creative people, creative scheduling, and odd responses...
by
listen guys:
I know how pun, doc and the others feel. I think i have a pretty good idea of how they think, and how they will respond to this stuff.
first things first; complaining will get you nowhere. Worse than nowhere, in fact. What they do is an art - and even if it's off a set of plans they make it an art. They could turn out a product to a spec sheet and be damn proud of the fact that it is exactly to spec, to the point of being perfectly imperfect. This leads to two things, amazing work and absolutetly horrid time-management.
The amazing work comes from their intense pride in everything they do. If they cut down a machine screw for you, expect them to ask you a month later how it's holding up. If they create a masterpeice of a gun, expect them, ten years and 3 owners later, to grab it when it turns up and give the guy a free going over and tune up, because they MADE that thing and dammit it should be perfect. They KNOW they should charge for the service, but they don't care about the money, or even the guy who owns it. They care about the gun. It's their baby - everything else is irrelevant.
Don't you dare push it off as "nice work" or make an offhand remark like "maybe somebody else would like it better than I."
You might as well punch them in the face.
They want you to be satisfied in absolutely all respects possible, not because they give a shit about you, but because that would mean they created something which is perfect. Take doc's hammer for an example. It's a friggin' hammer, but he made it worthy of an art museum.
Then they have the time-management problem. I'd bet a hundred dollars that they are outstandingly punctual people. Tell them to be somewhere at 8 o'clock and expect them to show up when the second hand ticks over. If they are late, they've forgotten entirely - probably because they were thinking about something absolutely enthralling, like their car or this photo they just took. They get pissed off when people cause them to be late, so if you tell them you will be ready and 5:30 you damn well better be. They've learned to be accepting of the five minutes it takes you to retrieve something you forgot, but they don't like it.
They're exceedingly punctual, that is, unless they don't want to do it. They can't do anything under the gun. I don't mean they don't like time limits - those don't bother them. It's when somebody is standing behind them, breathing down their neck, that they get edgy and grouchy. Nag them about something and the only thing you're going to get is an explosion and you're shit dropped, they just don't fucking care anymore.
Deadlines are guidlines. They'll get it done on time unless it isn't finished. If they finish something on time, and they aren't happy with it, nothing in the world will get them to call it good and send it out. It doesn't matter if it would make you the happiest guy in the world, it aint done yet.
They've got ADD in spades. This is a combination of wanting everything perfect and being interested in the minute details of the world. There are a lot more details than there are whoppers of generalizations. F=mA is only interesting because of the tiny little things it does, not because its interesting of itself. Details flit by them like a mass of bees, pretty and interesting and each worthy of observation and adjustment. And, as a whole, overwhelming. They want to examine each bee, figure out why it's different from the others and how it's the same. They want to spend a year, maybe two, on each one. They could spend eight lifetimes perfecting a single device. Give them something complicated, like an engine or a clock, and don't expect to see them for dinner tonight. Or tomorrow night. Or next month...
They are awkward, socially. They'll listen in on conversations and interject about a point made a half hour ago nobody remembers anymore because that's how long it took to come to a conclusion. They get a lot of "what?"
So everything must be perfect, everything needs to be understood, there is so much out there, and nobody understands that.
Frustration is inevitable. "Alone time" is cherished, perfection is cherished, and in the end it's impossible. They don't have a year for every customer, and they don't have 100 years for themselves. They undercharge because "excellent' isn't good enough and so cannot possibly be worth anything.
I'm rambling now. It's the ADD thing. Remember that? The bees? Been stuck on them for three or four paragraphs now. How much can I tell you before I need to write a book about it?
Point is, Nagging, bitching, moaning, and everything else will just make them less likely to work on your stuff. If they ignore it, eventually you will go away. They've got other things to interest them for a time, anyway.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have a screwdriver that needs polishing.
