Some things just take time. And there is nothing you can do about it.
Sitting in the emergency room this week, waiting for my finger to be put back together, I started thinking about how often shortcuts end up taking more time… or worse.
I’ll omit the go
ry picture here (if you follow my Instagram you saw it there). This is the direct result of skipping safety for a “quick, easy cut” on a table saw. It’s amazing how fast something can go terribly wrong. Admittedly, it could have been much worse. I will likely have full use of my finger and I might even grow a nail back. My hand modeling career may be over, but, hey, chicks dig scars, right?
My first thought was that I was not going to get the job that I was working on done today. This was just going to take too much of my time. I went to urgent care first. They laughed at me and sent me to the ER. The doctor in the ER was a surgeon and was able to rebuild my nail bed and cuticle and stitch everything back together. I even have a temporary fingernail that he told me is made of Adamantium.
I saved less than 10 seconds by not using the blade guard or grabbing the push stick and 
using it. I spent the next 6 hours in, or traveling to, the hospital. I am now working a lot slower and it took me two more days to finish a project I would have finished within the hour. It did get finished by the way and I moved on to the next project. Summer is filled with two things – procrastination and home projects to complete before school starts again.
The time that little shortcut cost me is still adding up.
I often have several partially completed projects in the works. I try to get things done quickly so I can move on to the next item on my long list of things to do. I can’t count the times I have seen something done hastily (by myself or others) that has to be redone repeatedly, and too soon, because it wasn’t done well.
It would serve us all well to follow the example of Maj. Charles Emerson Winchester III; “I do one thing at a time. I do it very well, and then I move on.”
How long will it take me to fully recover? It takes 3 months, 3 weeks, and 3 days for a fingernail to grow out (a little known fact I learned from an ER nurse).
Truth be told, the lesson learned may be worth the time lost, but I hope I can avoid having to learn it again. Be careful. Be accurate. Quality and safety over speed. I’m still tackling my projects, one at a time, and not taking any shortcuts. By the way, I reinstalled the blade guard on my table saw. I highly recommend not removing that.
