Non Sequitur by Wiley Miller for May 27, 2011

I’ve heard that before!

He would make a dandy politician.

I think those are the lyrics to Bohemian Rhapsody.

At least he showed up.

Understand Lady, thats just an estimate. Don’t know what I’ll find after I tear apart your house. Oh, 50% down.

Sorry, folks…but since I have to fix your “improvements” in order to be able to do the remodeling to code, the cost has gone up. Shoulda’ let me do the work in the first place, instead of trying to “do it yourself”.

If they are not content with that beautiful home they already have, they will never be content.

Its free to let him in your door. But you’ll always have topay to get them out. Or “I know someone”.Amen on that RonD.

Overt the years I’ve learned to draw up my own contracts and do my own material estimates first! Part of the contract is that they can not stop work on mine and go to another job.

Genius! :)

As always, the key to successful leadership is creating the right incentives so that your vision of success becomes theirs.

That’s what happens when you upgrade to the Rootie Tootie Flandango, instead of settling for the standard Flandango.

I think the work is already completed. If it were an estimate they could always go with someone else. There was probably a clause in the original estimate for over runs.

I know a guy who does a lot of heavy remodelling on his house. He told me his method for estimating how long it will take. First, he makes an estimate. Then he doubles the number and then goes to the next unit of time, e.g. days to weeks, weeks to months, etc. Thus an initial estimate of 2 days ends up being 4 weeks. He says that so far it has worked pretty close to right most of the time.

Justice22, the couple is hearing the estimate in contractorese; only the reader can see the English version. As for ‘the work is already completed’…as Dave Barry says in Homes and Other Black Holes, after the contract is signed and the old roof torn off or the old floor torn out or whatever, “A skilled contractor can actually cause himself to dematerialize, into hyperspace, before your eyes.” The completion date is t+c, where t is today and c is a constant.

@Nabuquduriuzhur

I once worked for a defense contractor. We built a prototype system and won the bid for the follow-on, but since we were not one of the “usual” contractors, we had to team with one of the big boys.

When they put the proposal together, I complained, “but that’s not what they want!”

Their respons was. “Yeah, we know. We make money on the change request$.”

Yahoo Babelfish was no help.

I love Rockadoodle music….

Anybody see “The Money Pit” with Shelly Long and Tom Hanks? “Two Weeks”“Two Weeks”

Kheop´s law.Nothing gets built on time and whitin budget.

You can have it:

1. On time

2. On budget

3. Error free

Pick two.

I feel lucky – my kitchen was only $600 over – to a man who installed a cabinet incorrectly before realizing (as I had said a million times to everyone who wouldn’t listen) that the refrigerator doors wouldn’t open if the cabinet were put where the “designers” wanted it. The money was for his added expense! Yikes! And to think I’m moving and will have to have work done in that house. Sigh! (P.S. Wiley, if you live in Maine, retirement awaits me in Bath.)

Snag pobble di topo…Effe do no san leto…Canu du no deffe sanu…Topo co topo su ni…Affe ni sa ni copo…F@#k if I know?…Could be May…Could be September…

Serves you right for going for the cheap bid.Quality costs money