Boss and I joke about stuff like that all the time as he a buff stud and yet in the 12 yrs we been together crazy enough I don't think we have ever had a single customer either of us would touch with a 2x4..::::
Some of my buddies elsewhere have relayed film worthy adventures tho.. we have great customers, just not good looking.
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Yeah, I think this is where I will excuse myself from the conversation....

I have not had anything like that happen to me but....a buddy of mine and I were building a deck for a wealthy customer....Jewish doctor. At break time the daughter... early twenties.... came outside and brought us some iced tea, she was obviously smitten with my friend. She was cute and he was single .... he told me he would ask her out. I warned him that she was a spoiled princess type and not in our socioeconomic class and to beware. .Fast forward...after her parents said she should not marry a carpenter he took accounting classes and after he got his degree they got married. He first had to convert to Judaism and wasnt allowed to celebrate Christmas with his two sisters.
He lasted two weeks at his new job before he couldnt stand it and quit. He was an excellent carpenter and he told her he was going to start his own business and would build a big new house for them right next door to her parents. She started to feel better...telling me he was no longer just a carpenter but a general contractor now.
Her new cars and diamond rings were never good enough and the rift between them grew until after two children and daily fighting they divorced. He later remarried to a poor catholic girl and is finally content.

My worst experience with a customer was years ago in Apponog Warwick. Guy had a house on the back side of Apponog Cove. About 120 foot drop to the water and he wanted a terraced stairway down to the water. I gave him a price based on what I found when I started digging the footings.
Guess what? The hill was an old junk yard. Literally full of car parts and old car frames. No way to get equipment in to move the stuff so I would have had to carry everything out by hand.

I walked away from the job without getting paid a dime and I had dug 12 footings. Guy was a total A$$hat.

Putting in a stockade fence once and the lady next door comes over and asks "Do you need help? It's July and about 90 with 90% humidity so I said "No, this is really hard work". She says: No I mean do you need HELP?" She bats her eyes at me. Now she's about 5' 3" and 300 pounds. I politely declined, finished the job and got the hell out of there as fast as possible.

It's interesting... that when you work for certain segments of society....you will observe patterns of behaviour. I once worked for a contractor that had connections with the Jewish population in the area. I started noticing some similar traits after months and years of working on their homes. One wealthy couple had a live-in maid and a driver/errand guy with a list of jobs they were required to perform daily. Within days of starting the huge remodel of their home, the lady of the house was asking me to do domestic chores while I was "there". Not understanding that I was a skilled craftsman...not a pee-on. Pretty sure they didnt understand the difference. Carry items to her car.....bring up bottled water from the basement.....and a lot more stupid stuff.
The maid would lock the door behind me everytime i went out to my truck for a tool....told me she was just doing her job as instructed by Mr. ***. After about the fourth or fifth time......I pounded on the door hard enough to shake the house....when the maid and the Mrs. came running to see....I told them if it happened again...I would leave and not come back. Message sent and received. There are times you have to stand up for yourself and demand respect.

Other domestic chores that Ive been asked to do while also remodeling......start the oven at 3pm so the potatoes can bake, walk the dog on my lunch break, load luggage into the car for overnight trip, build a coffin for the dog and put it in the car with the dog for his final trip to the vet.....remove plywood coffin from the family car and place in hole dug by errand guy...that was only as deep as the coffin so had to redig ......and thats not all!

We were doing a remodel in Little Compton a while back and the home owner (she was a 50 something business woman) asked me to switch her laundry when the buzzer went off. I must have had a look on my face when she asked, she said to me as serious as a heart attack....don't be shy, we all wear underwear. I was a bit shocked but I guess some people have no shame. 20 minutes after she left the buzzer went off and I had the laborer switch it. When she got home she was surprised I actually did it. I explained to her that the kid working with me did it she called me a chicken s$%t. I can't imagine being asked to do all those chores for a customer.

When it came time to gut out the master bedroom bath, the customer had not yet removed the contents of the vanity cabinets even after being informed several days before. I asked what she wanted done with all the stuff in them...so we could continue stripping to bare walls. She asked to see what was in the cabinets so she could decide on whether to keep or dispose of the dozens of items.....she continued eating her breakfast.....while we waited. When she came across an opened roll of mints she asked if me or my brother wanted them! :hs:
Was it an act of kindness....or a complete lack of self awareness.

