PAY THE MAN!

Last week I published my first essay in a year and a half. I’ve been working on a different writing project over that time—more about that in a few weeks.

I finished working on National Tape Measure Day late Saturday evening, and I logged into WordPress to post the essay on my blog. WordPress is the program that controls the blog; it allows me to publish and revise content, receive comments from readers, and a lot of other things.

As with many other computer programs, I have learned only a small fraction of all the things one can do on WordPress. A friendly volunteer set it up for me, and pretty much all I understand is how to transfer my content from Word to WordPress, edit it, and post the essay and the comments. I don’t know how to change the appearance of the blog, I don’t know how to set up the email function, I don’t know much of anything that a person skilled in WordPress can do. Among the things a skilled person knows is how to use what they call Plug-Ins and Widgets. My volunteer used just enough Plug-ins and Widgets to get me up and running, but there are plenty more that might enhance the operation of the blog. I don’t know anything about any of that.

So, on Saturday evening ten days ago I logged into WordPress to post my essay. On the dashboard where I do the few things I am able to do, several notifications appeared saying that I was using older versions of WordPress and various Plug-ins and Widgets. Several times over the years I’ve clicked on the button to update WordPress, and it’s always worked, so I wasn’t too alarmed. I posted my essay as usual. Everything looked good, so I sent an email to my readers saying a new essay had been posted. So far, so good.

I decided I may as well go ahead and deal with the updates to WordPress. I went back to the dashboard. I clicked on the button to update WordPress, and I also clicked some buttons to update the Plug-ins and Widgets. Soon, a message appeared saying I had committed some fatal error and I needed to do several things that I had absolutely no idea how to do. Until I had done those things, I would be unable to make any changes. Worse, when I tried to go to the blog, it didn’t work, and that meant that the link in the email that I’d just sent to several hundred people also didn’t work. In a word: DISASTER! My blog was unavailable to the public, and I had no idea how to fix it.

I sat at my keyboard as panic set in. I had a publishing emergency that meant I needed to learn several things about how WordPress actually works. I didn’t know where to start. I had a copy of WordPress for Dummies somewhere, but I was too big a dummy for that to be helpful quickly. The guy who’d set it all up for me several years ago was just a casual acquaintance who did me a favor. I no longer know his name or how to reach him. I don’t know anyone else who uses WordPress.

I decided that the best thing to do was to go to bed, calm down, sleep the night, and attack the problem with a clear head in the morning. That was a good idea, except that the implications of my emergency were too troubling to sleep. Awake in bed, I kept thinking that many people would discover the link was broken (in fact, two people already had let me know). I fretted about the mess, and I was a mess, too. Then I remembered an essay I’d written nearly twenty years ago. As soon as the essay came to mind, I calmed down. Everything would be okay. I’d fix the problem in the morning and send an email to my readers explaining that something had gone wrong but now it was fixed. I fell asleep.

One might ask how I could have written something so long ago that would present a solution to a problem that didn’t exist when I wrote it? Well, read it yourself, and you will see.

PAY THE MAN!

The contractors finished throwing up the sheet rock a few weeks ago, and the next morning the tapers arrived. They sat on the buckets of compound for twenty minutes, drinking coffee and talking about the used RV one of them bought last week. Eventually they got to work. Nonchalantly, the workmen ran tape and compound down each seam, still talking about the RV and local campsites. The knives and trowels clanged, tape ripped from the rolls, punctuating their conversation. Taping was something to do with their hands while they talked.

By that night, every seam was covered and the compound was dry. I could see the tape through the paper-thin layer of compound. It didn’t look like they had done much.

The next morning they were back, sitting on the buckets, drinking more coffee and talking about the football game the night before. I had gone to bed after the first quarter.

“Nice to have a job that’s not too tough,” I thought. “Stay up half the night watching football, cup of coffee and you’re good to go.”

That night the compound was dry and smooth, the tape largely hidden.

I didn’t see the workers the next morning, but when I came home, they had been there again. The tape was hidden and the walls were covered with wide, white ribbons of smooth, dry compound, marked only here or there by a dried speck that had slipped off the edge of a trowel and escaped the eye of the workers.

They were done.

I marveled at how overpaid these guys are. Twenty five bucks an hour for a job they can do in their sleep. All it takes is a couple of tools and big buckets of compound to sit on and play with. Just wipe the compound on, go home, have a beer, watch the game, come back and wipe on another coat tomorrow. I thought, “I can save hundreds of dollars on this project if I tell the contractor to let me tape the next room.”

Have you ever noticed how easy the other guy’s job is, and how overpaid he is? I have. Thirty dollars to change your oil? I can do it myself for the cost of the oil. A few hundred bucks to do your taxes? I can do it myself with Turbo Tax. One percent of the value of your portfolio to pick a few stocks? I can do it myself with Schwab.

Have you ever tried to do the other guy’s job? I have. I can never make the tape lay flat on the seams when I apply the compound—it always has air bubbles behind it. I can never make the compound dry flat. My compound dries with bumps and ridges and little valleys, and I end up sanding a lot. Still I discover pock marks and lines I left unfilled. And the corners! I leave a lot of compound in the corners, but it’s okay, because no one ever looks too closely, right?

Those oil changes are always messy. And what do you do with that waste oil, anyway? I’m actually pretty good on Turbo Tax, but I’ve been doing it for years now.

Investing? No way. Why did I ever think I could pick stocks as well as the guy who has watched the markets all day for twenty years?

Your girlfriend can cut your hair. Save $15 every time she does it. After ten or fifteen haircuts, you might actually look pretty good (if she hasn’t left you by then). You can build an addition on your house. Save thousands. It will look like you built it.

Why do we begrudge the barber his money, or the builder?

We all expect to be paid well for what we do well. Why do we think we shouldn’t pay the other guy for the things he does well? Every time the plumber comes to my house, it’s $200. I have the same wrenches, I can buy the same pipe at Home Depot. Still can’t sweat joints like that.

I have a friend who rented a spray painting rig to paint the entire inside of his new cottage. We covered windows and doorways with tape and plastic, he donned the disposable coveralls and headgear, and he started the compressor. Twenty minutes later, hot, sweaty and still not finished with the first room, he ripped the paper outfit from his body and declared, “I went to law school so I could pay someone else to do this!”

Maybe I’ll let the other guy tape that next room.

 I awoke the next morning, thoroughly refreshed. I sat at my keyboard with a cup of coffee . Soon, I was looking at Fixed.net, which offered to fix whatever was wrong with WordPress. They’d do it for a one-time fee, or they’d be available anytime for the cost of a monthly subscription. I said to myself, “Pay the man!” and signed up for a year.

An hour later, some WordPress geek sitting at a keyboard somewhere in the world had restored my blog to fully operational status, with both WordPress and the various Plug-ins and Widgets up to date. I sent a second email to my readers, apologizing if they’d tried to get to my blog and gotten nowhere and inviting them to try again.

One final word: If you ever visit my house, please don’t look too carefully at the sheetrock.