Recently, I began experiencing problems with my the faucet in my shower. The handle was starting to get very loose, and water would leak from it whenever it was turned on. I tried to fix it, but quickly realized that this project was going to be beyond my abilities (I’m definitely not handy around the house!). The obvious solution was to contact one of our local handymen and get the shower fixed correctly. The call was made on Friday morning, and that afternoon someone was at my house working on it. The guy, Ray, shut off the water to the whole house (the was no shut-off valve for just the shower), assessed the situation and determined that the entire shower faucet would need to be replaced. Ok, no big deal… just replace the faucet and let me get on with my day. The problem was that there was no access panel to reach the plumbing. That meant that Ray was going to have to cut a hole in the wall of the adjoining bedroom (my children’s bedroom) so he could get in. Great… this is not starting out well. One messy 2′ x 3′ hole later and Ray can reach the pipes. Then he realizes that he does not have the correct parts in his car to fix the faucet, so he was going to need to drive to Lowe’s to pick up the needed items. After a 45 minute trip, he returns and cuts the old pipes out and begins to work on the rebuild job. Things seem to be going smoothly, although much slower than I had hoped, when Ray announces that he picked up the wrong part at Lowe’s. So that meant another 45 minute trip to the store. By now, it is getting dark outside, I still don’t have water in the house, and I’ve got two little boys that needed to take baths and brush their teeth. Ray returns with the correct part and finally gets the everything put back together. He heads downstairs to turn the water back on while I stay in the bedroom watching for leaks. I hear him turn the water on and (I’m sure you know where this is headed)…. BAM! Leaking connection between two pipes. He leaves the water on, thinking that he’ll just tighten the connection and the water will quit leaking. Well, a half-hour later, it is 9:30pm and Ray tells me that he can’t get the leaking to stop. The only solution was to shut the water off overnight, and he would come back the next morning to finish the job. While the water was still on, I brushed the boys’ teeth and got them cleaned up and ready for bed. Once I was done, the water was shut off and Ray left for the night, saying that he would be back at 9:00am.
A new day has got to produce better results, right? Wrong. The day begins with Ray showing up an hour late. He spent the first hour or so replacing the pipe connections that were leaking. Rather than use the screw-on compression fittings, he uses a torch to bond the pipes together. Although the new connections look nice, they still leak when he turns the water back on. But at least the leak wasn’t as bad as the night before. It didn’t take long for Ray to seal the leak, so I was expecting him to be out of my house soon. No such luck, because he found another leak after he turned on the faucet to test the entire system. And wouldn’t you know it, Ray didn’t have the part so he had to go back to Lowe’s (that’s 3 trips, if you’re keeping track). We did get a little lucky this time (if you can call it that), because the problem was not on the one of the lines under pressure. That meant that the water did not need to be shut off again, and we could all take showers while Ray was off on another 45 minute trip to the store. Once he returned, it took about 30 minutes to fix the leak. But the job isn’t finished, because now he has to return next week to patch the gaping hole in the bedroom wall. With the mudding and taping that needs to be done, that will be another few days. And as we are talking about this process, Ray tells me the horror story of his last drywall job – where he cut into a water line. I just can’t win with this guy! On a side note, Ray liked to talk and tell stories. Although I know he was trying to be nice by striking up conversations with me, that is not what I wanted him to do while he was here. I wanted him to work, and that was it. No talk… just work. Anyway, what I thought was going to be a one-hour repair job had ended up being a one-week project.
How does this relate to being an exceptional generalist? Well, this is the perfect example of a generalist who is definitely not exceptional. Ray can obviously perform tasks that I’m not able to accomplish (plumbing and drywall), but he failed because I was not satisfied with his work. He took far too long to complete a project that should have been easy for someone within his occupation. This lengthy completion time was partially because Ray was not prepared. For a routine job such as replacing a faucet, a handyman should have all of the tools and parts necessary to tackle the job (as well as any problems that are likely to occur). In addition, Ray also came across as a person who talked far too much. The reason I called him was to fix a faucet, not to have a conversation about how my day was going and what football team I followed.
If you are looking to be exceptional, here are a few lessons you can learn from Ray: accomplish the task efficiently, be prepared, and leave a good impression.