Lately, everyone I have paid to do ANYTHING has gotten it wrong on the first try and been so hard to get a hold of to fix it that I have gotten frustrated and finished the job myself.  Now, with the hard part of the job done and just the monor details left I can get by, but I'm not really a handy guy, so there's a lot of reading involved, some cursing, cuts, shocks and the occasional bump on the head.  This is what I paid other people for.  In this economy paying somebody to do a half assed job is just unacceptable.  It's not even saving me time anymore.  In fact it usually takes up more time.  You have to set up an appointmenbt,  be home to give them access to your house, and then make scores of follow  up calls when you realize the thing that was working while they were here has ceased to operate.

The funny part is, the more you're forced to fix on your own the more it demistifies the process and you realize things are just a matter of knowing the order in which screws and bolts and wires and nails go on and off to make the job work.  I learned that about cars a couple of decades ago from my cousin.  I thought he knew everything about cars and his understanding of HOW they actually function well surpasses my own, but a Chilton Manual is a great equalizer in those situations.  Once someone points out the steps to take to make a job go smoothly the whole thing seems easier.

Don't the people who install stuff, build stuff, fix stuff and generally make a living by a doing the jobs the rest of us don't understand realize that if we have to learn how to do it because they're too lazy to do it right, that they'll be out of a job someday?

Oh well, I have to go to toolgirl.com now and learn how to do some plumbing.