What did he say?

I recently repaired a beautiful old rocking chair. It had splits in the wood in several locations on the left arm. It has been broken for a long time, even before we came into possession of this chair it had been damaged on the same arm. The reason I am writing about this is that it is an interesting lesson. A few years ago I stood before this chair and lamented to a hack carpenter, that I worked with at the time, that I needed to get this chair fixed, he looked at me and said, "you need to fix it, this is what we do". This has haunted me for several years, "this is what we do"... No this is not what we do. I am not a furniture guy, I am not an antique restoration guy. As it stands my repair is very rudimentary and industrial. It works, however it is not pretty. I am good at building and repairing houses, I am really good at building decks, but I am not a master furniture repairman. The lesson here is builders need to know what they are good at, and clients need to check up on over confident builders. Just because a Mr Thinks-he-can-do-it says he can do anything it does not mean he can do anything very well. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.