Was It Worth It?

Howdy.  Remember in Monday's post where I let you in on what my therapist and I talked about after the bathroom project manager left?  If not, go back to that post, scroll past the pic of me snow shoeing and refresh yourself.

I honestly wasn't sure if I'd hear back from him.  I know the kind of man he was 5 years ago when we last dealt with him for our kitchen reno but who knows what time and well, the world imploding might've done to him.  He called Monday afternoon.  Usually our phone is on DND so it was a surprise to hear the phone ring.  When I realized who it was (and after jolting the Mr out of a post priming nap), I won't lie for a nanosecond I thought about not picking up but I did.  He said he was really surprised to get my email because he said the project manager said Friday things couldn't have gone better and we seemed happy.  If he didn't offer up a solution, I hardly thought he was authorized to give us any money back.  I was stunned in the moment and didn't know how to say "are you serious mutha effer?!"  We ended up talking for half an hour and I actually pulled up Monday's post where I listed the other things I was holding off mentioning when I felt like I was basically getting a polite justification speech as to why they weren't discounting anything.

He admitted that Covid, the jacking up of prices on all of their materials, trying to price things in a way that won't scare people away and such that they're doing a hail Mary with an ad campaign hoping to dig out of the hole.  This bathroom stuff is new for them and something they're trying to see if they can branch out into.  He went on about how they tried to price slightly lower than their competitors to bring people in (he's not lying, we did our own research) and this whole system is new for all of them.  Matter of fact, he confirmed we were the first ones and I said "I know.  Your guy Todd literally said to the kid he was working with that "I have zero experience with this system which doesn't fill one with confidence after hearing it being forced into place for the third time.""  He said due to their mistake (and probably the fact I called the manufacturer before they could, told them the company screwed up the install, what is realistic to be fixed and what timeline are we looking at) they likely got no discount.  He said they made nothing on ours since they had to do it twice and that's their fault but he wanted me to know if he had the money, he would refund some back.  Look, I totally get that y'all had to eat the cost of reordering the entire system sans the doors because your guy was the one who screwed up but that isn't my problem.  We're now $300 in the hole between the new fan and supplies to fix what they damaged.  

When I told him about the other things that were either not done correctly (the fan) and the other damage we incurred in the ceiling and on the walls, he was like 'well, we can't fix what you don't tell us."  

*bitch switch activated*

I politely but firmly let him know these things were relayed to either the project manager or the lead contractor dude.  Then it seemed like me pointing out that the contractor seemed to look at the damaged ceiling portion like "y'all can't fix that?", he got super defensive of him and said that guy is a perfectionist, gave a long winded example his perfectionism and I said "I absolutely know that about him and I'm not knocking his work.  However, the way a contractor looks at something that is simple to them and being the homeowner who is on the third contractor damaging the same area because their guys weren't careful and yes, it doesn't sit well especially when the guy who did it looked at what he did, went upstairs and never said a word."  He did say that particular helper guy is a bull in a china shop and they've had to talk to him about it.  Well, maybe if he was docked the pay to cover the cost of our materials that we had to buy to fix his carelessness, it might sink in.  He tried to explain to me why the fan housing wasn't replaced and from a contractors perspective if it's the same size then it doesn't make sense to take that out.  I said "yeah but the housing rattled and we paid for it."  

"Oh okay, maybe if that was conveyed they would've made sure they did that?"

"It was conveyed to the project manager, your crew threw away the new housing so we had no choice to but to incur the cost of buying a new fan and have the housing properly installed like we were paying for.  Essentially, we were being charged for a service that wasn't provided because the Mr could've done what they initially did.  We specifically paid for that to be done and even cancelled another contractor we had scheduled who WAS going to go in the attic to do it."

source  (This is also funny because this guy raises bison.)

In the end, it was me giving him tips on how his guys need to have "spacial awareness" because regardless of the size of the house, it's still our stuff getting damaged and we're incurring costs we didn't budget for.  I told him he needs to get some kind of corner protection for the walls for that system.  He offered to have them come out to mud the parts they messed up and I said no, it's been taken care of.  I don't think contractors realize that isn't a solution to someone who just wants you the hell out of the house after going through a bunch of BS.  No, don't send the guys who did the damage out to fix the damage with a chip on their shoulder and make it weird for everyone.  He said he hopes we give them another chance in the future if the need arises and he would make sure he knocked money off of that.  I said nothing else needed done.  He said that he sees the buffalo art I had made for him after the kitchen remodel every day along with my thank you note and this just hurt his heart.  I told him his crew are the nicest crew we've worked with but the lack of care used is a big problem.

So...I did it.

Was it worth it?  I don't know, I guess so.  Part of me feels like a failure for not getting what I wanted out of it so then why bother?  Then the other part of me thinks I let him know that no things didn't go well on some fronts and you should be prepared to compensate for that or people will have a bad taste in their mouth.  He sounded truly sorry and flustered by the whole thing and wasn't at all condescending like many contractors we've worked with have been.  The people pleaser part of me feels bad and I tell myself..."NO, stop that!  You have a right to be upset.  The point was to be heard regardless of the outcome."  I know my brain and it'll likely stew for a bit which I would like to work on in the coming year.  

Okay...byeeee!

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