The Best Laid Plans of Mice and Ferrermen

 In my commercial painting career, I worked for some big outfits that did things like sports arenas and hotels. If anything was too big or beyond the scope of the company's usual expertise, they could always sub the work out to people who actually knew what they were doing. In fact, the arguably best outfit I worked for, had a vision of eliminating ALL the pesky labor and the burden of overhead and all the day to day yada-yada of actually working, to sit back and make their fortune by "...subbing out work- just like The Walter Brothers". I heard that exact phrase for years while working at Ratmo Construction LLC. Their dream was to be gentlemen of leisure, bidding on jobs and subbing them out to others who still had to work for a living. Pimping, but without the stable of ladies, and never having to get their hands dirty. Nice work if you can get it, I suppose, but not really interesting or accomplishing anything.

I was thinking of Ratmo recently and wondering if they had a hand in the Data Center that was planned for Memphis. I don't know, because that project has stalled due to the fuckery of Elon Musk and his Trump regime, so it wasn't even mentioned on their site. Ratmo continued to grow after they got rid of "that meddlesome Yankee" (me, if you're scoring at home) and appear to be doing hands-on work still, instead of pimping. Good for them. 

But it was the DC reflecting pool fiasco that really got me thinking about Ratmo and other big outfits I had worked for. Would they go out of their element and dive into something that really is an oversized swimming pool coating gig? Probably not, but I bet they could find someone who could do the job, like maybe someone who did swimming pools for a living, and someone who did a lot of them, at that. Trump said the guy he hired had done the pools for him at all his hotels. That turned out to be {{{FAKENEWS}}} if you can imagine that. Evidently this contractor has never done a swimming pool in his life. That's not a good place to start. 

I learned when I was painting for myself, that people- being people- often wanted me to do things that were beyond my expertise, partly because they liked me, but mostly because they were cheap and sensed I was too. I promise you that anytime you work cheap, no one is going to be happy. A couple of old Italian ladies I had done some painting for, highly recommended me to some family members for what I was told was to be painting their basement rec-room. It turned out to be that they wanted me to build them a stone fireplace in said rec-room. Well, I'm not a mason and I told them so. Undaunted by my honesty, they had heard that I could do anything. They didn't hear that from me. I wouldn't begin to know how to bid a job like that to even sub it out to someone who did know what they were doing. I'd be hopelessly lost. 

I think people count on that. They might see dollar signs in 'savings' when a real mason comes by and quotes, $100k for a job, and the dumbass painter says, "I uh oh- $20,000?" cause that seems like a lot to the would not-be mason and a ton of savings to the homeowner. Of course, it's neither. It's the stupidity of greed. Another fella asked me to build him a 20' x 50' soundproof wall in a strip mall he owned, to separate a noisy dry cleaner from another lease. I recommended my brother-in-law who was a contractor, and the guy immediately shot that down, saying, "I like to work with painters". Of course, he did. I knew why.

As with all things Trump, he starts out with a low bid to the press and public and then- thinking he has their acceptance- inflates the tally to his own, predetermined grift level. Last I heard the rookie pool painter was still on the job learning the method but was now doing the reflecting pool for ten times the original cost with a built-in profit of 20%. That's a "cost plus" contract and the government does those a lot, but not usually with no-bid contracts like this one. Certainly, Trump has built in profit for himself, thus the sudden leap in price. Thus also, the impetus to do this totally unnecessary job in the first place.

I get that Trump is honoring himself now while he can, because no one will honor him posthumously. How pathetic is it to build monuments to yourself because you know no one else will. If we don't rid ourselves of him soon, we'll be stuck with his face on Mt. Rushmore. I'm sure that's in the works right now, with some jackleg contractor hoping to get the gig. I hope it's not some stupid painter.