From Zero to 60

Every year in this country, home building companies large and small are able to complete north of 1 million new houses and other dwelling types. It’s an incredible feat given all the potholes and speed bumps in the road.  

I first became familiar with the saying “hurry up and wait” when I was in uniform. Like many obscure fragments of the military lexicon, it represented a fairly benign commentary on the inefficiencies that ran rampant through the highly regimented, but totally disorganized, “organizational system.” 

Later on, in private life, I began to experience many of the same frustrations when it came to building fine homes in an industry with so many variables and so much unpredictability. Anyone who has walked in those shoes can run down a long laundry list of fault lines that litter the playing field.

Let me share a case in point.

After delays of more than a year, we were finally able to have a submersible pump installed in our 300-foot-deep domestic well. The well produces a tremendous 35 gallons per minute. When the driller had finished his work and tested production for the well report, he was so excited, my wife said she thought he was going to “pass out cigars.”   

We thought we had a clear path laid out in front of us, but it was not to be. Without the aforementioned pump to deliver water, we couldn’t move forward with the plumbing and mechanical. When at last we overcame that obstacle, we learned that our mechanical contractor had lost all his help, an all-too-common scenario in the trades, and that he was also experiencing some severe health issues.

Another year went by while we searched far and wide for a replacement. No matter how hard we tried, no one was willing to step in, especially on a project at a location as remote as ours. Then, like a bolt from the blue, our original plumber reached out and reported that he was between surgeries and would be able to put in three days on our project. We had four days of advance notice but we were thrilled.

Of course, that meant that now we had to scramble to try to line up our electrical contractor and the gas supplier, who had been on hold, so that they could do their respective parts in getting the boilers up to operational status. With so little lead time, we would have to wait for each of them to have openings in their busy schedules. It reminds me of graphics depicting three-dimensional chess. Too many moving parts. Plus, there were the inevitable delays in scheduling the required inspections.

Building seems to represent a veritable “perfect storm” of hurry up and wait. It feels like a miracle is needed just to finish a project. The only saving grace in the situation is that it is our own in-house project and not that of a client. If it was, we would have been fired long ago. 

Every year in this country, home building companies large and small are able to complete north of a million new houses and other dwelling types. It’s an incredible feat given all the potholes and speed bumps in the road. Any time I talk with a builder or any tradesman they all agree that getting and keeping help is getting harder and harder. Then they go on to talk about supply chain issues, material shortages, spiraling prices, tight lending and all the other issues that continually plague them.

Those who are successful need tremendous will and patience, along with the confidence that they are good enough to do the job, and they have to be able to master the art of going from zero to 60 and back to zero, as many times as it takes.