A bad workman blames his tools

It is so nice to come across one of these wise phrases that cannot injure me in the ego. Everyone in the past seems to have spent his time in coining phrases that appear to be mainly intended to make me feel like crawling back under the stone from which I had just crawled out. This one, though, was a pleasure to read -  'A bad workman blames his tools' - because this was one I could always point at someone else happily, with the sublime confidence that no-one could point it at me.

There you go, misunderstanding my meaning as usual and muttering about swollen-headed idiots who overestimate how good they are. The problem with you is that you are totally lacking in analytical thinking. The moment I say you cannot apply something about a 'bad workman' to me, you go thinking that I consider myself a 'good workman'. It never crosses your mind to think that to be any sort of workman at all one should, in the first place...ah! NOW the light dawns...exactly! How can I be a bad workman if I never DO any work?

Though, to be sure, I find it difficult to actually use this against people. Too much empathy, that's my problem. If I were to work, like say carpentry, I am sure that my chisels would be blunt, the wood rotten and the varnish too dilute...all to explain why my chairs look like pieces of useless lumber in someone's scrapyard. If I took to plumbing, it is those stupid spanners and low quality pipes and valves that are the reason why the taps weep so inconsolably. If I were a...(Oh, you got the point? How was I to know that you had such an acute intelligence?)

You know what...this chap who coined this phrase, he was not really holistic in his approach. I mean, blaming tools is all right but what about suppliers, customers, subordinates, bosses? It is all that technical outlook to life in those times, I tell you. They completely forget the human element and thereby miss a rich variety of reasons why work can get messed up, without you being at fault.

I am more intelligent than that chap, much though my friends may like to say that the only difference between a snail and me is that the snail is more intelligent. But, then, THEY base their opinion on the fact that I do not understand the books they read while I KNOW it is all the authors' fault that they do not keep their vocabulary down to the kindergarten levels. AND it is obvious that one cannot write for those few eccentrics, who seem to speak of vague terms like infinitives, gerunds, participles, tenses and all, owing to a childhood misspent by reading 'Wren and Martin' when they could have usefully played marbles, instead.

With everyone and his uncle, not to mention aunt, getting on and mouthing off on social media, what a good thing it is that I do not do any work. Otherwise...