting on site prior to install. And you know what? I have walked into a house that I've worked on that was in the Parade and heard one of my contractors bragging about his psychopath cabinetmaker. I really hate people who tote the Lean Manufacturing phrase around like a shield, but the truth of it is I'm just lazy, and that's textbook "lean". I'd rather put in half a second of effort than spend 30 seconds explaining something. My standards and protocols are their to make everyone's job easier. The dude selling them, the finishers, the guy installing them, and the client so he can spend his time picking on the other trades. We don't build to a cost, we build to a standard.
I'm like you in the sense that I'm probably over skilled for what I'm doing on the bench, but my time is pulled in 50 directions at all times. selling, drawing, programming, I'm the janitor, accountant, maintenance department, groundskeeper, shop foreman, HR department, and a cabinetmaker. I'd honestly probably be more profitable, and more content if I could find someone to run the front end of things and I could just sit at my bench and get competitive with the other cabinetmakers.
Woodworking is like yoga in the sense that it's you versus you. There's no challenge in cutting up wood, the challenge is creating a discipline, honing that discipline, and maintaining it. One of my guys calls me a robot, because I do everything exactly the same way every time. Once I find something that works, I don't stray from it until it is tested and proven better.
We need another thread. Woodworking for the soul, or zen and the art of woodworking or something. and Kevin, I'm sorry for picking on you. But I'm pretty good at this stuff, and we don't build garbage that goes into garbage houses. I get a little testy when anything other than that is suggested.