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Middle child's latest life lesson......painted a kitchen

Locust Fork
I don't know the whole story from everyone, but this is what was told to me by my daughter.    She and a friend were looking to make some extra money.    They wanted to come here and paint the bedroom my son just moved out of to get some pictures of what they could do.     Before that happened they were offered a job painting some kitchen cabinets.     The job ended up being three times what they agreed to do and took four days total.    The initial picture the person sent over showed just a single set of cabinets.    When they got there it was 17 cabinets and had lots of tedious nonsense to deal with like taking down doors and several coats to get it done right.     In the end they are going to walk away with $100 for all of their work.    Its a job for a relative of her friend.....so, bad feelings on top of everything that will last forever are sure to be an issue.     I told Karen to just be proud of their work, get the pictures they can post to drum up business for themselves and quote the next job accordingly.    Life lessons are something you only have to learn once......hopefully.   
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Comments

10 comments

Date Votes
  • mark christian
    If the assignment is not as represented then either back out or renegotiate. No one wants to be the "bad guy," but business is business. 
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  • Locust Fork
    I don't know how it all transpired.....but they should have renegotiated things once they saw what they were there to do.   I think a cell phone picture was sent and that is what they were pricing.   You cannot do anything by a cell phone picture.   At least its a relative getting this awesome job they have done.....so they can be proud of the work they did for them.    I think the wife of this family member they are working for doesn't like them.    So, instead of being reasonable this person is making sure they don't get anything out of it.    (I wasn't told anything until they were on the way there to finish the work and realized they weren't getting paid for anything more than what they initially thought they were doing....not all the extra work it ended up being.)   
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  • mrmike08075

    Perform the work as requested only on the pictured cabinet - for the agreed upon price...

    Use the pictures number of cabinets and the agreed upon price as a formula or fee schedule...

    3 cabinets = X price

    9 cabinets = 3X price

    Two can play at that game with equal aplomb matching bad faith and concealed animosity tit for tat...

    And the whole time smile and put on a happy face - outwardly portray yourself to the apparently aggrieved party as a god fearing good person...

    Be so kind and nice and outwardly so cotton candy nice it sickens them - but be internally hard as tooled steel and remain unyielding.

    Mike

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  • nmyers
    I had a similar experience when I started a career hanging wallpaper.  After that, I always gave a "worse case" quote for the job.  If the job turned out to be easy, I charged them less when the job was complete.  If the customer balked at the high price, I was glad that I could just walk away.
    Neal
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  • select-fire
     I advertised to have a 1250 sf home I purchased that needed entirely painted inside..all walls, ceilings yrs ago..  Young lady shows up and gives me a quote. Says she would rather work for herself than flip burgers. What I didn't know until the job was over she was only 17.  I bought materials and actually painted just a little maybe a couple of walls. I hate painting. She wanted 150 dollars to do it all.  I gave her 250 . Now the young lady is 32 and still cleans homes for me. I pay her a flat rate pending how much trash is left behind. 
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  • KenK/84Bravo

    Too bad the A $ $ hat decided to take advantage of them. I agree with Mike. I would have painted the cabinets shown in the photo. "What? You have more? Well that is going to cost more. You only sent the photo of that particular section, as what you wanted painted."

    Sorry. I refuse to be taken advantage of.

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  • SCOUT5
    Lesson learned, and worth every penny lost on this one job as it will stay with her for a life time.
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  • allen griggs
    That is a good thing.  Kids need to learn these lessons.  Such as, go over to the site and look at and photograph the job.  Be careful about making that bid.
    These innocent gals got run ragged by a con man.  I have done lots of contracting.   Some homeowners are straight up honest, and some are cons.
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  • Mr. Perfect
    Was the lesson indeed learned? 
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  • Locust Fork
    I'll ask her to do something silly for a tiny bit of money and we will see????    :) 
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