By Rich
While trying to defend his lousy workmanship on our cabin sole, our former contractor declared the floor and write off and said he “didn’t mean to insult us” but that he “couldn’t polish a turd.” The floor was so old and trashed, he said, that it wasn’t worth putting much effort into. Here’s how the floor looked after his half-assed attempt at varnishing it, complete with huge brush marks (yes, the varnish is dry here).
Here’s how the “turd” came out after we fired him and did it ourselves. I’ll let our esteemed readers be the judge of how the ‘turd’ came out.
Rover's Blog 
Yup – it’s so sad, but so true. There are a *few* (strong emphasis on purpose) good mechanics, tradesmen, riggers, etc. out there – but I’m about as likely to share their contact info with anyone as I would be to share winning lottery numbers. No way.
Mediocrity is the new “Gold Standard”. I’ve given up interviewing potential contractors on their skills and instead focus almost entirely on their personality. If they are the “kind of person” that has demonstrable proof of accountability, reliability, and in my need-case somewhat anal-perfectionism, then I’m likely to hire them.
So far, this has worked better than referrals, or looking at other completed work.
I’ve also made it my goal (as you clearly have) to make sure that as time goes by I can perform the vast majority of the work I need done – regardless of what that work entails.