John Singer Sargent: Death and Victory (1922)

" … the forgivable sin of project work."

Last week ended in deep disappointment. The porch refurbishment project had become an embarrassment. I sent the concrete crew home or off to another job pending a reply from the consulting engineer. I remember cursing the stipulation that this job needed an engineering report, clear evidence of needless regulation, and another thousand dollars spent to dubious effect. I'm learning that every resource this effort has attracted has been a critical puzzle piece, their importance sometimes puzzling until some moment of extremes. We'd failed our inspection—well, actually, the footing poured by Pablo, the concrete contractor, and his crew had fallen short of expectations. It's interesting how I included myself when ascribing guilt. I wanted no blaming or finger-pointing. We were either laboring in concert or wasting our time, so I owned my part in the disaster. We might have avoided the failed inspection if I had been more attentive and insistent. We failed it, as we also failed ourselves.

The inspector insisted that he would approve any plan approved by the consulting engineer if it was executed according to plan. So, the engineer seemed like a potential ally at that moment. I called on a Friday morning. By tradition, all genuine catastrophes occur on Fridays so that someone already committed to a long weekend or already overloaded trying to clear their in-basket would receive the call for assistance. I spoke with the engineering firm's owner, and he seemed sympathetic. He said he wasn't a structural guy and couldn't answer my questions about potential remediation for pouring the footing too shallow. He'd refer my inquiry to his structural guy, who'd moved to another firm with the understanding that he'd continue to service projects on which he'd originally consulted. I was stuck until I heard from the engineer.

He called on Sunday afternoon with a welcome and clever resolution. Yes, we could dig the four load-bearing points deeper and underfill them with rebar and concrete. Not an ounce of the poured footing would need to be removed. The engineer had been involved in just this sort of error earlier in his career. He'd even been assigned to crawl under the porch and dig out beneath one of the corners, a task he'll always remember. A day's labor should save this effort. Redemption arrives demanding a tad more work without requiring anything like a complete do-over. As with all Redemptions, we deserved much worse than this.

We would have survived if our engineer directed us to tear out what we'd thought we'd already finished. The effort might have cost us a week or more on the schedule and some lingering wounded self-esteem, but we would have survived. We probably would have even succeeded in creating a legacy worth remembering, but we were saved this time by an ally I didn't feel inclined to invite into the fray at first. Everybody, even that concrete contractor who absconded with our deposit without starting the work, contributed something significant to this effort. Even the failed inspection helped us become a little less full of ourselves. This project needed more humility, so it appeared just after we could have really used it. Redemption works like this, arriving just after you really could have used it, late enough to leave a lasting impression but still early enough to provide some sorely needed vindication.

I believe it's traditional for the confessor to exhort the absolved sinner to "go forth and sin no more." This always struck me as a naive instruction. The sinner will most certainly sin again, for it's in their nature. Further, without that convection, the confessor would be permanently out of business. It's as if the confessor, having successfully absolved another sinner, urged them to go forth and put him out of business. I could fall into the same silly trap by concluding that having failed that first inspection, we've collectively learned our lesson. We might have learned that lesson but learned it too late to avoid failing the test. We'll continue learning lessons just a tad later than we'd prefer, that we'll return to report in with our confessor and be found as guilty as we would have charged ourselves. We're learning, an occupation only engaged in by those interested in failing, failing a little at first in the hope of later greater successes. We'll head forth from here and damned well continue sinning the eminently forgivable sin of project work.

©2024 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #Grace, #PureSchmaltz