You know when you know.

You know those times when your gut tells you.. you are right, and you KNOW you are right, but someone is trying to convince you that you are the one mistaking and fusing over nothing, and you start to think it’s maybe YOU???? Well it happened to me recently. I was trying out a new subcontractor. They actually came to me from a couple of good referrals. …

I met them on the job. They seemed reasonable, said all the right things, seemed eager to help out, indicated their reputation was of "upmost importance" and told me “don’t worry about anything, we will do a good job for you." I asked how they deal with call backs or any quality issues. Again they said "don’t worry. It’s our job to make my customer and me happy, they would do what it takes."

Ok, stop right there, is what I should have said. This is where my old time tested and very true phrase should have come into play. That phrase is “show me, don’t tell me”.

Well as you can tell by now, we did have an issue. Was it a drastic or the job comes to a screeching halt type of issue? No. But it was an issue where the individual’s character had a chance to shine or become a dull blot on my “do not call again” list.

Without getting into too much detail, it was an issue of a visual detail and of quality, or lack of quality workmanship.

I told him what was wrong. I told him what I would do to fix it. I gave him a chance to respond.

His response was to shrug his shoulders, tell me in his eyes it was perfect, I had to accept some of these things, and after all, what did I want him to do? Do it over he asked? He then went on to say it had to be that way, things move, things have to have room to expand and contract, after all he had been at this for many years and basically, he didn’t say this, but my feeling was his opinion was "I am just a dumb carpenter."

Well I knew right away I was getting nowhere with him. His ego was in charge and he knew best over anyone else. We politely shook hands and he went on his way. I knew then I would not have him come back. Once an attitude and ego get in the way, the fix usually causes more problems then the original infraction.

Well I stewed on it a couple days. Adam and I discussed it, the customer by this time voiced concerns and I knew it wasn’t just going to go away.

As usual with any job, when you are on the home stretch, that is when your time is most precious. We want to finish strong. A myriad of things need to get done. The customers are anxious to get done and we just don’t need any more delays.

BUT….

This had to be fixed. So yesterday I dug into it and found exactly what he had said "was impossible," after all he did it himself!

Well the impossible was possible. We changed what had to be changed and it's now looking pretty good. We need to finish it tomorrow and Monday and we will be back on track. I really hate it when someone tries to pull that stuff. You don’t want to get into a war of words but sometimes I want to tell people….” Hey, I was born on a Monday, but it wasn’t last Monday.”

You know, we are not perfect. But I really try to admit when I am wrong and come up with a good plan of attack to remedy what needs fixing. None of us ever want to be told we are wrong, or told something we did just doesn’t cut it. But when we are, we need to accept the truth and do what is right.

My subcontractor just didn’t understand how inexpensive the fix would have been compared to how much future work he will now not have from us.

Always go with your gut!

~The Carpenter