During my time living in Europe, I noticed that while larger construction efforts took months (since they kinda have to), smaller day-scale projects easily took

During my time living in Europe, I noticed that while larger construction efforts took months (since they kinda have to), smaller day-scale projects easily took inside of a day, whereas similar scale projects in the US stretch for weeks. My friends who work construction in the US say that contractors routinely do a job wrong the first time, throw some apprentice under the bus regarding the "mistake", and ask for more money to re-do it. It's a common way of milking contracts and happens everywhere all the time. Their experiences are in large (hotels, hospitals, every school in a certain district, etc.) contracts, not the domain of your neighborhood general contractor. I can't speak to the relative prevalence in Europe but anecdotally I was always pleasantly surprised by how quickly those jobs got finished. One notable exception is the new housing being thrown up quickly in metro areas of the US. Sometimes they still progress in fits and starts but sometimes they go up super quick too.