No Good Deeding Nice Guys finish first, or go unpunsihed
Posted: Thu May 12, 2005 10:57 am
Warning: This is a long, off topic rant with mispelled words, bad gramar, and it's a downer to boot.
Don't Mix business with pleasure
Truer words were hardly ever spoken.
I could be the frigin poster child
for these slogans.
Lessen learned the hard way.
I can't go into all the details
for legal reasons. Sufice to say,
that it cost me $20,000 over the
course of 6 months. The guy blew up my motor,
wrecked my hydrolics, trailer leans now,.. I could go on.
A frigin Nightmare.
I will never hire a friend, or
go into a partnership with a friend
again.
It would have been cheaper to park the rig,
for 6 month and go fishing with the friend.
I think I showed extreme loyalty to him.
I didn't look at him as just an employee.
He was paid a higher rate, because he was a friend.
300 sign on Bonus, paid Holidays (after 1 week!), pay increases,
health, dental, comp.I even restored his rental house
that he was trying to sell, FREE OF CHARGE!
(I have a trucking business and Live in Florida, but I'm also a licenced
California General Contractor. I pay $150 every 4 years to keep it
legal in case I ever move back.) So I know a little about building houses.
When I used to build houses I took a lot of pride in my work.
You've seen some of the amps I've built, I still take pride
in my work.
His house that I fixed up, had been trashed by renters.
I R&R his front door with a beautiful Stainglass on White door, replaced electrical fixtures,repaired drywall, textured, repaired stocco, and put in new casings. The house was built shoddy, even though it looked new.
So every task I did for him, was twice as hard.
For example:
- Both sides of the door were out of plane, and the header was too high.
Instead of fixing it at the framing stage by furring it down, and usinging a
long level and/or line to make it right, the builder just mixed a bag of morter (he probably had laying around), and just poured a mound of it
at the threshold, and the set the door's threshold on the mound.
I wasn't sealed right and huge ant/termites? were liveing under the treshold that was wobbly and leaning at a 45 Degree angle.
It was a bitch. I had to chisle out the treshold, fur down the header,
drywall and texture,repair stucco, replace the casing, and paint.
I told him I had a masonary blade, and that I could snap a line and
cut the stucco to the new opening before hand, but Mr. Know it all wanted the casing to be bent to the old. Becasue he didn't listen to me, I had to chisle it out later,when he realized what I had tried to explain to him. I went to home Depot, got a new casing, and fixed it. I even paid for the frigin casing.
(I never told him that I paid for a new one, because I wanted
him to think I removed and reused the old one with out a scratch.
Plus I didn;t want him to feel bad. He SAID he used to be a carpenter, so I thought I'd play this trick on him) I never told him I paid for them, but he found the old ones in my garage later.
- Most Switch Plates were loose, sticking out, and or mismatched
I replaced all the plates that were off white, with matching white ones
and fixed the way the boxes were mounted. All gaps were fixed.
- Electrical fixtures weren't even mouted on the boxes, and wiring was suspect.
I know those over mirror lights are lightweight, but they put
that metal box in the wall behind it for a reason. I properly
grounded and mounted everything. Incuding all new celing
fans for the whole house, and fixed his GFI circuit.
I also fixed the laundry, and refrgerator hook ups, and
repaired and retextured the drywall around it for painting.
If he wasn't a friend, I could have easily charged
around 1500, to 2,000 dollars for what I did.
Instead, I did as an act of friendship, free of charge.
When I was done with his house, he raised his asking price
$5000 dollars, and got his asking price within a week.
When I was done, that house looked better than new, like a model home.
It was the hot property in that area according some kind of
ranking system used by the local Real Estate Salespeople.
(That's what his realtor told him anyway)
Even though the offer was accepted, it took a month for it to close.
The party he was going to throw (for selling the house), was postponed.
I was invited to that party, of course.
but then..
Our neighbor accross the street says He'll throw the party, but
I'm not invited because some friend of his doesn't like me. If it
was any other party I wouldn't have cared, but after doing all
that work for free, I felt betrayed, and humiliated.
BTW - He thinks all the work I did was only worth about 200.00
So add unappreciated to that list.
I think if you do too much for people, it must be a little overwhelming.
It sure as hell didn't instill much loyalty.
As soon as the truck came back from Cummins, ($8300 later)
He advises me that he will be taking a month off. He had only worked for me for 6 months at this point.
I told him I couldn't afford, and He quit. I had three amps to finish,
and worked the night and day dworking 2 jobs until they were done.
It was exhausting.
Amp building is now only a hobby, because I'm back in the truck.
But now that he lost all my gravy runs, I'm not making as much and
had to take a 2nd mortgage on my house.
I'm looking to sell my rig, and find a company driving job.
Maybe there's someone out there looking for an Intelligent, honest person, who extremly loyal, who has a CDL with all endorsements, knows how to build a house, and Can build a kick ass Marshal Clone, and not a half bad player either. I don't know what job out there combines those skills, if there is one.
