11/26/05:What’s the Deal?

What is it about a cash transaction between two individuals that makes some people feel obligated to bargain? I can see price negotiation for houses and new cars and things- but as an individual if I’m offering a good or a service for less than a thousand dollars I really don’t have the desire to ask $50 more than I really want, just to see if I can get it. I had two situations in the past couple of months that showed just how unprepared I am to deal with these kinds of people.

I had done some repair work at my sister’s apartment, which led to another repair job for her neighbor. That guy told me of his father who was having trouble finding someone to repair and paint the wood trim around his windows. A week later the guy calls and I go down to meet the guy and take a look. He seems like a nice enough guy, kind of handy but was nervous about the ladder work involved. The windows were pretty bad but I thought I’d do him a favor and take the job for him. I told him I’d call in a couple of days after I worked out a price.

I called a couple of days later and told his wife that it’d be $800. She asked if they could get back to me and under her breath she said “about the price.” Three days later the old man calls me back and tells me that he has someone else coming out to bid it and once he gets that guy’s price he’ll call me back. I said no problem just let me know in a couple of days. Here was where I made the first mistake - I based my price on the fact that his son mentioned that he was having trouble getting someone to repair the windows, now all of the sudden he has two guys come out in the same week to look at it. Lesson learned.

He calls me back a couple of days later and asks if my price included tax. I told him it did. He then told me that he really wanted to give me the job, because he thought I’d do the best job—but the other guy came in at $700 so maybe I could meet him in the middle somewhere. I was sort of ready for this one, I explained how his job was all about time and if I cut my price, then I’d be losing money because I could make that elsewhere. He asks me to hang on while he discusses it with his wife, a couple of seconds later he comes back on and tells me it’s a go.

If you’re a reasonably well to do person and you’re paying between $500 and $900 for a home improvement, does paying an extra $50 or $100 really make a difference—especially when it’s something you only have to do every few years? And look at the person doing the job, someone your son’s age, who’s paying for the paint, the putty and the gas to drive 40 miles round trip everyday until this job is finished. Wouldn’t it piss you off if your son’s boss tried to get your kid to give him $50 out of his week’s paycheck? Have some class.

A few years back I tried selling a little pickup truck for $1600. The people who came to look at it acted as I was selling a fully restored classic mustang. Question after question about details that made absolutely no difference in changing the fact that it was a 10 year old truck with high mileage. Finally after 4 months of frustration I ended up taking $1000 for it.

Last week I decide to sell my jet ski and I desperately wanted to avoid another 4 month saga. The watercraft is 1997 model that’s starting to show its age, it’s got a small motor and whoever buys it will have to wait at least 6 months before they can ride it. It’s a tough sell, but I roll the dice and put it on craigslist for a nice low $750. Within hours I get about 5 responses, by the next day there are about 8 parties interested but they all want pictures. My camera isn’t uploading for some reason so I tell everyone to give me a couple of days. Some people start the bargaining anyway, asking what my absolute lowest price is and even offering $350 cash right now. A couple of people ask for my number, which I give them.

David calls me about 12 hours later and he is very excited. He has rented a couple of times and he’s ready to buy one. We make plans for him to come look at it the next day, but I tell him to be patient because I need to go to DMV and get a new title. This sends him into a tailspin. “Oh boy, this isn’t going to work if you don’t have a title. God, what happened to it, did you drop it in the ocean? Wow, without a title, I can’t register it, I can’t get insurance for it. I’m probably going to get insurance for it, and I have to take the safety class to get my license, but I guess I don’t need the title for that. Any way, you HAVE GOT to go to DMV in the morning and take care of this.” I calm him down and we agree that we’ll meet tomorrow afternoon some time, but I’ll call him around noon to tell him how things went at DMV and pinpoint a time.

At 7:45 the next morning (15 minutes before DMV opens) my phone rings. I send David’s call directly to voicemail and decide to wait until after DMV to check it. I get to DMV and find out that I don’t need the title, just a notarized bill of sale and the registration card. At 8:20 David call’s again- voicemail, again at 9, 9:40, 10:15 and 11. Finally at 11:30 I decide to check my voicemail- only one message from 7:45 telling me about some research he did on the DMV website and what I should ask for when I get there—nothing about notarized bills of sale. I call him back at 11:40 and explain the situation- he is even more excited and he knows of a frame shop near his house who will notarize the sale for us. He’s worried that the ball hitch on his Subaru might be the wrong size for this trailer, but that’s okay because he can bring it to u-haul and they’ll put a new ball hitch on. They put the tow package on originally, he still has all the paperwork. I sort of offer to drive it to his house if we get that far.

