Contractor Kabuki

I recently read Where'd You Go, Bernadette , by Maria Semple (strongly recommend, by the way), and came across this gem about "contractor Kabuki": ...it dawned on me that Ellen Idelson was a contractor. She was performing contractor Kabuki. It's a ritual in which (a) the contractor explains in great detail the impossibility of the job you've done, (b) you demonstrate extreme remorse for even…