89% Guy

I have the keys to the front door of my new space! In the past few days I’ve been busy (with the help of family, friends, and hired hands) prepping the roaster area (which arrives today!), building counters, and re-painting walls’.Yes, that’s what I said…re-painting.

If you’ve ever managed people, you know this: A few people really kick butt at their jobs and do everything that’s expected of them plus a little extra flair-let’s call them 100% people. There are a few who really stink at their jobs and wear proverbial signs on their foreheads that say “fire my pathetic butt”. Let’s call them 60% people. Somewhere in there is the worker who a friend of mine coined “89% Guy”. This guy does his job and floats in a land where his only goal is to come up just short of everything you ask for, but is able to do this in some stealth sneaky way that actually makes you feel like you’re a perfectionist freak and he’s just doing work that the rest of the sane world is willing to settle for.

You can’t fire this guy. Every time you try to figure out how to, you can’t quite put it in writing without making yourself look like, well, a perfectionist freak, and he continues to do 89% work day after day, torturing you with his mere lack of desire to complete anything at a quality higher than just barely okay.

So last week I was supposed to have my space painted before I moved in. It was determined by “Ricky” (the name I’ve chosen for this person, because it seems like 89% Guys might have this name) that half of the space would be completely repainted, and the other half was really quite fine, and just need a little touchup. I was sort of okay with this, as this was somewhat of a courtesy paint job I was getting, and who needs to paint 900 square feet of wall when there are just a few nail holes to cover up? Inside, however, my 89% radar switched to “alert”.

All in all, there were probably about 75 holes all over the two walls that needed to be puttied and spot painted with this 1985 hunter green color. When I came in the next morning, two walls were painted beautifully in a creamy white, but with the other two walls I was treated to the fabulous vision of what I might call “Cheetah 1985, The Musical”. Ricky, who apparently can’t see colors, picked out a turquoise paint “match” to the hunter green, and proceeded to smear-paint every single one of the 75 patches on the wall, and call it done. Literally, I looked around the room for Ashton Kutcher while my eyes bugged out, and my mouth stood open in complete disbelief. Surely this will be fixed. Surely this is a mistake. Surely I’m being Punk’d-Ashton? Where are you?

Nope, no joke. That’s it. Done. “The color will fade and soon you won’t notice it”, said Ricky. Ummmm-ok. Suffice it to say that I was stuck here as this was sort of an after the fact negotiated item and I had no leverage to force a re-do. The problem with arguing with 89% guys is this: Even though it’s clear to you, and maybe several others around you that the job is half baked, 89% Guy believes with his complete being that it’s good, fine and done. You will never win, and you will never get anything more from 89% Guy. The job is done, and somehow it’s exactly what you asked for.

The good news is this. The walls are now steel gray. “Cheetah 1985, The Musical” is gone. It took me 2 buckets and 4 hours, and now this 89%+11% girl is very happy with the paint job.