Prozac
Blues

Down & Brown
since 1998

Hand wringers

We've recently had some work done on our house and what struck me is the amount of hand wringing that goes on by tradies when asked to quote.

"Awww gee mate, I'm not sure about this mate, it could get really expensive real fast mate..." Why is that? - Is it the lack of confidence, inexperience, lack of exposure to similar jobs, isolation, lack of colleagues?

We were lucky to have a brickie come by who took one look at the job and said, "Yeah, I can do this." My wife and I were like, "Great, how much?", expecting to pay up around the area a hand-wringer had quoted us. He quoted well under. "Awesome - when can you start?" Monday. Brilliant.

He was confident, and when we had raised the worries and concerns of the other bricklayer who quoted, he was unconcerned; "I'm a brickie, it's what I do. I could rebuild this whole house." Love it. When we asked about other trades that we needed to be involved in our epic job, he had a network of contacts in other trades that he could call upon.

I find the same thing happening in tech; hand-wringers. They get one sniff of the work and they start wringing their hands; "Aww gee, but what if... and then there's this thing that might not work... and if I don't get this then that happens..." Is it conditioning? Or the same reasons as above.

Working with Cogent gives me confidence, exposure and colleagues. Experience I'll get with mileage, but for now the first three go a long way.