What is your biggest failing beyond personal?
 

With appologies to jyl I'm going to rewrite his OP in the thread, "What Is Your Biggest Personal Failing?"

I do mean what specific skill or knowledge set you might lack. Or what specific mistakes you've made in your career or marriage or life.

And this is not a question to be gamed as in a job interview. No crap like "my greatest failing? I work too hard". Thoughtful responses please.

This thread asks, simply, for you to identify the greatest deficiency in your life. Your greatest failing out in the world, or with family.

Did you miss the boat, bad timing, couldn't see the opportunity, zigged when you should have zagged, lived an unhealthy lifestyle, broke the law or even just plain got taken?

This thread should differ from the "personal" thread in that it deals with what happened or didn't happen that resulted in the one epic failure.

My own answer will come in due time.

And here is the OP from that thread for reference:

buy high and sell cheap seems to do me in the most.

Allowing an intern to perform a procedure on my son.

Leaving Ford back in March 2007 (taking the salaried employee buyout) was the worst career decision I have ever made and one that I do not know how to recover from...

not being circumcised..... its like my cuff is hanging down past my hand 24/7.

This pretty much sums it up for me...

No. Chuck Norris washes my jock strap.

I never finished my education. I got the B.S. but really wanted the PhD so I could do basic research. But I let life get in the way and here I am close to retirement and still regret it.

About nine months ago I had an extra semicolon...

I did not time the real estate bubble well enough. Wish I had not bought at the top. Lost $110k, oh well...I never really earned that money in the first place.

Well, I'd like to have a degree, but I didn't apply myself. Honestly, I enjoy what I do now, and I don't know that a degree would have gotten me here, so I don't really regret the path that my life has taken, but it would be nice to have a degree. I'm too smart not to have one.

I wish I'd have been smarted with my money. I should be in a better position now that I am. I'm actually doing pretty well, but I should be doing much, much better.

Not taking that job in 1972 that my then new wife objected to because we would have had to move to Alaska for a few years.

Biggest mistake I have ever made is to let customers and employees slide on terms and conditions. Never works. Kind but firm always works.

I married way too young. Not enough experience with women, in the world, didn't have a chance to explore who I was or what I wanted to do. Yes, I ended up with two great kids but I also spent my 20's and 30's and even early 40's in a marriage with no passion, no joy beyond the children and no personal growth beyond the traditional mundane saving for retirement, having a nice home, nice comfortable job, bleh. Makes me want to kick myself again thinking about it. Thanks for asking :-)

Dude, that's some funny self effacing scheit! SmileWavy

My contribution is yet forthcoming, but I think one of the major factors is that fork in the road.

Apply to anyone else?

Yeah, I get the fork in the road kind of thing. I've had many. I've always taken the path of least resistance.

I applied to only one college. I went to the same school that my parent and all of my aunts and uncles went to. By August of my senior year of high school, I knew where I was going to college and had a much lower stress year than many of my classmates.

My sophomore year of college, I was considering transferring to U of I to finish my degree. I ultimately decided against it because I'd have to start all over at a new school. Was it the right decision? I have no idea, but my current employer employs a lot of people from U of I and I did pay much less for my degree.

I was considering law school after I graduated. Had a great business law professor who got me really interested in the subject. I never pursued it. I never even looked at any law schools.

I accepted the first job offer I got. Heck, I never even sent out any resumes. I got a phone call for an interview in August of my senior year, made it through three rounds of interviews, and accepted a job offer by September. My dad had quit his job at IBM in 1980 over some minor dispute with his boss. 20 years later and he had 3 failed companies to his name and couldn't hold a job with someone else because he bristled not be able to do everything his own way. I was looking for stability and signed on with a company that is uber stable.

How would my life be if I graduated from a different college? Got a law degree? Got hired by a dot com that went bust and set me on a roller coaster career path? I don't know.

I started repairing bicycles when I was 12. I maintained my race kart at 14. My dad couldn't have adjusted the chain, let alone tune the thing. I always worked with my hands and tools. I ended up working for race car people, Mickey Thompson being one of the more well known. Lots of car stuff, very little money.

Someone interested me in some construction type work in my mid 20's. Much better money and a lot of pride in workmanship back in the late 60's and 70's. I worked my way through the basic trades used in home improvement and ended up a general contractor. I did delve into commercial work for a few years, but it was more about the business and less about the quality. Some pretty rough people too, when it got time to be paid. I stayed over on the residential side eventually getting into doors and windows for 25 of the 40 years spent.

I learned from the older trades guys before me, many of whom started out right after WWII. I admired these men for their ethics and ability and even their rougher way of life. I noticed that they got respect and when they got on in years they cherry picked their work never lacking for a job. Word of mouth. I figured someday I would be in their position and reap the benefits of working hard and honestly for literally 1000's of folks and a few bosses.

Things changed in the trades and this is not the thread to discuss that. It's the crappiest business to be in unless your job is to clean out crappers. That was my bad choice, to go into construction even though I've had a good run. But, I wouldn't advise the trades to any young person. I don't care about whatever shortage there may be, it's all about being exploited now with no respect.

Back in those race car days I worked with some phenomenal people. Fabricators that made the Chip Fooses of the world look like a cartoon. People that could build a tube frame car with the frame being a masterpiece of a sculpture worthy of display as art. They could form a body around the frame out of flat sheets of aluminum that were granite straight and beautifully curved. No fillers. I could have learned those trades from those men instead.

You know who is getting the respect, the word of mouth, and the decent pay today, don't you? I sure don't see anyone standing in a Home Depot parking lot looking for a job as a custom car or race car builder.

zero artistic craftsman like ability; can't weld

I need a Bridgeport just to do woodworking