Thursday, March 26, 2009

Back in the Saddle

As heard coming from my eight year old last night at dinner time: "Mom, You might want to sleep in the spare room tonight. . . Dad's having lots of beans!" Ha, my reputation precedes me.


Alright, it's time for me to come out of hiding once again.

It was interesting taking a week off from the blog. Funny how long that can seem. Maybe it's like dog years or something.



This next part you can file away under "Dirty-rotten, cheap-bastard".

About a week and a half ago we got a call from a potential client for one of our decorative concrete coatings. Actually that's not entirely true. The client himself was too damned important to call, so he had his assistant contact us. Not too unusual when the project is for a company, but this was for his personal residence.

After a few phone calls and a couple of emails back and forth, my brother Mark was able to set a meeting with Mr Important to go over color selection. He looked at the various samples and was waffling between two different ones. He asked if he could keep them and show his wife so they could compare notes and come up with a final selection. "No problem" Mark told him.

BTW- At this point in the process a bid proposal with our pricing had already been submitted and approved by Mr Important.

Two days later, the secretary of Mr Important called Mark and asked for the address where she could send the color samples back to. She also said her boss had just got a cheaper bid for the work so he would not need our services after all.

Now for the good part. A day later I received a phone call from a contractor asking about one of our colors. He first wanted to know where we bought our color chips for the floors. I gave him the name of the manufacturer and told him they would sell the chips to him. He then wanted to know if he could buy seventy-five pounds of our "London Fog" color chip. I told him we weren't distributors so I didn't have any type of pricing for just the chips. I said I would look into it and get back to him.

As soon as I hung up the phone I started thinking, "hmmm, I'll bet you this is the guy who undercut our bid and is going to do the job for Mr Important.

The next day I called him back and asked, "Are you by any chance, using this chip for the Total Mechanical job?"

With a bit of hesitation, he replied, "Uh, as a matter of fact I am."

I then informed him that I was the contractor that was originally supposed to do that job and I had no interest in supplying my competitor with my own proprietary color blend so he could do the job I had already been awarded previously.

Talk about balls of steel!

Mr Important wanted his floor done for rock bottom price, but liked our color samples so he had the new contractor call and try to get our color blend. He also must have thought by having the guy call me instead of Mark I wouldn't put two and two together. Guess what? He was WRONG.

Now he's going to get a cheap floor and won't be getting the color he wants.

What an ass!


I'll be getting by to catch up with you all soon.

25 comments:

Travis Cody said...

Good for you! I like to get a bargain, but I prefer to deal above board and fairly.

Jeff B said...

I'm all for a good deal too, and I understand we have all have budgets to stay within, but like you said, deal "Above board".

none said...

This is SOP for some jackasses. It's been done to me before as well.

For some reason folks will jump through hoops and alienate good people just to save a few bucks.

Gene Bach said...

When you said "ass" I thought you were talking about Mark.

Cherie said...

Of all the nerve! Glad you were able to put the pieces together.

Jeni said...

Ah, but the fact that you figured out exactly what he was up to and foiled his plans -now that is really what I would call Damned Good KARMA!
All things eventually come around to people who deserve what they get! No scheming to get even involved, just that guy's dumb luck! What a jackass though, really! The nerve of some people's children, huh?

Batteson.Ind said...

As we say over here in Ireland; "fair fooks to you boy!"..

Nessa said...

Can't stand people who want quality but don't want to pay a fair price for it.

Mel said...

Well you didn't wanna do that silly job anyway!

So pffffffttttt!

Desert Songbird said...

You get what you pay for, so I'm sure Mr. Important will get paid back for his bargain hunting.

Karma really IS a bitch.

buffalodick said...

35 years in selling metals the daily quote number would astound you. Countless times I would engineer what they needed, to have them shop my numbers and lose the order. I would always remind them "Everyone gets one free one from me- not two.."

Jeff B said...

Hammer- Some people are natural born assholes. this guy is definitely one of them.

Gene- Ha, not this time.

Cherie- Detective Jeff on the scene.

Jeni- He'll probably deservingly get a poor quality floor now.

Watercat- I'd like to bean him with a blarney stone!

Nessa- "You get what you pay for" will likely bite him in the ass on this one.

Mel- Exactly. If this is the type of person he is, getting paid would probably have been a challenge anyway.

Songbird- I certainly hope so, for his cheap-sake.

Buffalo- It'd beeen nice if he would have just told us he wanted a cheap floor to begin with. We could have told him we weren't interested at that point.

Akelamalu said...

Well, (I'm going to use an old Lancashire phrase here) the cheeky bugger!!

Roan said...

...and thus the rich assh...oops, I mean jerks of the world, stay rich.

Jeff B said...

Akelamalu- I hope that is something really nasty.

BJ- You were on the right track with your first response.

Anndi said...

Shame on him for thinking he could get one by you... I'm going to go stuff bananas in his muffler.

Dr.John said...

Just remember one man's ass is another man's donkey.
There are arrogant people and there are stupid people but you seemed to have goten both in one man.

Schmoop said...

I'd go spread fertilizer on the guy's front lawn so when it grows lush and green it spells out, "Asshole". Cheers Jeff!!

skywind said...

The story of each person is different. A great weekend.
Health information
Humor & Fun World

Jeff B said...

Anndi- I was thinking of another place for those bananas. Like his "tail pipe"!

Dr John- The veritable two-fer.

Matt- I like the way you think!

Skywind- Thanks for dropping in.

katherine. said...

I bet Mr Important would have been horrendous to work for...

Vinny "Bond" Marini said...

Idjit...I like Matt-Man's idea

San said...

Jeff, that makes me FURIOUS. My husband makes these artful clocks we show at our gallery. We sell a lot, but once in a while we'll get this cheapskate who will come in and grill us about the materials and the technique, even where he gets the clock works! He now has a line for these people: "Would you like me to sell you a kit?" Of course they say, "How much?" And he quotes the price of the clock. Yes, even the dimmest get the message then.

nitebyrd said...

What an ass! I like that you called the other contractor. Good on you, Jeff!

j said...

What a jerk! I'm glad he didn't get his way.