Editor’s Note: Bob Brisky, who authored this article for the April 2003 edition of Frame Building News, was NFBA Board Chair for 2002-2003. At that time, he was the President of Fingerlakes Construction in Clyde, New York.
By Bob Brisky
Have you ever had a job that was awarded to your company and then said to yourself, “I never should have taken this job, I should have walked away”? I recently had a job that I should have walked a way from, but didn’t. It started like this:
An experienced salesperson that works at our company came into my office and said he sold a carport, a small $5,000 job, to a customer in a nearby town that he felt may be a problem customer. He wondered if I would advise him to walk away from the job because of the way the customer was demanding so much of his time. He felt the customer would be a problem all through the job.
Our salespersons are paid mainly by commission, hence his reason to even sell the job in the first place, no matter how demanding the customer was.
The salesperson went on to tell me the customer informed him that he sued the last contractor that worked for him, and the one before that, and the one before that. “Great, a challenge, I love challenges, that’s why I’m a contractor,” I said to myself. “He won’t sue us; we do good work and treat our customers fairly. We won’t have a problem. We have never walked away from a job before and we won’t start now. Take the job.”
The next week, I’m at an NFBA board meeting halfway across the country and I get a voice message from the salesperson that he quit. No notice, 10-plus years on the job, he’s gone, never to be heard from again.
Monday, I was back in the office and the phone rings. Guess who is on the other end — the problem customer. He wanted to discuss his job start and make sure we planned our schedule around his doctor’s appointments, because we couldn’t work at his site without him being there. Although he knew we weren’t starting his job for several weeks, he wanted to know if we would just come over and set his posts before it rained, because he didn’t want any mud in his yard. I explained to him that was not how we built a building, because we prefer to stay and finish it and not have to keep going back. He understood but warned me that we would be responsible for any mud.
Another concern came up during our conversation. He has little dogs, and was afraid the sliding snow would fall off the roof of his building and kill the poor little beasts. What were we planning to do about this? he asked, as he wouldn’t want to have to hold us responsible for injuries to his beloved pets. I suggested snow jacks to hold the snow in place. Good idea, but he wasn’t paying for them. OK, we’d eat the cost.
This carport was attached to the owner’s house. Our superintendent met the owner at the site and explained how and when he was going to construct his building. We needed to connect the two buildings together, but the owner said, “Do what you want, but don’t stand on the roof of my house, for if you do I’ll sue you.” This made the job a little difficult. There was no room at the site.
There was a fence along the driveway that was installed recently that we couldn’t move or even touch because it cost so much — another potential lawsuit. The owner then had concerns over the weight of our auger on his driveway — the third and final lawsuit issue — which was also recently installed, and wanted us to use something else. OK, we’d use a skid steer auger, bring the materials a little at a time, not step on his house roof, and work only when he was there. Nothing we can’t handle.
We started the building, carefully planning around the owner’s doctor appointments so that he was always home while we are working at his site. The permits were issued weeks ago. Nothing would stop us now. In a day or two we’d be done, another happy customer.
On a Sunday I got a call that he had been issued a stop work order because a neighbor complained and rightly pointed out that we were building this carport on village property and not the owner’s. It turned out the owner’s fence was placed off his property and that we were indeed on the village right-of-way, but the village saw no problem with this and granted him permission to continue with the job.
We only lost two men for four hours each in reaching this conclusion; the job was probably fat with hours anyway, no problem. We completed the building, no loss of life to his dogs, no ruts in the driveway, and we didn’t step on his roof.
Would we get paid?
Then, in the mail, I received a check for the full amount of the contract and a filled-out survey in which the owner gave us a glowing report. He was happy! The building was great and the neighbors now love it.
Only one problem: Our new salesperson, with whom he had been dealing while the building was under construction, had suggested to him that he may want a ceiling in the carport to keep the birds from resting in his trusses and making a mess of his car. He felt it was our responsibility to have informed him of this potential problem prior to signing a contract with our company, and now felt we should give it to him at a greatly reduced cost, or better yet, free.
Not only did we lose money on this job, we also lost opportunities to make money on other jobs that we could have been working on while we were building this carport. But we did it. We built a building for the hardest person in the world to work for. This was quite an accomplishment for our company.
What did we learn from it? Think we’ll walk away next time. I wonder… FBN
