07/21/2022
Ok this is a long one…
It is exceedingly rare that I will turn down a project as long as it’s the type of work I do and I have the availability. And I am always happy to work with the materials and scope of work that is within a customers budget if at all possible and assuming I’m not being asked to do something that is dangerous, unprofessional or otherwise “the wrong thing to do”.
Every now and then (like 2 times since I’ve been in business) I’ve had to do just that. once because a landlord who claimed to have a ton of work for me but for the most part wanted to put band aids and “lipstick” over a bunch of problems rather than fix anything and on top of that wanted me to complete 100% of the work on each project and have him sign off on it before paying me a penny. Huge red flag and risk on my part and definitely not work I could proudly put my name on anyway so I passed. Thanks but no thanks.
A little more recently I was asked to quote painting some kitchen cabinets. When I went to look at it I first noticed around half the cabinets had been replaced with brand new and completely different style cabinets with a factory plastic like finish on them and the rest of the cabinets that had been left in place were in bad shape. He said he would be replacing the doors with new unfinished doors that he would also like painted, but the doors were not really the problem. The bodies of the cabinets were old deteriorating particle board with pealing laminate surfaces. I also notice all the upper cabinets weren’t even in line with each other (tops all at different heights) and he had obviously just had a new countertop installed... he then begins tells me how ”his contractor” has been putting this kitchen together for him and had advised him to save the cabinets that he had saved because they could be painted. My jaw just about hit the floor. Until he had said this I had honestly assumed he was DIYing the renovation based on what I’d seen. I felt bad for the guy. I told him the cabinets were in no kind of shape to just paint over and my best initial thought was maybe cover the visible end panels with a veneer or 1/4 thick panel but it really wasn’t ideal… I really wasn’t feeling good about any part of it but, feeling terrible for the guy, I said let me think about how to address the issues and I’ll get back to you with a quote… after a couple of days and quite a bit of discussion between my wife and I, looking into different ways of addressing the particle board problem and not finding any good solution I decided that, as much as I’d love to help, there was no way I could see salvaging those cabinets and feeling good about the outcome. I had to tell him we would either have to pass or start over.
I wrote a message to him explaining my position as best I could. I was apologetic and explained that I couldn’t give him what he was looking for in good conscience and expressed that the current work being completed was unprofessional, that he shouldn’t have been told to save those cabinets and that I was surprised that the work had been completed by a contractor. I said to let us know if he would like to work out a plan to more or less start over and do things correctly from the onset.
I didn’t hear back right away and assumed he didn’t like what I had to say or he found someone else with lower standards who was willing to just slap some paint on it… oh well…I moved on and forgot about it. Well, it’s about a month later now and I just got a reply telling me how he found it very unprofessional of me to “bash” his kitchen renovation in a “lengthy Facebook message” and I should have told him all my concerns right away face to face when we met. He also said he would be embarrassed if he were me, to have sent such a message. And that if it were shared it could damage my reputation.
I thanked him for his feedback, and apologized if anything came off as harsh and that Ididn’t have all the answers immediately. And again I’ll move on. You can’t please everyone.
But I just wanted to share this to say: I will always go out of my way to give my customers a great experience and more importantly a beautiful and professional job. Part of that means however that I have to have standards. I will not finish a job that some other “contractor” is 90% done screwing up. I will salvage what I can when I can if that is what the customer wants but not everything can or should be salvaged. In my opinion compromising on these standards would cause more damage to my business reputation than occasionally having to tell a customer something they don’t want to hear. And lastly I try my best to have all the answers all the time but realistically I’m human, sometimes I need to look into things or think things over first. But I will always be honest with you even if that means I need to tell you something you don’t want to or are not prepared to hear.
Thank you for coming to my TED Talk! 🤪
