Our “She’ll Be Right” Is Seldom Found To Be Wrong

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29194, 3 May 1960, Page 16

Our “She’ll Be Right” Is Seldom Found To Be Wrong

(New Zealand Press Association)

TIMARU, May 2. The "She’ll be right,” "near “nough,” "she’ll do” attitude, which has become part of New Zealand life, and has been fiercely decried, particularly by visitors to the country, was defended in Timaru today by the New Zealand Commissioner for Apprenticeship (Mr H. C. McQueen). He says the man who completes a job with a “she’ll b' right,” invariably means that bis work is as good as he can make it—not. as his words might suggest, that he had no interest at all in the job and rushed it through in slip-shod or haphazard fashion.

“It’s all a matter of modesty,” he says. “The New Zealander won’t boast, and he has done a pretty good job.” Right—To a “Thou”

Mr McQueen illustrated his point with the following anecdote:— “A man walked into a motor shop and asked if a job he had commissioned had been finished, and if it were ‘well done.’ ”

“Oh, itj near enough,” said the engineer. Customer: How good is “near enough? Engineer: It’s accurate to a thou (thousandth of an inch). Customer: Oh, that’s near enough for me. “The New Zealander won’t boast about the quality of his work,” said Mr McQueen. “Persons coming here from overseas fail to appreciate this and -are often shocked by our. ‘she’ll be right’ ” Adaptability Praised “The New Zealander is adaptable, too. He can tackle jobs big in size but small in number, which would not warrant a firm in the United Kingdom tooling up specially for them. He has proved his worth on such smallrun jobs. “That is the kind of adaptability for which New Zealanders are known throughout the world,” said Mr McQueen. “They can do. and are doing, jobs which would be regarded as marvellous in any advertising country—l’m not talking about the United States, of course.”