Just had a revealing chat with my Gran (Nana). She told me about my great grandfather who I didn’t get the chance to meet.
She said “he built this house by himself”. At first, I thought she meant we had some undiscovered family wealth and he had paid for the construction of the house.
After further discussion it turns out he was a simple Rail worker. He saved his money and bought some land. He dug the foundations and laid all the bricks entirely singly handedly in the evenings after work.
Both the house he built and the railway tracks still stand proud to this very day, more than a hundred years later.
In contrast, I ordered a new office swivel chair online last week. Myself, accompanied by two friends, multiple tool kits, as well as the might of the Information Age are currently returning, what can only be described as an unbalanced and unsittable chair to the shop in person.
Two of the employees at the shop, after several telephone calls and long periods looking at their computers have decided they are also unable to assemble said chair. They have agreed to send me a display model instead by delivery next week.
All this has left me really questioning the definition of social progress and how far apart we really are today from the “great” generation.