Framing mistake made my client laugh so hard he bought lunch

I was building a deck for a guy last summer in Portland, and I accidentally cut a joist 2 inches short. He watched me measure twice, cut once, and still screw it up. He just pointed at the gap and said "I could park my truck in there." We both cracked up and he ended up buying me a burger from the food cart down the street. Has anyone else had a client catch you in a dumb moment but still tip you or buy you something?

3 comments

3 Comments

jessica3319d ago

That story is gold. Had a similar thing happen. I was teaching my neighbor how to hang drywall and we measured the same wall three times. Got different numbers each time. He just looked at me and goes "maybe we should just guess." Ended up being off by like an inch but we patched it. He brought over a six pack the next day and said "for your math skills." Mistakes happen. Makes you more human.

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sam_cooper8d ago

Why is it the little stuff like this that always teaches the biggest lessons @jessica331? I've seen it a hundred times where people get so caught up in being perfect they forget that a six pack and a laugh fixes a lot of things. But the real secret is that most folks waste way too much energy on stuff that doesn't matter while totally missing the simple common sense right in front of them.

henryr459d ago

I gotta disagree with "makes you more human" jessica. I mean I get the sentiment but that's not really a mistake you should just shrug off. Measuring three times and getting three different numbers means you were doing it WRONG. There's a right way to read a tape measure and if you're off by an inch on drywall you're going to be patching and mudding for way longer than it would've taken to just measure properly. The six pack thing is funny but it kind of covers up the real problem which is nobody checked their method. Hard work is good but bad work is just bad work. You can be human AND accurate at the same time.