Last Job for this Customer for Awhile

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jmellc

Senior Member
Location
Durham, NC
Occupation
Facility Maintenance Tech. Licensed Electrician
Doing a side job for a friend of mine. Good fellow and I love him like a brother. But I have to space out working with him. He refuses to make a plan and stick with it and is full of surprises. "I know we talked about using so and so, but I found this that's on sale". We plan for surface mounted flourescent lights, he gets some chain hanger types with cord and plug. Not good for a residential room, tacky IMHO. He takes them back, says he will get surface mounted self contained lights. Comes back with lights that need a box. His walls are to be 1 inch paneling, then he decides on 3/8, then gets 1/2. I should have known to use blue Carlon slider boxes but was trying to save him money. They are fairly high. Will use fire rings. He argues over why we have to bury conduit a certain depth, why he has to have bubble covers on outside receptacles, why this and why not that. He does go along with me in the end, but it gets tiring. If I didn't like him so much I would never do a job for him. Good thing is, I give him a bill on Friday and he has money for me Monday, or sometimes same day. He has never tried to shortchange me in any way. A very honest man.
 
He may just want to question the status quo, as many of us may do to try and keep things real and true.
 
I have had a customer start with the why this and that. I tell them that I do the work to code and I cannot teach them the code in one day. It is what it is...

Since it is a friend-- suck it up.

I'll never forget when my brother was doing work on his house in Raleigh. His partner calls me and says just a few things. I get there and meet the builder who is doing some major reconstructive surgery on the house. It took me 3 days for that job but the funny part was that the builder didn't know I was related so when my bros partner kept going on and on with changing things we had done, I jumped up and pretended to strangle him. I thought the builder was going to drop right there. I smiled and told him what our relationship was to each other.
 
jmellc said:
Doing a side job for a friend of mine. Good fellow and I love him like a brother. But I have to space out working with him. He refuses to make a plan and stick with it and is full of surprises. "I know we talked about using so and so, but I found this that's on sale". We plan for surface mounted flourescent lights, he gets some chain hanger types with cord and plug. Not good for a residential room, tacky IMHO. He takes them back, says he will get surface mounted self contained lights. Comes back with lights that need a box. His walls are to be 1 inch paneling, then he decides on 3/8, then gets 1/2. I should have known to use blue Carlon slider boxes but was trying to save him money. They are fairly high. Will use fire rings. He argues over why we have to bury conduit a certain depth, why he has to have bubble covers on outside receptacles, why this and why not that. He does go along with me in the end, but it gets tiring. If I didn't like him so much I would never do a job for him. Good thing is, I give him a bill on Friday and he has money for me Monday, or sometimes same day. He has never tried to shortchange me in any way. A very honest man.
Click to expand...

The adjustable boxes are cheaper than a nail-on and plastic box extension ring, and much faster than removing the short (stock) device screws, installing longer ones and stackers, and then mounting the device. Yep, you should have known better, especially with wooden paneling (flammable wall surface) where the boxes have to be dead flush with the surface.
 
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