Yardman Art on driveway

Friday morning about 830am phone rings and it is a local lady calling to ask if I would come by and look at her driveway to see if I could straighten out what a yardman had done to it. She went on to tell me that she was trying to get her place looking nice for her granddaughter’s 16th birthday party. Her granddaughter lives in another town and would be coming with her family for the party and their July 4th celebration. More family would also be in attendance of the party and 4th celebration. She just wanted me to come look to see if I could improve it some and she would like to try to get it done next week since it was too late to have it cleaned for the party and 4th celebration. I told her that I would get by there, have a look and call her back. Well, she only lives a mile from me so after getting off the phone with her, I decided to just run up and have a look at it. I jumped in the truck and was there in a couple of minutes…and I COULD NOT BELIEVE what I saw. Just about the biggest dog mess that I have ever seen…I was stunned that this man did this to this driveway. Anyway, I did not even get out of the truck, I called her and asked if it would be ok if I went ahead and cleaned that up right then and she was surprised and said that would be fine if I didn’t mind doing that. I didn’t mind at all, my son and i were supposed to be leaving to go to our place at the lake…but he would just have to wait a couple of hours for me to get that cleaned up as I was not going to let that driveway stay that way for the party and the family celebration of the 4th. I went home, got the wash truck and trailer and went back and took care of that. To say she was grateful, is an understatement and to say that I was more than happy to do it for her is also an understatement. I also got her patio, patio furniture and a parking pad in front of a detached garage type building at the rear of her property…

The driveway was about 2600sq ft and the entirety was covered with those squiggly lines…they were all over it. This driveway was poured at different times, the original part is real white concrete and the new part…you can see the line where it was connected, is real gray…not sure what the difference is, but I have seen it on other drives before.

Before
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After
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Haha :joy::joy: oh boy!

I just don’t get people. Even if you don’t know what you’re doing and, you use the red tip, would you notice after the first minute of doing a small area that it’s just not going to work? I did a house last year that was similar but was the homeowner who did it. He’s a doctor so couldn’t be some dummy. Anyways, he calls and says he usually cleans everything on his own but doesn’t have time. I show to take a look and there are squiggly lines all over the walkway, composite deck, driveway, back patio, retaining wall, and even on the top of the jacuzzi cover. Like I said earlier I get that some people have no idea what they’re doing but it doesn’t take much common sense to realize it’s just not gonna work.

Driveway looks great Jim! Good for you for taking the time and fixing it for her before her company showed up for the 4th. I bet she was absolutely thrilled.

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I think more often than not it’s people just being stingy, “I could buy a brand new pressure washer for the same price” mentality. This is only concrete though, imagine what the cowboys in the building, plumbing and electrical industries get up to lol, makes you wonder huh

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Man, next time, don’t wait to take you son to the lake. That’s just some dirty concrete. It won’t hurt a thing for it to stay like that for a day or a decade.

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Customer for life!

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Same happened with that tennis court I did, some doctor guy decided to “make it look better” with a white tip and well…what a mess.

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Common sense isn’t common. It blows my mind at some of the things people do in general. Yeah I’m with you on the whole after about 100sqft I’d been like well not my specialty.

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@PWP5gpm I’m of the belief that you can be a lawyer, doctor, dentist etc and still be an idiot because your trained common sense in that chosen field that you’ve chosen to learn. I know a father and son that have a law firm that have sunk 2 boats in 5 years out in the open water, they hit the same rock twice, when questioned how it happend they said they didn’t see it, the rock was most likely there the same time dinosaurs roamed the planet and it was all new to them twice in a row, they’ve fished the same area for over 20 years.

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You weren’t there darn rock took a jump in front of them… Honestly that’s scary they’re even allowed in open waters. Yeah I’ve met men who can lay out the laws of physics from memory but couldn’t change a wiper blade. The bad part about it is that people with common sense can learn and those who don’t have it seem to never obtain it. Maybe it’s genetics?

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This happens very often… I just don’t get it. The older I become the more I appreciate someone who specializes in there own craft!

I got this email from a guy in my city, I rank #1 so he was looking for someone to do a good job for him then comes the plot twist… after some pics and emails, I affirm him that his brick can be cleaned no problem… then he responded this

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As most have posted…you just have to wonder if the fact that what they are doing is not working ever registers with these people…it just makes no sense. I know that I frequently tell people that ask for estimates that I can’t do their job because I don’t have the right equipment (mostly stucco) or that a job is too large for me to do timely or efficiently as I work by myself.

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Haha it could very well be genetic. They say in order to be old and wise you must first be young and dumb, some just don’t transition :joy:.

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I’ll be honest. I did a concrete job once as a favor. I’d never done it before. I grabbed red tip for about 2 seconds at back of house in a corner. Soon as I seen the stream i knew that wasn’t gonna work. Learned my lesson fast. Common sense helps. And is hard to find people with it at times. But sometimes its a matter of just caring about what you do and wanting it to be done right. If it isn’t working step back and reevaluate.

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The more education you have, the less street smarts are available.

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There are all types of intelligence. I know some very intelligent people who just are not mechanically/technically inclined in any way. It is frustrating trying to talk them through very basic tech tasks, and have them just not get it. I try my best not to judge, though. Because on the flip side, they might talk to me about things that are very basic to them, and they go right over my head.

As far as why someone won’t have the sense to give up when results are lacking, I think it has more to do with tunnel vision driven by pride and/or ignorance. For lack of a better term, I would call it a form of perseveration. It’s the messed up stepbrother to perseverance.

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1m

yep, that’s what they think. then they use it one time and it sits in the shed for 1 year then when attempt to use it the next time its locked up. First of all you don’t know what you are doing and your using mickey mouse equipment. it will never look the way it should, to get professional results, hire a professional!!

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As a guy who has studied how people learn, I would not be quick to cast these judgements. Lots of varieties of human beings. I’ve met engineers who can build anything they draw up and other ones that couldn’t boil water without a guide.

If I take my master’s degree and my PW rig to the convenience store I can buy a cup of coffee for $1.89. It isn’t good coffee, but it is very hot.

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STUPID
adjective

  1. having or showing a great lack of intelligence or common sense.

“I was stupid enough to think she was perfect”

Maybe stupid is the right term.

here is a wiki cut and paste and a good reason for me not to get into this. Philosophers “coined” the term.

It was at the beginning of the 18th century that this old philosophical term first acquired its modern English meaning: “Those plain, self-evident truths or conventional wisdom that one needed no sophistication to grasp and no proof to accept precisely because they accorded so well with the basic (common sense) intellectual capacities and experiences of the whole social body.”[9] T