"Winston" wrote in message

I worked at a computer manufacturer under contract.
I finally put a stop to tool theft by buying each
of the engineers a small tool kit with all the
essentials for servicing 'our' model of computer.

Talk of PC tools reminds me of what I often saw working on the PC's of
friends and relatives AFTER they had tried to repair, replace or upgrade
something on their own. I've seen keyed connectors of every sort jammed in
backwards in ways I thought impossible. I've seen PCI-E boards installed in
machines too old to have proper slots for them (for non-techies think of
European wall plug jammed into US outlet). It made me realize that people
have very different conceptual views of how easy or hard some things are.
DIY PC upgrades were presented as easy, and many were - until you hit the
first even mildly unusual situation. Norm makes it look so easy - and can
always do another take if it's not!

Another example would be all these "flip your house" programs that I think
powered a great deal of the last housing boom by making it look *so* easy to
flip a house. I know a lot of people who bought structurally unsound homes
or ones that had defects so serious they might never sell again in the
frenzy. For a little while, there was always someone just as stupid,
willing to buy, without "due diligence," a termite or mold infested home as
the prices kept soaring. The media hardly ever said "can it last forever"?"
They were too busy selling the boom with ads, articles and TV shows
alongside real estate agents, mortgage brokers, local government taxmen and
anyone else who could make a nickel selling a house to a turnip. Who knew
that protecting even dumb consumers from themselves would, in the long run,
have protected the entire economy?

I think one of the problems is that Norm and lots of others make
craftsmanship look easy by bringing an ocean of knowledge to a problem that
most people can't appreciate. It's like that old engineering joke about the
PE that sends a detailed bill for his job:

Bolt -$1
Knowing where to put the bolt - $5,000

The fun on real jobs comes from aggressive flippers gutting load bearing
members or something just as serious. (I confess, I recall TOH getting
snagged on one very long beam acting as a lever that affected the roof
suspension.) It's knowing what to do when something very unusual happens.
It's knowing where to look for signs of repeated basement flooding BEFORE
closing! (-: It's making sure your 200A panel isn't actually being fed by
old 60A feeders. It's like the old first year intern's joke about
procedures involving insertion of some sort of test equipment: "Call the
surgeons, it's stuck and I can't get it out!!!"

The plus side is that eventually, a real dumb DIY that has bitten off more
than they can chew will, at some point, hire a pro. It's after the
experience gained by the material ruined, people can actually appreciate
that they are paying for more than they can see. They can stand by in awe
and say "Gee, he knows how to drill into the bedroom wall without shorting
out the lights. I'd say one giveaway consistent with amateur home repair is
the obvious lack of squareness. Tyros eyeball but pros either use a level
or have one "built into their brains" that's just as good.

Which is probably the subject for another thread: What are the hallmarks of
a good contractor, in any field?

--
Bobby G.