Unpopular opinion: 5000 feet of trim in one week is a dumb flex, not a skill

I hit 4872 feet of base and casing last month on a new build outside Austin. Felt good for about 10 minutes, then I looked at my cuts and realized I was rushing just to hit some imaginary number. The old guys I work with say doing 200 feet of perfect miters is worth more than 5000 feet of slop. But then the production foreman says speed is the only thing that pays. Anybody else feel like the whole 'my record footage' thing is just ego and leads to callbacks?

3 comments

3 Comments

samk775d ago

Exactly, man. I ran 3400 feet of crown last fall just to say I did it, and I came back to fix gaps on half of it a month later. The numbers game is just a way for foremen to pat themselves on the back while the guys doing the real work end up re-cutting half their joints. Give me a slow week with perfect returns any day over that garbage.

smith.nancy5d ago

How many of those callbacks did you eat the cost on versus the foreman owning up to pushing the speed? Seems like the guys making the deadlines never have to come back and fix the mess, right? Always left to the trim carpenters to sort out the shortcuts when the homeowner starts pointing at the gaps.

ivan_murphy805d ago

Hate to break it to you, but that sounds like the same mess everywhere. I've seen foremen push speed and then act surprised when stuff doesn't fit. Splitting hairs over who eats the cost is just noise when the homeowner is staring at a crooked baseboard. Makes you wonder how much of that "record" was actually square.