Thanks for those giving me some advice yesterday on my emergency soap tip. Worked out great (1/4" QC with 3/16" hose barb). Worked great for all of 30 minutes before my PW said goodbye to me. And by goodbye I mean made a banshee scream, bucked for a couple seconds, seized up and gave off some smoke. So a dramatic goodbye as it was pulled back into hell.
I keep up on my maintenance but it was getting long in the tooth, and I always keep my extinguisher handy. Made sure it wasn’t going to flame up then swapped over to the garden hose to get my remaining mix off the house.
Builder wanders over with his team and didn’t look impressed. Like that was a shocker to me at this point. When I rolled up this morning, he told me he had his jobsite cleaners do all the interior and exterior windows they could, so just the misfit and high windows were left. That pissed me off, but that ones my fault: I was trying to get into this gated beach community and did what I said I wouldn’t do this year - work off an hourly rate.
Was a poor move on his part, he could have told me that part of the plan and I would have reacted appropriately, rather than having the profit I was expecting cut by half. Was doing the exterior wash, and interior and exterior windows for $1000, something I would have normally quoted out $1250, but really wanted this business so I was just going to do what I could do so the day wasn’t a total waste.
So he makes some choice remarks about the situation, his cronies have a laugh and fire in some of their own, then he kicks off with entourage in tow no doubt to have some more laughs at my expense. Classy stuff. I break out my spill kit as there was oil on the ground, and lug my machines corpse back and load it up. Go back and finish off that side to make sure everything was off of it, and pack all my stuff up. At this point I need no more signs saying this day is over.
Go find the builder and let him know. He makes an exaggerated fuss about the job not being done, and that he’s going to spread the word about my performance and I stop him and had my say, because at this point I am not working for him now. Give him my thoughts on how I really felt about him reducing the job. Told him he could talk all he wants, those I have done work for know the quality of the end result, and that I would not hesitate to talk about my experience with his company either if he wanted to get nasty. When the FU’s kicked up is when I left, wasn’t worth wasting anymore time as it wasn’t making me any money.
Sorry for the ramble. Engine is toast. My brain feels like toast. I am hungry for actual toast now.
Time to hit the streets in the morning. I figure I need 10 medium jobs to make up my losses of today (and an interim rental) to reach my new equipment purchase goal. Channel me your sales Karma that you can spare lol.
