SOLI 4 Love and Kindness to the Jerk Contractor

Last weekend we had the final meeting with the contractor who has been remodeling our house. Not the whole thing, three rooms & the screen porch. I wrote in an earlier post about how the stress of the whole process was affecting us - that was a month ago, so you can imagine what we were like by the end.

Warning: Next several paragraphs are venting.

Especially my poor husband, who had to deal with the contractor (henceforth known as G.M.) way more than I did. The project that was supposed to take 6-8 weeks took 12. And along the way, it became clear that G.M. was not putting our interests as his first priority.

Problems

There were some little warning signs, but the big one was over the granite vanity in the master bath. Instead of subcontracting the whole job, which is what we were expecting, he had the granite place cut the slab on HIS measurements instead of coming out to do it right. He then hired one of their guys to come out and help him with the installation. The slab did not fit the corner due to walls being out of true, the holes for the sinks were too small AND off kilter, and one of them was in the wrong place. So what do you think he did? Reject it to be re-done??? Oh no, instead he tried VERY HARD to get us to accept it as is. We are still not sure why. But in the end we got him to replace it.

More Problems

The list of other stuff that's just plain wrong or sloppy would bore you, so I'll just mention a couple more. He installed a new screen door on our screen porch, one that swings open instead of sliding. However, he used the wrong kind of hinges, so the edge of the door is positioned half an inch from the frame, leaving a giant gap for bugs to come freely in. He also fixed the leaky roof on that same screen porch. But he discarded the hooded gutter that was there, and when we reminded him that the gutter needed to be replaced, he bought a cheaper non-hooded gutter. And the tile floor of the new shower doesn't drain properly, leaving puddles that don't go down the drain, even after the second try to get the slope right.

So. By the time we were FINALLY "done", we figured we have at least $2000 worth of rework to do to fix his screwups. At that point there was $455 left on the contract balance at that point, due to extra draws since he kept pleading poverty every week.

WTF??

So imagine our surprise when we got an email where he laid out all the things NOT included in the contract or any change order that he "expected" to be paid for. Even though HIS contract says everything like that has to be agreed on ahead of time. The add-on total for the extras came to almost $4000, about 20% over the contract amount.

This list included a few items that we would have agreed on had he asked. But most of it was outrageous bullshit. Like when he converted our old shower to a closet, he had originally planned to put in a sheetrock wall, which would have left a space between it and the new shower. There was a reason for this, but I don't know what it was. But he decided at some point NOT to do that, so it was less work for him and gave us a bigger closet. Fine. But on that final list, he included a $325 extra charge for that bigger closet, even though it was less work and materials!! This, and some other things, were just confusing.

Vent Alert Over

So we divided the list of "extras" into things we thought were OK (totaled $1000) and things we said "no way" to. When he showed up on Sunday, we were ready. The first thing we did was let him know that we were not satisfied with a number of items, which by his contract meant we didn't owe him anything more. Plus there was the little matter of the part of his contract where we don't have to pay for anything we didn't agree to. Then we veered onto the topic of the shower, where my husband got so angry he had to leave the room. G.M. and I continued to talk. One of the things that emerged was that at some point he had learned that I make very good money at my job, so he felt we could afford to pay him what he was asking. He pleaded poverty several times and tried to make me feel sorry for him. He seemed stunned when I told him it wasn't about what we could afford, it was about how we wanted to spend our money.

The LovingKindness Part, Finally

Now, I have been using G.M. in my metta meditation - first as the neutral person, then later as the disliked person. During this whole emotional conversation, I found myself in a very interesting space. I was not angry. I was able to listen to him with an open heart and mind, and feel compassion, but not get drawn in by his manipulative tactics or emotional outbursts. And I was able to make my points calmly and decisively. I felt bad for him, but I was able to stand my ground with no real effort. I have to believe that the metta meditation is what enabled me to do that. How cool.

In the end, we gave him a check for the contract balance and the extras that we felt were justified. Even though we weren't satisfied with a number of items, it seemed to me like the right thing to do, and my husband went along (unwillingly). G.M. accepted that amount and left, hopefully forever.

In retrospect, it seems pretty clear that he sat down & thought of everything he could to charge us for, thinking that since I make such good money it shouldn't be a problem. Which pisses me off, now. I might not be so nice if I ran into him at this point. But I'm pretty pleased at the way things went last Sunday.

View from a (bigger) Cubicle

That's right, I have a new cube and it's HUGE by cubicle standards!! By far the biggest and nicest I've ever had.

This is my old cube. It is 6 ft by 9 ft, but 3 of those 9 feet are shelves. As you can see, the desk space is pretty limited and all the space is right there on the aisle.

This is my new cube. It's basically a double-wide, 12 ft by 9 ft. WAY more usable desk space, AND you can walk in and move around. I can have little meetings in there, which is really convenient.

Plus there's room for all my toys and pictures, the things that make life in a cubicle bearable. This move is also significant because for the first time in a couple of years, I have just one cube. I've had cubes in more than one building for a while, and hardly spent any time at all in my "home" cube. I felt a lot like a hermit crab, especially for the last few months. So it's nice to be all in one place. Although I am secretly afraid that it won't last, I am truly allowing myself to enjoy it in the moment.