Just a Quick Job

Anyone who knows Bob will know him to be a hopeless perfectionist. In my forty plus years with him I have never known him to not finish a job, or take a shortcut, or say, “that’ll do, it won’t show”. No, if a job’s worth doing it’s worth doing well, it’s the only way he knows.

Mostly it’s good, I really couldn’t stand to be with someone who was lazy or slaphappy, someone who never finished a job, or didn’t do it properly would drive me crazy. However, I’m sure there should be a middle of the road, a compromise somewhere between work obsessed and lazy. It shouldn’t be all or nothing! Bob is most definitely “all”.

Yesterday for example was pretty typical; we enjoyed a lovely day exploring the little islands in Whoops-a-Daisy, and returned to the boat for late afternoon cocktails. Bob almost immediately set about “a quick job” (they are never quick) something to do with the generator. I cringe whenever I hear the word generator; if I had the strength I would like to drop the damn thing in the deepest part of the ocean. Alternatively, if only I could afford it I would replace it with a shiny new one, but they cost around $20,000, or more so that’s not going to happen any time soon. Any job involving the generator is usually a major headache. If you added up all the time Bob has spent working on it, it would be at least a year of his life fixing the bloody thing.

I had already started making dinner, foolishly thinking Bob had almost finished. “Can that wait just a few minutes, so I can finish up here and take a shower before dinner”? Bob said. It was already nine O’clock, but OK I thought, a few more minutes won’t make any difference. Sure enough just a few minutes later he was putting everything back together and clearing up. “I just need to start it up for a moment”, he said. Guess what! The damn thing wouldn’t start! That initiated another couple of hours of investigation. Anyone else would have called it a night and said they would finish up in the morning, but this is Bob, never leave a job unfinished Bob!

By eleven I was famished and thoroughly fed up, the generator stubbornly refused to cooperate and Bob was getting frustrated. There was nothing I could do so I said “I’m going to bed”. I made him dinner, I just ate a cracker, I didn’t want to eat a dinner and then immediately go to bed. I’m not sure, but I think it was around 2:30am when I heard the generator start…

The next morning around 7am, Bob said “I just have a quick job to do on the boom, I need to fix the broken light. I want to do it now before it gets too hot out, we can have breakfast after”. Three and a half hours later, I was once again famished, not having eaten dinner the night before, so I went ahead and made myself some toast. By 11am, it was obvious that this was ‘surprise, surprise’ not a quick job; the wiring was a right mess, someone had previously done a “quick fix” or “crappy, slaphappy job” and now Bob was faced with the job of putting it all right… Oh joy!

One Comment

  • Mary A.
    Posted March 1, 2013 at 12:53 pm | Permalink

    *waving back* Hey there! 🙂 WOW, I thought by now everything would be fixed. You did not mention more about Ted’s and my help on the Crazy Daisy before we helped sail it up to it’s start denstination. Ted rebuilt the Compass and helped fix other things. I cleaned rust off of the anchor locker hinges with a toothbrush with twinkle and polish the fixtures inside the boat and we both helped with other projects that Bob had on his list. We spent long hours along with helping bob and all voluntary help on our part. But I love reading of your adventures.
    Thank You for taking me along on your adventure even if it is on paper. I love it!:)
    Have a safe journey!

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