Well he comes over and he loves it. I fire it up for him, show him how to add oil and change the spark plugs- I even let him rev the engine a couple of time. “So, you want it?”
Big smile on his face “700!”
“C’mon man, you can’t just give me the extra fifty bucks? I got like six people who want to look at this thing and you’re the first one.”
“Sorry, all I brought was $700, I might have another twenty.”
At this point I could have sent him on his way, but the fact was I had the chance to get rid of this thing right here and now—to never have to look at it again and think about how much fun it was when I bought it, but how I hadn’t ridden it regularly in about 6 years
“Fine, $720, but you’re paying for the notary fees.”

The notary fee turns out to be $10, of which he only pays nine because that’s all the cash he has left and the notary doesn’t want to run a credit card for him. So the guy ends up saving $21—and he thinks it’s the deal of the century.

Am I the crazy one for not trying to squeeze an extra couple of bucks out of things? Is there a custom that dictates that in any transaction the price setter is always asking $50 more than he really wants? I suppose I’ll include some new factors when I bid jobs, but I think my rule is going to be to not work for people who want me to lower my price. I don’t have any more vehicles to sell, so hopefully in like 5 years my truck can just die in its sleep, so I don’t have to worry about trying to get rid of it.

8/17/05: Timeline

6/27/05: Something you hate to hear

So I’m renovating a bedroom in our house. I did most of the work myself but I got friends to help me with certain things. I decided that even though I painted the walls, ceiling and most of the trim, I would hire a professional painter from the jobsite I’m working on to come put the finishing touches on it. I had primed and put a first coat on the trim before I put it up, thinking I’d just have to fill the nail holes and put a second coat on. I filled the nail holes, caulked the seams and ‘fixed’ any outside corners on the trim. Now mind you no one’s ever properly taught me with right way to prepare for painting. Anything I know I’ve learned by 3rd party observation or doing myself. I always thought I was a decent painter, not a professional, but passable. I see the tools the painters use, the kinds of paint and caulk they buy and how they work, so I figure that’s half the battle.

He comes over, we have a beer and then he gets to work. I decide against hanging with him while he works, and I just let him be. About an hour into it, he comes and asks me for another beer. He asks if I did the caulking and thanks me when I admit. At this point I can’t tell if he’s serious or kidding, but I smile and get him another beer. He is from Colombia, so there is a bit of a language gap. I speak pretty good broken English, but sometimes I have trouble with nuance. So I ask “What should I do next time? Start myself, or wait for you?”

In broken English, “Oh…please…wait for me. This is gonna take longer than I thought.”

5/17/5:

Along the lines of your video blogging concept, I submit a video (approx. 12MB) I made of a giant machine demolishing part of a house, set to the music of Mike Tyson's Punchout.

5/1/5:

I worked with this plumber the other day. The guy seemed to be in his late seventies- white hair, old skin, that quiver in his voice... Yet the first thing I really notice about him is that he's smoking Kent cigarettes and pulling hard off a 2 liter bottle of Pepsi. I'm always consoled when I see healthy old people with unhealthy habits- it makes me feel like there's a chance the stuff won't kill you. Anyway he goes about his business, I go about mine. I actually had to keep on my game to stay ahead of him- since he was roughing pipes into the walls just as I would get finished framing them. He left the place twice and took his soda with him both times, I assumed he burned a couple of butts in the truck as well while he was gone. Otherwise though, he was a pretty steady worker.

So it's about 330P and I ask him if he's leaving soon. He says 'We'll, I'm gonna take one more break and see if I get a second wind. That's kind of how you gotta do it when you get into your fifties."

4/20/05: Why I hate Car Dealers

I had managed to go almost 30 years without having had the pleasure of dealing with a car salesman- I always bought used cars from private parties. Three years ago, when
my wife needed a car, we even had her father in Pittsburgh get a car for us. (He works in a dealership, so it was actually kind of easier.)

