Been there with the home setup falling apart at the worst time. My landlord's dog chewed through the router cable during my busiest week and I caved and found a spot nearby the next day. It costs more but not dealing with that kind of chaos is worth it.

That $900 rental would've kept $900 in your pocket and saved your knees, plus rental yards usually cover the upkeep. Buying used means every breakdown is your problem now, and on a one man crew a down machine is a dead week. Selling it back for close to what you paid and renting per pour is the move.

Oh man this is so real. I used to work at a place where the guy who ran the box baler was treated like a nobody, and then he retired and stuff just piled up everywhere because nobody knew which cardboard could get recycled and which couldn't. Took them three months and two new hires to figure out that his "standing around" was actually him sorting and flattening so the truck could take it all in one go. The quiet jobs are always the ones holding everything together and nobody sees it until it breaks. Marcus sounds like a smart kid for watching the layout first instead of just copying what the old guy did. Half the time the "lazy" person is just doing a job that got stale years ago and nobody bothered to ask why.