Ya know, I could hardly sleep last night because I was so excited that the window change-out was going to be done today, with the door installation and patio done tomorrow. By this weekend, I could finish the painting project in the guest room and decide whether I'm going to use that room as my office or keep things the way they are.
When I arrived back home at noon, there were no vehicles on my property, so I assumed it was lunch break. However, once I came into my house, I realized that the project I thought would be half-finished had not been started.
No workers; no construction boss; no phone call.
At 5 PM, the doorbell rang. My first question: stitches? casts? funeral services scheduled? No? Then why the hell didn't you show up or at least give me a call to say today wasn't going to be the day?
Someone at another one of his projects stole a large, expensive piece of equipment, so he's spent the day trying to track down some people who had been at that property, including a guy another guy knew who had stayed a couple of nights, but hadn't been seen in a couple of days: yada yada yada.
And, your cell phone wasn't working all day?
Here's where my mind goes. If you don't care enough about the job to give me a courtesy call before I pay you, what's going to happen when you leave, paycheck in hand? If I have a problem with the work you do, am I going to also have problems getting you on the phone? getting you to come back to make adjustments? This isn't a big deal to anyone other than me, but I'm investing a lot of my hard-earned money into changing out these windows.
It's important to me that I'm important to you. I've already paid for all of the supplies to do the job, and you want payment in full for the labor when it's completed, but ... what if I change our agreement and don't bother to let you know that I'm not going to pay you at the close of the job as we discussed because something else came up and I already spent the money I was going to use to pay you????
And, believe me, you don't win any points for starting your side of the conversation with, "I was going to call you, but I got so busy trying to find these guys that I just forgot."
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While I agree in principle with what you say, if this is the same guy who has helped you all summer with your other projects, it seems like he should get one pass. It is not right that he didn't call you (or, likely, any of his other contracts) when he got side-tracked by this theft. But as long as he is properly apologetic and gets the job done to your satisfaction from this point forward, no harm no foul. If this turns out to be the start of issues, then you have to renegotiate the contract and/or fire his ass and hope to find another contractor.
"fluoom"
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