So we get one of those deals where you finance the car for 36 months, but at the end you either pay 10 grand or turn the car in. Sometimes they let you turn the car in a few months early if you agree to sign a new 3-4 year deal. They call it a “pull ahead.”

The wife and I agree that it’d probably be easier to buy from a dealer out here, just in case there are any problems and to avoid the hassle of out of state registrations.

With the lease ending in March, I stop by the dealership in December and talk to Bill (the salesman) about our options. I mention we were thinking of doing a ‘pull ahead’ soon and he says it’d be no problem. He works out some numbers and shows me the costs. I leave and tell him I’ll be in touch.

In Mid-January, the wife and I head on over to the dealership ready to make a deal. Since it’s the new year all of the deals we talked about in December are gone, but there are brand new ones for us. We pick a car, get the price and sign the deal. Everyone congratulates us and pats our backs, the balloons and confetti fall from the ceiling and we’ve officially gotten a new car.

As we’re about to leave, Bill gives us the keys and I notice that there’s no keyless remote. “No remote?” I ask
“Huh, guess not.” Bill replies
“So do you need the keys to the car we’re turning in?”
“Yeah, I guess I’ll take them…”
On the ride home, I found two keyless remotes in the glove box. Issue solved.

The next week, we pick up our plates and head to Pittsburgh. When I get back, Bill calls to inform me that he’s given us the wrong plates-would I mind stopping by to exchange them. I go to the dealership, find Bill and wait about 20 minutes for him find a wrench to take the screws out. He finally comes back with some mini vise-grips that don’t really work. I end up removing and re-inserting the screws with my bare fingers—Bill goes around and “tightens” them with the grips.

Meanwhile, my wife is trying to get some sort of $100 rebate for something, but it’s being held up because something’s not finalized with the car we turned in. We start getting bills with late charges because we haven’t made a payment in two months.

My wife calls the leasing company and they say that they are waiting for an odometer statement to be faxed to them from the dealer. Bill calls me and informs me that we blew an EZ PASS on the way to Pittsburgh and the bill went to other guy whose plates we had. I explain the odometer statement problem. He promises to look into it, I promise to come by and pick up the EZ PASS thing. He calls me 3 days later to remind me. My wife calls the leasing company who is still waiting for the fax. I decide to go visit the dealership

I pull in and see Bill. I point right at him as he walks up to me.
“Crsmal, buddy.. how’ve you been?” extending his leather gloved hand.
“Whose fucking job is it to fax the odometer statements when a car gets turned in?” I refuse his hand.
“What are you talking about?”
“What’s the name of the person who does that fucking job?”
I continue to berate him for having had the gall to call and remind ME to pick up the EZ PASS bill when HE hadn’t followed up on my request. He marks on his calendar to take care of this on Monday. He tries to give me the EZ PASS bill, but I refuse it. Telling him to take care of the odometer statement before we worry about anything else.

Four days pass and the leasing company is still waiting for the odometer statement. I call the dealership and get Bill’s boss on the phone. The boss knows of the situation and assures me that he has personally faxed the statements to the leasing agent. Apparently these things happen all the time and make their dealership look bad. He tells me that he’ll take care of it and I needn’t worry. Nothing is mentioned of the EZ PASS.

We don’t hear anything else and a few weeks later we get start to get some mail indicating that the old car is being resolved. One of those letters is a $600 bill for terminating our lease early. My wife calls the leasing agent to tell them that we did a ‘pull ahead.’ They tell her that the program ended in December and that our dealer should have told us that.

So now, 3 months later, I head down to the dealer again. It turns out that Bill no longer works there. I speak with Bill’s boss and explain the situation to him. He begins to tell me that the best he can do is research it and- I interrupt and tell him that if all he’s going to do is research, then I’m getting a lawyer. He says if I start talking about lawyers then he’s not going to be able to do anything. I tell him that it’s his choice, because I’ve had so many problems with them, and I’m not getting jerked around again. He asks me to please calm down and give him a chance. His ultimate response is that these things do happen and if it comes down to it, the dealer will eat the $600 bill. Which is all I wanted to hear in the first place.

