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Friday, April 22, 2005

7:13 a.m. - To my builder...

No, seriously mate, when I get home at 4pm and find you’ve only put 5 pieces of fir onto my house, I really can tell you’ve only been there since 2pm. I don’t need to work in the forestry industry to figure that one out. But because I do work in the forestry industry, I know that the panel in the kitchen split because you fastened it when the wood was too moist. You might think that drying the wood properly gives you an excuse for your tardiness but when you don’t give the wood time to dry, you can’t use it as an excuse.

We really don’t care that you’re late on your next job. That you promised them you’d apply for the permit but didn’t. We’re not proud of you for leaving our house to apply for their permit and we’re certainly not impressed you built yourself a sun deck on our time. We’re more pissed about the fact you took two weeks off just before Christmas to do their quote. We’re more pissed off that those two weeks cost you the best roofing weather prior to the frost when you could’ve had the house closed in to be worked on. Instead you sat in your warm office and burned music onto DVDs whilst we froze our water supply and sewer pipe in a caravan and waited till February for you to continue work. Now you have the cheek to tell me you put the siding on just in time before the bees start building a nest in the insulation. Get real man!

So in hindsight when I trusted you to stick to a reasonable timeframe – all the time knowing that you’re a contractor and I’ve met your type a thousand times before - I learned that I should stick up for what I believe in and stop listening to people who tell me I’m a pessimist. No, I’m a realist.

When you ask for every payment early because you’ve laid out money (that’s called credit by the way – businesses everywhere do it) and then we pay you, you go out and spend it on tools and toys (that’s called profit investment - it’s a decision you make on your own and we don’t force you into it)… Guess what? When we see our money getting spent on a new trailer, a new car for your girlfriend, we run out of sympathy for you. So when you asked for early payment this time, my mind went back to the early days when I asked you if you’re sure the cash flow program is OK for you. “Yes” you said. Then you signed a paper and that’s called a contract. Businesses everywhere stick to it.

When you refer to your client as “the squatters in the basement” bear this in mind. One day you’ll want to show a prospective client around the house and we wont be there and the locks will have changed. Most importantly, remember this: we own that house, we own the land and you missed out on it. Get used to it it’s ours. We’re not the squatters, you are.

Enjoy your trip to OK Falls today to look at a lot that’s twice the price of ours and with no better view and when you’ve spent your next payment…. please don’t expect me to listen to any complaints about not making any money on our house. Just remind yourself who came up with the price and that you signed the contract too and you keep spending the money.

One final word? You know that cabinet you built that is too small for our microwave? You know… the one you won’t fix. Well it’s going to be sitting on the top of my snag list and as long as that sits there, you don’t get your landscaping, you don’t get completion and you don’t get your final payment.

Hi, I’m your customer.


Anonymous Anonymous said...

LOL! Do you read ScaryDuck? http://www.scaryduck.blogspot.com - he's over here, obviously, but he has a builder, too. He's called Useless Workshy C*** of a Builder. I'm not sure if that's his legal name, or just his trading name, but I'm guessing you've been dealing with his twin brother!  


Anonymous Anonymous said...

No my love. I think they're all related. My Canadian/Yorkshireman friend pointed out that I'd probably have had an equally bad time with any builder and he's right.  


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