Fulfilling your dream of living in a house inside a gated quiet community in Florida, of waking up early in the morning having a beautiful view of your backyard facing the golf course, one wonders: what is there not to like?
But after the ecstasy, reality starts to kick in gradually.
You have a tiny issue with a drywall and the stucco. Please be happy if you find a vendor, who happens to handle the stucco and the drywall.
Oh, and that beautiful garden. You cannot wait to talk to the landscaper. Those fragrant lavenders you think will look gorgeous. You expect the landscaper to also take care of the lawn, the fertilizers to the sod, control the weed, manage the irrigation system.
“I only do my part!”, says the landscaper gracefully and smiley.
“Could you please be so kind so as to clarify that?”, I politely asked while mentally burning inside.
“We do not mow or fertilize your lawn. Neither do we manage the irrigation system or deal with the weed.”
So that was that. Obviously, it did not work out for us.
I understand the concept of labor specialization and how it creates more jobs and might increase productivity in a global scale but I cannot stop wondering about the negative impact of such organizational structure.
What happened to the multidisciplinary handymen? Too many lawsuits filed against them?
Even the construction site next to our home had so many subcontractors. Each one responsible for a tiny part of the work.
“May I talk to the superintendent of the site, please?, I desperately asked to a vendor when I realized that there were lots of dirt interfering with our back garden.
“I am sorry. I do not know who he is.”
“Who knows?”, I asked.
“I do not know anybody else here.”
So the labor specialization has its flaws. And since each vendor does only his/her part, nobody is responsible for the whole.
Thus, either you do the services yourself, be patient enough that one tiny issue might take weeks to be resolved at your home, leave the issue non resolved or go back to live in an apartment.