It almost makes me miss the subway.

4/2/05: Scaffolding

Since I’m the only one who owns/can operate a digital camera, I was sent up this scaffolding to take pictures of the way the copper was staining the roof shingles. I hadn’t really paid attention to the way the roofers building their scaffolding, but once I started climbing it I was rather impressed. I’m not a big fan of heights, but I do like the rush every once in a while.

1) At the top of the ladder there is a cleat. Attached to the seams of the copper roof with some vice grips.

2) After you walk across the window well, there is another cleat attached with some more vice grips.

3) Then you climb onto this plank which is sitting on some roof jacks, which are nailed through the shingles and into the roof rafters

4) Then there is a short ladder sitting on the plank, which you climb to get to the next plank.

5) Finally after climbing the ladder you get to the top plank, which is where they are working.

Oh, and the guy who built this is a complete drunk and is usually wasted when he and his son are working up there.

3/6/05:How to Fix a Ladder

When fiberglass ladders get old a lot of times their feet break off.  

This creates a problem because now the ladder cannot sit level on the floor.

Some job supervisors would see this as unsafe and throw the ladder in the dumpster and buy a new one. The super on this job however doesn’t see an unbalanced ladder as a problem—not only that, but there are only two ladders on the whole job—meaning I have to either share the good one with somebody (who got it first and is working on a different floor) or muddle through with this one. Not wanting to deal with the unsteadiness however, I chose to fix it.

I looked at the void between the end of the leg and the floor. Measured the dimensions of what it would take to make the leg reach the floor.

I cut a block of wood to fit.

I drilled some pilot holes through the leg and into the wood.

And screwed the fucker together.

I only expected it to hold for the day- but three days later and it’s still working. Now I’d bet it stays that way for months. But I guarantee that it’ll break several more times before that lazy prick buys a new ladder.

2/27/05: First Flush

I hadn’t realized it, but there is this ritual they had when the first toilet starts working. These houses are generally under construction for about 8 to 10 months before there is any functional plumbing. Which means that during a cold winter you are out there in a porto john freezing your ass and you are out there in a hot summer, when the thing has been overused and the doo doo man is a day late. So the day that the plumber hooks up the first toilet is a working holiday.

I remember there was some buzz when the plumbing supply house dropped off the toilets. A little more chatter when the $800 toilet seats arrived, and a lot of excitement the day that the tile guy finished. The plumber was set to go the next day, which was a Friday.

It was a rather warm day and the porto john had just been emptied, so it wouldn’t be that bad to use, but… the ‘water’ was getting turned on. So everyone gets to the job and starts setting up their equipment for the day. The plumber walks in, everyone quietly acknowledges his presence. He and his helper begin distributing the toilets-- this house has 7 bathrooms so it takes a little while. Everyone goes about their business and pretends to ignore them.

The first toilet that gets set is the one in the powder room. Since that one is most used by guests, the people in this neighborhood make sure that it has expensive fixtures and fancy flush mechanisms. They also are extremely quiet, meaning you can barely hear the flush if you are standing next to it. On this particular bowl they were setting an $800 toilet seat made from some sort of rare wood that you can only get by clear cutting a rain forest, so everyone was especially psyched to take that for a ride.

John and Francisco, the painters, just so happened to be working in the hallway outside the powder room that day. At around 8:30 they saw Rick, the plumber, carry the toilet into that room. At around 9:30 they saw him walk into the room with the $800 toilet seat, and at around 10:15, they heard it. Like when you are hiking through the woods and you just start to hear the faint whisper of a waterfall in the distance, so too did John and Francisco hear the first flush. They clapped. Then the electricians by the stairs heard the clapping so they clapped. Then the guy trimming the door at the bottom of the stairs heard the electricians so he clapped. Then the guy installing the kitchen cabinets heard the trimmer and by that time everybody working in the house was clapping, which soon spread to the guys working outside. Pretty soon it was a full celebration: “The toilet has flushed, we no longer have to go into the green box!”

