A long time ago, my buddy Bill recounted a story told to him by his dad—a former black hat instructor at Fort Benning. After the Army, Bill’s dad worked as an electrician on a couple of big job sites, the kind where there were a hundred plus guys doing different things, and it was normal to see huge mounds of sand and earth piled up next to one or two trailers with window air conditioners poking out the sides, jacked up on cinderblocks. He was working on a construction site like that, putting up a fifteen story building when he met a guy named Steve.

Steve was a super likable guy who recently got out of the Navy, so naturally, had a ton of excellent drinking stories involving far-off ports of call and exotic locales in the south Pacific. While he wasn’t super skilled when it came to the trades, Steve could handle a saw and a t-square, so he worked as a kind of floater—going back and forth from area to area where there was need for roughing in. Bill’s dad, who worked on wiring with a small crew of electricians, would see Steve walk by at least once a day carrying a few pieces of lumber on his shoulder. And if Steve caught eyes with Bill’s dad, he’d smile and wave at him with a few fingers, then make a beeline over to him and carefully set down his stack of 2x4s, usually leaning them up against a wall. Then he’d stand up straight and clap his hands together once and say in his aircraft carrier voice, “SO… WHAT’S GOIN’ ON GUYS?” People seemed to love the aircraft carrier voice; loved the idea of it, perhaps thinking that it magically transported them on to the deck of an aircraft carrier. Then the small group would shoot the shit for 10 or so minutes (minimum) and listen to some crazy story about a whorehouse or bar that Steve would describe in a ton of detail, often with loads of sexually charged jargon like banana hand. Then Steve would pick up his 2x4s and disappear around the corner. That went on for a whole month before Bill’s dad wondered—where did Steve walk off to, afterwards? What did he actually do with those 2x4s?

So one day, he followed Steve—up a flight of stairs and back down to the ground level, around the building, then over to the porta-potties. He saw Steve set down those 2x4s and enter one of the blue pods for 20 minutes, then come out looking very relaxed. Then Steve lit up and smoked a cigarette, waving to a couple guys as they went past. When this was done, he’d pick up the 2x4s again, and head for the stairs. Bill’s dad followed Steve up the stairs (again)—from a distance—and eventually saw him chatting up a plumber. “WHAT’S GOIN’ ON PETE?” he said to the guy, clapping his hands together. Then Pete the plumber set his tools down, and asked Steve what he thought about the probability of the Bears going to the playoffs was. And Steve answered him, but later, managed to steer the conversation back to the ocean. Somehow. He was so good at that, Bill’s dad noticed. Fucking amazing were his words. Then Steve retold the story of banana hand and the raunchy whorehouse in the Phillipines, and soon, he and Pete were rolling on the floor laughing. After thirty minutes or so of that, it was lunch time. Bill’s dad walked back downstairs—amazed. Over the next week, he developed a theory, and made it a point to do occasional Steve spot checks, to test it out. What he found out was this: Steve’s entire day was spent walking around with 2x4s, locating people / groups of people with whom he could chat up—just like Pete the plumber. He’d go up and down the stairs—never the elevator for some reason—usually remaining on the first 2 or 3 floors of the building, heading back down to the ground level every few visits for his 20 minute porta-potty intermission—and always carrying a stack of lumber over his shoulder.

By the second week, Bill’s dad decided to test a second theory. During a break, he noticed Steve walking toward the porta-potties. Just like all those other times, he set down the 2x4s, then disappeared behind the blue door of a pod. Bill’s dad jogged over, a hundred percent certain there was no chance Steve would emerge from that pod for at least 15 minutes. He pulled out a black sharpie from his pocket, and drew 3 smiley faces on the edge of each of the three 2x4s, along with a date. He was careful to make the marks in small letters, but took his time, knowing that Steve would remain in that porta-potty for a long while.

Six months later, Steve walked over to Bill’s dad’s group of electricians, and started in with a story about a group of Marines who were really into trannies. Bill’s dad stood up, eyeing the edges of Steve’s 2x4s. And right there, on every edge piece, there were three faded, but clearly visible smiley faces, along with a six month old date. Steve had devoted 100% of his time going from point to point, always appearing to be on his way to doing something productive with those goddamn 2x4s, all the while simply pantomiming the recognizable window dressing of doing work.

😬😬😬

☝🏽Interestingly, Steve predates TL;DR’ing and +1’ing and LGTM’ing and ghosting and quiet quitting by a minimum of 45 years. Which to me, strongly implies that we don’t need a larger emoji set or vocabulary to describe being lousy at doing high quality work—we just need to be better at detecting it.