so...

I wasn't talking about your co-worker when I mentioned the fence and the carpenter, I was talking about an idiot who helped us put up a fence at our expense when I stayed the weekend with my parents, only to fuck everything up - He should have listened to me when I said to space the pickets for the expansion caused when they absorb moisture - also, measure from the ground to 6 feet up in various spots, because the fence was on a hill.

Not only are the boards crooked as fuck and many are even splitting after barely 2 months, but the idiot carpenter didn't even measure from the ground so he had to cut off the entire top of the fence and now you can just casually walk up and look into my father's neighbor's yard, or vice-versa, even though it was supposed to be a 6-foot privacy fence.

Not to mention, the dirtbag was only 'helping' us because the neighbor, who was actually kind of helping build the fence, decided to have him on board to save time. Do things quick and shitty instead of doing it right, and this is the result. When I gave this advice, which was backed by basic scientific knowledge, which he clearly lacked, and later my theory that the boards would split held up very soon, he promptly said "I've been a carpenter for 45 years kid, I think I know what I'm doing."

So that was how we ended up building a shitty fence with shit tons of split pickets and no weatherproofing because they refused to paint it or get pressure treated wood and refused to space the wood to avoid the applied pressure from the expansion of the wooden. Great job, 45-years of carpentry really made you a great fence builder. Bravo.

Since then, whenever my father mentions any work that he needs my help with, I refuse if he is going to be also getting help from the neighbors or random people because he lives in a neighborhood full of idiots who don't listen to reason and have their heads so far up their asses that there's no point even trying to work with them.

Every time I visit, I'm reminded of why I'm so happy I moved out when I was 18 - not just because of the friction my family had at the time, but also because of the shitty community.

Couldn't resist