Look at it this way, the system was definitely broken but calling it a planned conspiracy gives those bankers way too much credit. The books show a bunch of people chasing bonuses and ignoring warnings, not some secret meeting to crash the economy. It was more like a giant game of hot potato where everyone thought they'd be the one to get out before it blew up.

Honestly, waking up in a puddle sounds like a nightmare. I can't believe a $10 tarp tore on a single rock, that's brutal. I had a cheap blue one get shredded by just some pine cones once. That Smokies trip must have been miserable.

My buddy froze his butt off too. @roberts95 is right about the EN rating.

Honestly seems like a weird thing to stress over. It's just a check getting mailed back, a normal part of the paperwork shuffle. People act like the whole home buying process is some huge dramatic event. It's mostly just signing things and waiting for checks to clear. Getting it in 5 days instead of 10 is just a minor win, not exactly life changing.

Oh man, that's such a good point. I read an article about this exact thing last week. It talked about how chasing a perfect "zero RFIs" number can just hide issues in other places, like daily logs or change orders. You're totally right, @the_jennifer, the problems don't just vanish. It feels like some teams just rename the problem to make their stats look good. Then you find out later when something gets built wrong. The real goal should be fixing the issues, not just moving them off a specific list.