There's good news. I now know who my true firends are,
and because of the loss, I'll qualify for the EIC for the first time.
WOOHOO!
Rant Over
Don't Mix business with pleasure
Truer words were hardly ever spoken.
I could be the frigin poster child
for these slogans.
Lessen learned the hard way.
I can't go into all the details
for legal reasons. Sufice to say,
that it cost me $20,000 over the
course of 6 months. The guy blew up my motor,
wrecked my hydrolics, trailer leans now,.. I could go on.
A frigin Nightmare.
I will never hire a friend, or
go into a partnership with a friend
again.
It would have been cheaper to park the rig,
for 6 month and go fishing with the friend.
I think I showed extreme loyalty to him.
I didn't look at him as just an employee.
He was paid a higher rate, because he was a friend.
300 sign on Bonus, paid Holidays (after 1 week!), pay increases,
health, dental, comp.I even restored his rental house
that he was trying to sell, FREE OF CHARGE!
(I have a trucking business and Live in Florida, but I'm also a licenced
California General Contractor. I pay $150 every 4 years to keep it
legal in case I ever move back.) So I know a little about building houses.
When I used to build houses I took a lot of pride in my work.
You've seen some of the amps I've built, I still take pride
in my work.
His house that I fixed up, had been trashed by renters.
I R&R his front door with a beautiful Stainglass on White door, replaced electrical fixtures,repaired drywall, textured, repaired stocco, and put in new casings. The house was built shoddy, even though it looked new.
So every task I did for him, was twice as hard.
For example:
- Both sides of the door were out of plane, and the header was too high.
Instead of fixing it at the framing stage by furring it down, and usinging a
long level and/or line to make it right, the builder just mixed a bag of morter (he probably had laying around), and just poured a mound of it
at the threshold, and the set the door's threshold on the mound.
I wasn't sealed right and huge ant/termites? were liveing under the treshold that was wobbly and leaning at a 45 Degree angle.
It was a bitch. I had to chisle out the treshold, fur down the header,
drywall and texture,repair stucco, replace the casing, and paint.
I told him I had a masonary blade, and that I could snap a line and
cut the stucco to the new opening before hand, but Mr. Know it all wanted the casing to be bent to the old. Becasue he didn't listen to me, I had to chisle it out later,when he realized what I had tried to explain to him. I went to home Depot, got a new casing, and fixed it. I even paid for the frigin casing.
(I never told him that I paid for a new one, because I wanted
him to think I removed and reused the old one with out a scratch.
Plus I didn;t want him to feel bad. He SAID he used to be a carpenter, so I thought I'd play this trick on him) I never told him I paid for them, but he found the old ones in my garage later.
- Most Switch Plates were loose, sticking out, and or mismatched
I replaced all the plates that were off white, with matching white ones
and fixed the way the boxes were mounted. All gaps were fixed.
- Electrical fixtures weren't even mouted on the boxes, and wiring was suspect.
I know those over mirror lights are lightweight, but they put
that metal box in the wall behind it for a reason. I properly
grounded and mounted everything. Incuding all new celing
fans for the whole house, and fixed his GFI circuit.
I also fixed the laundry, and refrgerator hook ups, and
repaired and retextured the drywall around it for painting.
If he wasn't a friend, I could have easily charged
around 1500, to 2,000 dollars for what I did.
Instead, I did as an act of friendship, free of charge.
When I was done with his house, he raised his asking price
$5000 dollars, and got his asking price within a week.
When I was done, that house looked better than new, like a model home.
It was the hot property in that area according some kind of
ranking system used by the local Real Estate Salespeople.
(That's what his realtor told him anyway)
Even though the offer was accepted, it took a month for it to close.
The party he was going to throw (for selling the house), was postponed.
I was invited to that party, of course.
but then..
Our neighbor accross the street says He'll throw the party, but
I'm not invited because some friend of his doesn't like me. If it
was any other party I wouldn't have cared, but after doing all
that work for free, I felt betrayed, and humiliated.
BTW - He thinks all the work I did was only worth about 200.00
So add unappreciated to that list.
I think if you do too much for people, it must be a little overwhelming.
It sure as hell didn't instill much loyalty.
As soon as the truck came back from Cummins, ($8300 later)
He advises me that he will be taking a month off. He had only worked for me for 6 months at this point.
I told him I couldn't afford, and He quit. I had three amps to finish,
and worked the night and day dworking 2 jobs until they were done.
It was exhausting.
Amp building is now only a hobby, because I'm back in the truck.
But now that he lost all my gravy runs, I'm not making as much and
had to take a 2nd mortgage on my house.
I'm looking to sell my rig, and find a company driving job.
Maybe there's someone out there looking for an Intelligent, honest person, who extremly loyal, who has a CDL with all endorsements, knows how to build a house, and Can build a kick ass Marshal Clone, and not a half bad player either. I don't know what job out there combines those skills, if there is one.
There's good news. I now know who my true firends are,
and because of the loss, I'll qualify for the EIC for the first time.
WOOHOO!
Rant Over
