The following article was written in 2007 and originally appeared in the Elevator Constructor. I wrote this after an argument about the cost of doing the job right the first time.
Brothers and sisters:
Last month I related BA Tim Moennich‘s talk at the April meeting about doing quality work, this month I want to relate a story about a job recently added to my route. The car is a Minnesota roped hydo with Peele doors and an MCE controller. On my first inspection I was very impressed with the quality of the ride, the smoothness of the doors and the neatness of the door and controller wiring. This was, by far, the neatest, cleanest most complete installation of an elevator I have seen in years.
Unfortunately, Abell installed the car.
I took several photos to show what a neat wiring job is supposed to look like and showed several people. Their response was that there was not enough time in the budget to do the neat, quality work that I had seen exhibited on the job.
My response is BULLSHIT!
I may not have worked years on construction or modernization and had some of the pressure these people were talking about. When I did work construction, service and mod I always wanted to do the kind of job that if my son would be proud to point and say “MY DAD DID THAT!” Now that I’m in maintenance I try and keep my jobs in a way that my customers can point and say with pride “Don takes care of this.”
In the end you are known by the quality of the job you leave behind. Every local has their butchers and those that leave a job to be proud of.
How do you want to be remembered?
Through the Mill 