Rick steps out of the bathroom and nods to John and Francisco. Dan the foreman was there to greet him and Rick extended a slightly damp hand- the sinks went in last week so he’d clearly washed. They shook hands and Dan went in to try it out. Everyone went back to work, but throughout the day we all took turns on that $800 ride. Being that it was a Friday, we would be having a Beer:30 that afternoon, and during the Beer:30 festivities that $800 toilet seat was left in the vertical position. There weren’t any women on the job, but the guys are careful to keep the bathroom looking neat. The idea is for the homeowner to never know just how many guys have taken craps in their $50,000.00 bathrooms. There are allegedly more underground rituals performed in the master bathroom on the bidet, but I wasn’t privy to those and nor do I care to be.

2/22/05:

I received this email from a cousin today. Names have been changed to protect the unborn.

Hello everyone - sorry for the mass e-mail, but it was just easier that way.

Our fears of not having a name picked out for the baby are finally over and we still have 9 weeks left until I deliver. LOL

Her name will be - Olivia Ann

I'll talk to you all soon. Bye for now. Love, Jill

2/17/05: Alcoholic Willie

I’ve been working the past couple of days with a guy who goes by the name ‘Alcoholic Willie.’ I’d heard his name tossed around in stories by some of the other guys, including how one day he smoked 5 packs of cigarettes.

He turned out to be a pretty nice guy, who knew his shit. He did however look noticeably hung over these past two mornings—he didn’t drink during the day, but he sure reeked of rough living.

We listened to Z100 all day yesterday and today, which I thought was weird because this guy looks to be in his early 40s and, well, more of a classic rock guy. The radio was at the bottom of the ladder and every time he went down the ladder I was expecting him to change the station- but he never did. Then at the end of the day I realized that it wasn’t his radio we were listening to, it was one of the laborers (who wasn’t around all day).

Now I realized that he probably thinks I put on the station- I wonder if he was expecting me to change it was well. Did you ever listen to Top 40 radio all day? From the morning show to the afternoon guy? It’s really fucking bad. I think Gwen Stefani is my new favorite pop star to hate.

2/7/5:

I had a fairly atypical day today. It was a lot of work and involved a lot of thinking, but I was pretty pleased with my performance. Being a little confused lately about if I’m really doing a job that makes use of any skill I may have acquired, it was nice to see myself do everything right all day.

Now I realized that he probably thinks I put on the station- I wonder if he was expecting me to change it was well. Did you ever listen to Top 40 radio all day? From the morning show to the afternoon guy? It’s really fucking bad. I think Gwen Stefani is my new favorite pop star to hate.

I quit my job a few months ago and decided to go freelance. Fortunately I kept it on good terms with my boss and now he’s my biggest client. He’s had me working on one project for about 3 weeks, but he needed some help getting something done at another jobsite. Basically he’s building this Malibu style house in the middle of the woods, about 40 minutes away from the rest of his jobs. He’s losing money on it and really doesn’t want to devote any more resources than necessary.

It’s basically a 3 story house, with the front door on the second floor. When it’s finished you are going to have to walk up about 8 or 10 steps to get to the front door. Right now it’s just a steep mound of dirt with some cinderblocks alongside of it. There’s scaffolding set up around entrance as well, so it’ very difficult to get up there. Our job today is to get a circular set of stairs into the house and possibly set them.

Since the second floor has 12’ ceilings, that means that it’s about 13’ from the first floor to the second floor, meaning about 18 actual steps in the staircase. The staircase is also made of mahogany (or some other heavy dense wood) so it is very heavy, very big and very cumbersome.
Ideally you’d take down the front wall and bring this behemoth right in the front. However since the stucco has already been applied, it’d cost about $15,000 and two weeks. Fortunately there is a sliding glass door around back that leads right into the foyer. When you take the panels out, there’s about a 10’wide by 8’high hole in the back of the house.

We have 2 laborers, the foreman, a brand new forklift and me. The stairs are sitting in the front yard, so we have to pick them up, carry them around back, and shove them through this hole. The hole is also about 10’ off the ground, but fortunately there’s a little deck off the back that we can work off of.
I stood next to the stairs with Vic, the foreman. He had two ratchet straps wrapped around each end of the staircase and I had two tow straps. I asked Vic what he thought and as he stammered for a second I offered. “Should we wrap these straps around the forks and clip them to your ratchet straps?”
“Yeah that sounds like a plan.”

He jumps onto the forklift and drives it over. “Hey Vic, do you want to drive that thing around back and figure out the best way to go?”

