Good performance

Finding a good plumber and a good car mechanic are two of the very hardest searches you can make.  They have a less than decent reputation.  There's a reason for that.

Over the last 5 years I have had to locate a mechanic and plumber because I lost the ones I had been using.  I have been to 6 mechanics and finally I have found one, two actually, but one is farther from my house than the other.  I have this rule when I take a car in.  If I have a mechanical problem that I didn't have before taking the car in, I will not return.  Even if the problem that surfaces is related to the one I took the car in for, I still don't return.

I have had less luck with plumbers.  My rule is the same, so the fact that I still am looking for one tells me that that profession my have fewer honest souls working in it.

I think there are several factors that make the people in professions the way they are, but one is the level of incentive to work.  Plumbers seem to be in a perpetual state of "just passing through" and they need their jobs just to eat for the time being.  I haven't ever met one who really liked what he was doing.  Even the plumbers who have their own business seem to have resigned themselves to doing what they know to do rather than enjoying what they do.

I appreciate more and more the people who do what they both know and enjoy.  People are good at what they do when they enjoy solving all the problems that crop up while they are performing their profession.  I truly hope that people see in my work both the knowledge it takes to perform it and the enjoyment I get from sharing that service with those who need it.