Everyone has seen it I think. The fire at Notre Dame. In Paris everything stood still for a moment and I think for many people in the Netherlands as well. A structure that had stood for hundreds of years was almost no longer there.
My colleague said.
Your colleague? Yes, from construction. 'Ed, there is minimalist construction. Houses from the 1930s are sinking into the ground, while the Palace on Dam Square stands on cow hides and doesn't sink a millimeter'
What does this have to do with Notre Dame
Notre Dame
That's lesson one. The magnificent building whose first stone was laid in 1163. Notre Dame took 200 years to build and in 1845 there was another restoration that lasted 23 years. Relatively little going on.
In 2019, we are also restoring and all is almost lost.
So what's the lesson? Look, it's probably just terrible bad luck, but you see it often. Working fast, time pressure, money pressure, and then quality goes down. My colleague in construction used to say, 'No one sees how long you worked on it but they see how beautiful or that it is it is.'
Lesson 1: Go for quality. Go for good people who do skilled work. Before the whole thing flops.
Lesson 2: If you want to do something do it now.
Maybe it was on your list, Notre Dame. You can't visit that one for now. It is being rebuilt, but that's not going to happen with everything. Everything decays. Even a 900-year-old building is gone one day.
Your heroes die, your children grow up (hopefully), your parents grow old (hopefully). We think everything stays that way, but it just doesn't. On the contrary, everything changes. All the empires (Roman, Ottoman) perish, all the people around you die, and all the moments you could have been a part of are gone.
Have you always wanted to step up to that one girl? Do it now. Need to make up for another argument? Do it now. Never told your parents how much you love them? Call them up.
Before everything flickers off.
And then there are no billionaires who are going to save your building.
Then it's ready...