Math and reading scores are down all over the country. Our educational system is going in the wrong direction. I think a return to the basics of reading, writing, and mathematics is in order. Have you noticed how kids today spell? Is it to be cool... or they really dont know or care?

Carpenters helpers may not need to know much.......but to excel advance and lead as a builder and tradesman those skills are essential.

What’s it measure ? Two little marks after the 15…… you’re fired…..

Ive seen guys hold rafter stock up and draw cuts instead of learning to use the tables on a framing square.... and most never heard of Pythagorian theorem. Cutting stair stringers is another task those without math skills fail miserably at. Reading a ruler can be a big challenge for the poorly educated.

I had a young guy from Guatemala helping me...nice kid but I noticed
a lot of his baseboard cuts were either too short or too long by about an eighth of an inch. I took him aside and marked on a scrap of wood a scaled up drawing of one inch, illustrated with sixteenths, eighths, quarters, etc labeled each one. He started cutting more accurately soon after that.

Not being able to read a ruler is nothing new.
I remember in the 80s using a giant rule to teach guys what those little marks on the ruler were, pointing at them and everyone calling them out “9/16”.
I also remember two of my guys arguing around the corner from me “It’s wrong” “I cut it 98 and a half” “ I didn’t want a half inch, I wanted it 8/16”.
The metric system eliminates all that.
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The construction industry is still far from converting over to the metric system....maybe someday. In the meantime learning to read a ruler in British imperial system or US customary system is easy...if you have two brain cells to rub together. Good to exercise the intellect a little even if it hurts

The metric equivalent of a 4' x 8' sheet of plywood is 1219.2mm X 2438.4mm......and 16" o.c. becomes 406.4 mm....so not a such agood idea... imo

I worked with a couple of Austrians framing years ago, they had learned in the apprentice program in Austria and moved here. They said it’s much easier not to deal with fractions and sorta base 12 math.
Metric plywood is 1200 x 2400
Centers can be
300 it’s around a foot
400 roughly 16”
or 600 around 2’
And the engineering calcs are easier
Roof pitches are x in 10 so as long as you know the Pythagorean theorem it’s basic math.
Most of the world does it except for socket drive sizes which are 1/4, 3/8 and half.

I don’t think we’ll have to deal with it
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Listen, I once worked with 2 guys who were college grads but couldn't read an analog clock. I'm not kidding.

I don’t mean to get political here but it appears to me that the politicians that make the funding decisions for schools are more interested in what bathroom a kid should be using, what books to ban (that promote individual thought and free thinking) and inserting their religious beliefs as opposed to actually giving todays children a solid educational foundation. The reason for all of this is to keep the ruling class in power and cripple the working class and to distract us from the real issues of this country by divisive social issues.
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Good stuff Pete.....More metric use in the cabinet shop where i worked with some materials and equipment.....just not the shop drawings of millwork. Stuff like a 2'6 x 6'8 door will be a standard for a while as well as our cabinet and appliance sizes.

I have a complete set of metric tools....the depth adjustment on my festool saw is metric. Learning both systems is worthwhile even if just for the mental exercise..

Ill let the educators handle it..... but its pathetic.
I waited for the college age cashier to figure my change for a ten dollar bill the other day and i was embarrassed for her.

this is a great thread. I love the ones about terrible customers also. Years ago while building a house for customers, who later turned out to be total #^&#^&#^&#^&s. They wanted a security sensor on the door going over the garage storage area. Now the only way into that garage was from the second door or putting a ladder up against the house and breaking the window to get in. Now we were building in a nice part of town and they had a cop who lived across the street from the build. I told my security guy to put it in for them. Now it get's even better. They wanted a sensor to the the pull down attic stair going into the attic, kid you not. I just rolled my eyes and walked away. Worst customers we ever had in building. Got all of there cabinets from ikea and wanted us to put them together. Now this was before ikea was up our way. Needless to say we didn't do it. I could go on but I think everyone gets the jist of this one.

We need to return to teaching how to think as opposed to what to think....

I have worked for a lot of nice people too.....not as interesting as the bad ones. One was a doctors wife who gave us a gift for our newborn son....another gave nice gift card to a fancy restaurant...another guy a lawyer gave me a thank you card and a nice book on classic cape cod homes........best one was a guy who owned a nice cottage on the vineyard and told me to take the place for a week.....we had a great time.