“Yeah, I guess we can do that…if you want.”

So Vic drives around and realizes that it’s kind of a pain in the ass to turn the machine around back there. “How about you go backwards”

“Yeah, good idea.”

Usually foremen like to take control of big projects -- they have their way that they want to do it and they don’t want to hear any suggestions. Even if your suggestions are in line with what they are thinking, they will usually try to rephrase it in a way that makes it clear that we’re doing it ‘their way.’ I didn’t get that with Vic, at first he listened to my ideas and agreed, but soon he just did what I said.

We went back to the stairs and Vic boomed the forks over, I connected all the straps and Vic started lifting. “Whoa, do you want to put a leash on this?”

So I ran got some more straps out of my truck to make a leash. Once I got a leash on one side, Vic starts lifting again. Naturally a load that size starts swinging as soon as you lift. And with a leash on only one side, the other side dangles free.

“Hey, you mind waiting a sec so I can put a leash on the other side?”

“Sure go ahead”

At this point Gerry (Africa) and I are on the ground with the load, and Vic is driving. The other two laborers are up the house…waiting for instruction. I yell to them to get out here and the four of us gather around the cab of the forklift. I explain how we are going to move this thousand pound obstacle from the front yard, down a hill and to the backyard. Everyone agrees (including Vic) and away we go. I’m on one leash, Gerry is on the other. Mikey (Florida) is walking alongside me, and Luis (South America) is walking alongside Gerry.

Vic backs down the hill slowly, and these stairs start swinging. We hold the leashes as tight as we can and the load stabilizes. Keep in mind the snow is still about 8-10 inches deep, so we’re tromping through this and trying to keep the stairs straight. We snag a tree on the way down but get around it (thanks to having two leashes). The neighbor appears and starts taking digital pictures of us. We get the machine facing the hole in the house. And Vic starts lifting up. I tell him to wait a second and I run around to the front of the house, climb through the scaffolding and up the dirtpile to the front door. I go out and stand on the deck and asses how we’re going to get this thing into the house.

The staircase is sort of corkscrew shaped, so we’re essentially going to have to twist this thing into the house. Then keep twisting it into the room where these stairs are headed. I spend the next two hours running back and forth between the forklift and the deck. Telling Vic how to drive the forklift and the laborers where to stand and what to do. Gerry turns out to be kind of smart about these things (he was a school teacher in Africa) and he and I manage to get the top of the stairs into the house and the bottom half resting on the deck. Vic leaves the machine and comes inside to discuss our next move. We decide to disconnect the straps and push them the rest of the way with the forklift. Vic is cold, so he sends me out to drive the forklift.

So I get in the machine and I start taking Vic’s lead. Since you can’t always see your forks while you are driving, you depend on taking direction from the guy who can (called a signal caller). Everything seems to be going okay until we hit a wall the stairs. It turns out that instead of bringing the top of the stairs into the room that they are going, Vic has decided to bring them into another room-- his plan being that once we get the stairs into the house, we’ll spin them again and raise them into place. I explain to him that rather than make a K turn by hand, it’d be easier to just push them into the room that they are going.

So it takes about an extra hour to get them out of the auxiliary room and back to where we started. Vic starts to tell me where to go, but I decided to climb on top of the forklift cab to see just where I have to push with the forks to get this thing in the house. I go back to the controls, do what I think needs to be done, and boom, the stairs are almost in. I go up into the house, we get the stucco guys to help, and we wrangle these things the rest of the way in.

I then explain to Vic that he doesn’t have nearly enough people to set these stairs. He needs 5 or 6 good carpenters to come by and build scaffoldings and maneuver these things to where they need to go.

We got out of there at about 1:00P. I still had to drop of the laborers, then turn around and head into the city to my wife’s office where I had to pick up an appliance.

2/2/5:

Took the dog for a walk around the neighborhood this evening and was shocked to see the amount of people who still hadn’t shoveled their sidewalks. How long has it been since the storm? A week? There was one house that had a giant SUV parked in a 20x 40 driveway without a cube of ice on it, yet their sidewalks were still buried by about 6 inches. The attitude was “if we’ve gotten away with it for this long, we might as well wait until it all melts.”