My Dad was a self employed marine engine mechanic in Deerfield Beach, Florida. If you are familiar with South Florida, you know that the city is carved by canals with a boat tied to every dock.

Dad was popular. Too popular. People would call our home day and night begging him to fix their boat because they had company coming down from the north and they "needed to get out on the ocean." They never seemed to care if my dad needed a break.

When I went to college, I'd call home and ask how Dad was doing. He'd reply in a tired voice: "I'm two weeks behind." I offered him two easy fixes to the dilemma:

1. Raise your rates.
   
2. Scale your operations by hiring more labor.

"What are they teaching you at that school, how to cheat people? I'm not going to gouge my friends." As a budding economist, I found it strange that he called his customers "friends." Raising his rates was a simple fix to reduce demand for his services. He'd work the same hours, make more money, and have fewer disruptive calls to our house. Since people pay what they are willing to bear, I don't think he could "cheat" a customer by jacking his hourly rates. I never won this debate. For decades he kept his rates stable and, consequently, was always overwhelmed by demand.

His stock line of reasoning to dismiss my second recommendation to hire labor went like this:

If you want it done right, you've got to do it yourself. -- Old Salt

Dad had a pretty good internal compass and I aspire to be half the man that he was, but I never bought into this argument either. In fact, Is it even possible to become an effective project manager if you really believe that statement? Personally, I follow the 60% rule:

If a person can do the job at least 60% as well as you, let it go. -- Young Salt

Where do you fall in the old salt / young salt debate?