For most businessmen, it is the bottom line that counts and little else seems to matter. My father was one of those contractors—he felt anything that was not putting mud on the wall was a waste of time, or even worse, just useless overhead. I once asked about estimating projects, as I was an estimator. He said he understood the unfortunate necessity of estimating but that I was just adding cost and cutting into any potential profit. The only time I was of real value to the company was when I was putting mud on the wall.
I would think most people reading this would agree that is an extreme take on business principles and value, but that kind of thinking always made me wonder, could he be right? I have been around long enough and been involved with projects from small patch jobs to multi-million dollar projects with plaster/drywall, and I can tell you my father was wrong, dead wrong.