In Defense of the Meat on the Bone

April 21

The saying goes that if a job’s worth doing, it’s worth doing right.

This is usually said very assumptively about what it means to do a job right: sweeping up all the bits and ends. Tools back in their places. Workplace scrubbed so clean and immaculate you could barely tell that someone had worked here at all.

Usually, people talk about a “job being done right” to often infer that the job would have been done differently in a different era, done better by a different person, someone harder working and almost certainly more ethical than you.

Of course, the person who had the job done right, they still have to commute home. They still walk in, probably a bit late, because they had to stay past closing time to get things done precisely the right way. And when their night is done, as they lay their head on the pillow, they’ll be thinking of the next day—the next job that has to be done right.

Because while there’s nothing wrong with getting the job done right, there’s always another job. Always another day. Always another work week waiting for you.

Which means if you want to get the job done right, you have to consider not just this job, but the job as a whole.

So what’s so wrong with leaving a little meat on the bone? A little something to start on the next day?

After all, no matter what you do, there’s just going to be another day after this one.

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