Getting deeper into construction math beyond reading a ruler.
Over time I've learned the necessity of knowing the decimal equivalents of the inch.....and that every fraction is an expression of division.....1 divided by 32 equals .03125

The way I remember is that each 32nd is equal to .03 of an inch and so each 16th is .06. and so on. Some of these are rounded off.

1/32 = .03
1/16 = .06
3/32 = .09
1/8 = .125
Not often used is the decimal equivalents of one foot... but it works the same way.
Calculators are a useful tool but you have to understand the how and why of formulas.
Metric system might be less complicated......but I am more comfortable with our past and present system.
Math dont lie!

I agree Ross.
Most of my learning resulted from constant repetition... and Im referring to the three R's, not social studies.

Reading....Righting? and Rithmatic? who came up with that?

And teach contractors that communication is a requirement of the job. We came to the cottage build out in the final stages one day and find they have placed the AC condensing unit so close to the outside shower rough out, that having the door where we wanted it to the future enclosure would be impossible. Had they asked we would have let them know two reasons that spot was a no go, nosey neighbor and the need for parking. We had to get the contractor to promise it would be moved at his expense in order to release any further payments.

I remodeled a lot of my last house myself and without geometry and some algebra I couldn’t have gotten it done. I even made custom cabinets in my bathroom but you’d laugh at my design. They were solid though.

Indeed you did and a fine job it was! I was at the old house from when you bought it!

You know the saying....and ive had a few of them.

Built a garage and family room once for a doctor that was friends with another doctor whose home i had worked on ...and he was also my sons pediatrician. Everything went fine.... he was happy for the job I did and paid me in full.......just complained a little about some blades of grass on his lawn that got damaged.
Fast forward a couple of years and he calls me about a getting a new kitchen addition bump-out which involved removing 14' of exterior bearing wall... with a flush in ceiling steel beam installed. He said he would be gone for exactly four weeks and it had to be all done... including new cabinets counters flooring etc. We came to an agreement on price and a contract was written up and signed...with my promised completion date.

When they returned the job was all done except for some debris removal.

I asked him what he wanted me to do with the nine foot pella slider we had removed for the bumpout.....he asked if i wanted it and i said no....no place to use or store it ......so he told me to dispose of it and remove it from his property.

Next day as my brother and i loaded the big frame and door panels onto the back of my utility truck...to take it to the landfill just down the road...a neighbor watched us then came over and asked what i was going to do with it....i told him.... and he offered me 100 bucks to untie it and carry it to his backyard.
When I got my final payment it was short by $100 dollars..... the good doctor said that "he didnt know i was holding a yard sale"......(his neighbor had needled him about getting a nice door so cheap....and I didnt know they didnt get along) and that he would take the hundred out of what he owed me on the final payment.

Good grief!

unbelievable,

Yes.....he was a nice guy.....and the job i did was excellent.....but that was the one thing I did that stuck in his craw.

I have to tell you though......a lot of people are very nice....right up until the job is complete and final payment is due.

The mantra by boss has adopted lately regarding estimates with people watching all these home improvement shows and having unrealistic cost expectations---
" this is what it costs for me to do the job and it costs $0 for me not to"
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Love it. Most home owners have no idea....

Good for him...that's my approach with prices
I have told customers that if my price was negotiable I would have padded it sufficiently and lower it to my originally determined amount I needed. But I don't play those games. And when I'm the potential buyer I won't offer you less than your price...ill walk away if I don't want to pay it. Some people love negtiating....not me.

I had a well known local guy over to give me an estimate on a bathroom remodel. He simply replied 40k. I asked for something written with a rough breakdown of the costs, he gave me a piece of paper that said “remodel bathroom 40k.”

i once received a $5,000 tip from a client who was floored by the job I did. There are wonderful people out there, but they are hard to find.

$40K?
Are you putting a 24K gold #^&#^&#^&#^&ter in?
We had ours redone after a plumbing leak, all but sheetrock, added a vent fan (there wasn't one) mid-range very nice but not highest end tile, countertop, full glass wall/tiled walk-in shower with the pebble floor/bench etc. and it was sub $20K....

What he meant to say is I’m too busy and don’t need the work.