As a community I think it’s important we help one another out from time to time. The construction industry in the UK as a whole can be quite an ugly scene, and for no real rhyme nor reason. There’s plenty of work out there and plenty of places to up-skill if one requires improvements in certain areas.
The amount of sites I have attended after another roofer, carpenter or general builder is no doubt in the hundreds. I always find it incredibly unnecessary when tradesmen or customers relentlessly complain about the last tradesmen. Okay, so it’s in our nature to have a little moan from time to time though, what I have noticed since the evolution of social media is that it’s now the place to indulge in such conversations.
Being an improver myself and constantly booking new training courses In all aspects of my life from work to family, cooking to sport, I love to learn. Learning new skills requires a lot of failure. Some of this can be practiced and sometimes not. With this new age of social media ‘critics’ going out of their way to knock another tradesperson, I worry it is putting fear into those who want to progress but do not know how to fail.
Encouragement from an individual requires a base level of intelligence combined with a confident self, low ego and a positive attitude in life in general. I’d like to personally be a part of a community that encourages one another to learn progress and indeed FAIL. With failure comes progression and with progression comes confidence and with confidence comes happiness.
If we do not fail, we’re stuck. Too worried about what someone might say, worried about the outcome, maybe a leak, maybe a slipped slate or some split lead. It’s that worry that is healthy. The worry is what makes you the right person. You’ll fail, recover the problem and learn! The chances are you won’t fail in that area ever again. You’ve learned something new so it’s time to go and fail again in another area, and learn something else.
My most recent failure was on a router with a template profile cutting bit. I traced a club to make an Internal Façade. I needed to make a few transfers. From the original (that was broken) to paper, from paper to ply and ply to hardwood. Initially I used a 5mm ply and the thinness of the ply made it incredibly difficult to transfer that profile to hardwood without either damaging the hardwood or slicing Into the ply template itself. After finally admitting failure, albeit well over a day later, I went back to the drawing board. Transferred paper to 12mm ply and boom, no more dramas. A nice solid template that is sturdy enough to be pushed around without any movement. Part of me wished I admitted failure earlier but still, later is always better than never.
So let’s get out there, Fail, Learn then remove the L and Earn!
