Squaring Up to the Boss
Well, anyway, I saw the square standing in the corner of my final drawer of my dresser-cum-chester-draw build as I had left it and remembered George, my old apprenticing mentor from 1965, who did the same thing. I had noticed every so often he’d leave a square on the internal corner of drawer just so and then on other pieces too. After noticing this seemingly innocuous trait I identified a couple of parallels.
“George.” I asked, “How come you seem always to leave a square in the inside corner of things you make like that?”
“You’ve a lot to learn, young lad.” he’d say. “See, when the boss comes in and walks past the bench he sees the square stood up, walks over to it and looks for any gaps.” I sees him in the corner of my eye and he has a satisfied look on his face. That way you don’t have to tell ‘im ‘ow good you are, he sees it.”
He did this for others too, when we worked elsewhere fitting and such. It was a bit of a joke to him.
Amusing and clever. Actions speak more than words. Shows the pride you have in your work. 🙂
You don’t get to be boss of a trade like this by inheritance alone.
We used to do something similar, which was to always leave something a little off for the boss to find- maybe a knob tilted a little off or something.
Whatever it was, it could be corrected in a few seconds, and it made the boss feel like he was doing his job.
It mirrored the Native American ( and Roman) belief that making something perfect would anger the spirit world.
Being a carpenter since the early ’70’s I’ve always left my level on the cabinets I had installed. More out of pride I suppose than showing my work to a boss.
I did learn the hard way not to leave my plumb bob hanging in an elevator shaft we were framing in a 4 story building. It seems the wind pushes a freshly framed building around a bit leaving my bob nowhere near my plumb marks from the previous day. The inspectors were less than impressed, all turned out well once the brick veneer was in place and the drywall was hung. The elevator crew had no trouble with their install, I did learn to take my plumb bob home at night though! Nowadays we use a laser for such work….it’s not left on the job either.
I framed my first partition wall the other day and used a plumb bob to align the top and bottom plates. It all came out spot on. They’re wonderfully simple.
If you dry the dishes and put them away before being noticed, you won’t get credit for washing them from the “Boss”.
The funny thing – someday someone will get this little “tradition” wrong and write an article on how leaving a square in a freshly glued up drawer will guarantee it to be perfectly square.