"blueman" wrote in message
...


Professionals are not being paid enough for perfectionism nor do they
usually bring that level of commitment to the job. I find that the
"skill" in "skilled labor" has more to do with the efficiency of their
labor than with the quality of the final result. Of course, if you are
willing to pay unlimited sums for a job then you can mandate
perfectionism though even this is not necessarily true.

And then, the problem is that you never know. It can be a crap shoot. As my
current experience indicates, you can't always find a referral. I don't have
a million friends, and of the dozen I've asked, nobody has needed a plumber
in recent memory. But, years ago, we got very lucky when we needed to have a
couple of ceilings sheetrocked. We'd found lead paint, and after collecting
advice from 200 million sources, we decided the best way to deal with the
badly cracked plaster ceiling was to enclose it, after installing some
recessed lights. A friend recommended a guy whose work was described as
"holy ****....amazing". He took forever to show up, wanted about 30% more
than other estimates, but the ceilings looked like they'd poured into an
upside down room. I walked in during the installation and found the guy had
a half dozen little bubble levels suspended from strings somehow. I just
shook my head and said "Yeah...OK". Perfect. We were happy.

I'd be surprised if I could find someone like that again. Or, maybe I might.
Who knows?