Brion Vibber wrote:
There's less weakness in admitting a failure
honestly, retreating and
regrouping, than in powering through when knowing oneself unprepared.
After months of complaints from tenants and from a few neighbors, the
landlord of a large building decides to replace the roof of the building.
In the process of removing the old roof, the landlord realizes that it's a
really big job and that he won't be able to properly replace the roof
quickly. Scrambling, he then asks a few of the building tenants to come up
with a plan for an interim roof, because whoa, an open roof leaves you
susceptible to rain and birds and other problematic elements. And this is
a large and expensive building that lots of people rely on, so an interim
roof is definitely needed pretty soon.
Sure, we can commend the landlord for recognizing that the old roof needed
to be replaced. And we can commend him for realizing that he alone can't
speedily fix the roof himself; he needs additional help to finish this big
job. But that doesn't absolve the landlord of negligence. Removing a roof
has very predictable consequences that any landlord should be able to
foresee and account for. Removing a roof without also having a plan for an
interim roof is a really amateur mistake. Perhaps landlords of smaller
buildings could get away with this kind of mistake, but it's unacceptable
for a landlord of a large building to be turning to the tenants to ask
them to fix the problem. Yes, the tenants were the ones complaining for a
new roof, but it's the landlord's responsibility to have the roof replaced
in a professional and orderly way.
MZMcBride