To lay a little more frosting on the cake, the irrigation system sprang a leak. In front. Right next to the front bedroom window, soaking the window, the nylon screening, and the wall every morning as the water came on. Argh!
So I called the irrigation guy, who made some time in his afternoon to come over and fix the darn thing. Didn’t look very hard…but you needed the part and you needed to know what to do with it.
As we chatted about…what? Everything!…
• Our kids
• Our families
• Our pets
• Floating down the Salt River
• Living in Arizona
• Life
• The Universe
• And all that…
…I thought what a nice man!
If I were a guy… I think I might prefer a hands-on craftsman’s job to a desk job where you’re parked in front of a brain-banging computer all day. Maybe that contributes to his cheerful and pleasant nature.
But…hmmm…
Maybe not. It would depend on whether you could make a genuinely living wage in the crafts. He probably does — the guy charged $100 for the house call. Yes: from my point of view, cringe-worthy….but cheaper than eventually having to replace the window frame and screen. And for sure, there was no way I could fix that irrigation thingie.
From my point of view, he saved me a lot of aggravation (at least) and eliminated any further damage from spraying water.
From his point of view, he made $100 for an hour of his time.
That’s as much as my fancy lawyer ex-husband made! And for sure, a corporate lawyer doesn’t make small talk about the kids and whatnot while he’s engaged with contract law.
Y’know, it strikes me that some (not all) of the craft jobs could very well be better gigs, career-wise, than lawyering. Pay is certainly adequate — possibly comparable. You’re not stuck in an office all day and then some. Most of these guys — Irrigation Dude is one of them — limit their work days to Monday through Friday and their work hours to 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. While it’s true you’d be driving through the crazy-making traffic all day, still…you wouldn’t have…
• firm meetings
• crazy partners
• political correctness
• crooked clients
• judges to deal with
• politicians to deal with
• office politics
• stress intense enough to make you sick
How is that better than filling your days installing, maintaining, and repairing irrigation systems? Or building furniture? Or painting houses?
Maybe, just maybe…it’s not.