I think it's some universal quality of father-son work that, regardless of stations in life, dads will call their sons out on whatever they're doing and sons will fumble around like they're 10.
Yeah, no matter who you are or what you do, if you're a son, dad will always be better. And if he's not, it feels like the world might collapse under your feet at any moment.
My dad has never had a good relationship with his own father. Some years ago, they tried hanging out for a while, to work on a Challenger granddad had bought, like they had in long ago days. And it took about a day before dad realized that his old man had no idea what he was doing. But he never really liked the idea anyway, and gave up on it.
For the past few weeks, dad's been helping his mother move into a new house (it's worth mentioning, granddad and grandma divorced about forty years ago). He didn't expect me to come over and help, since I basically move furniture everyday anyway, but I came over to help on a weekend, when he would fixing up her deck furniture. He enlisted me to sand the wood, while he painted. Two things changed that day. I was actually doing too good a job, sanding smoother than necessary (and thus wasting time). But more importantly, for the first time ever, I realized I was stronger than my dad. Since I'm a 24 year old professional truck-loader and he's 52 with a bum leg, that shouldn't be surprising. I don't know if he noticed, but it was a very unsettling moment for me.
Not that it really should be, since it's perfectly natural. I can fit this into the happy thread by saying that over the last few years, when hanging out with my father, I finally feel less like a little kid trying to act grown up, and more like one man spending time with another. And even if he's a crippled 52 year old pothead, he's in remarkably good shape, as is his 75 year old mother, who has just now started looking old for the first time in her life. I've got some durable genes.