Concerns About A Little Resistance And Lack Of Planning

Today another concern about society in general was brought to my attention. When people face a little bit of resistance or hard work they abandon it and try to accomplish their goals a different way that doesn't APPEAR to be as difficult. I think that some people spend so much time trying to get out of doing something difficult that they just make that task harder by exponential orders of magnitude and compromise the quality of the work they are doing. Now I'm not advocating brawn over brain because I think a lot of the danger comes when you don't make a plan and get the right equipment to do the job right but just think you'll be clever. If you try to fly by the seat of your pants all the time you're gonna get screwed with your pants down.

Set on the idea of sliding the hot tub a good 20 yards it took an hour and some pinched fingers on a job that should have taken 10 minutes and a sigh of "Ah, that was easier than it looked!" And what started it all? A twig that was bending and the impatience of some that where bent on sliding the [darn] thing. We had lifted and carried the hot tub about half way in about 5-10 minutes and then it took another 45 minutes to get it the other half. Had we had two guys hold back the fence and bushes we would have been done in 15-20 minutes total.

Why not slide it on it's side? Who wants a hot tub that's been dragged on it's side through the mud and rocks! And regardless if it's on it's side or up-right there is a greater chance of doing structural damage when you slide it verses lifting and carrying it, especially when there is construction debris in the way. (2x4's, 2x6's, ply-wood and nails. Most of which he was trying to slide it on.) When there's eight men there it really isn't that hard to carry it.

Okay, so there was snow a lot of the way that might not have been so bad to slide it using a plastic sled that you pulled along so that the abrasion happened between the plastic sled and the ground instead of the side of the hot tub. But laying down wood and sliding the thing over top of the wood is just asking for something to be torn up, bent or otherwise broken.

Then there is the planning issue and thoroughly assessing situations BEFORE you try and do it. I think he was kidding when he said that he left the water in the hot tub (there wasn't any water in the place where you actually sat but when we had it up on its side water did start coming out of it, probably from inside the plumbing of the thing). But besides that, he could have backed up his trailer through the gate and took out more than half of the distance we had to move it. Another concern was the width of the hot tub and the width of the whole in the fence to get it into the yard. MEASURE the ... thing before you try and squeeze it through!

Maybe its just the engineer in me or something but I personally think people should think things through, get the right equipment, and just put your back into it. Luckily everything when fine but coming home thinking about it just made me realize that the men in this country are getting squishy, spineless or just fear work for the most part. Maybe I'm just not cut out for the city slicker lifestyle or something like that. What ever happened to the mountain man lifestyle? ... well that's another rant.