Friday, July 18, 2008

WWPD

I have a sub that fucked up, fucked up big time. Thursday I had many thousands of dollars of very custom countertop show up at my site cut incorrectly. So wrong that I spotted the problem before the installer killed the engine on his van. So wrong that of the ten pieces delivered, only half were usable. This is not the sort of thing that goes over well on any jobsite. Normally, as a sub you would hope and pray that if you're going to fuck up, you fuck up on my site. No big drama, no throwing tools, no screaming, just a simple, 'How do we fix it and move on?' I'm a pretty rational and mellow guy. This time I'm not so sure.

Phone calls were made, everyone involved not standing directly in front of me refused to talk to me. No one would meet me on site, word got to me(through the installer) that the templater said that the mistakes were done at my direct request against his better judgment. Now I'm a little pissed. A meeting is set up for Friday, on site, with me, the templater, and the templater's boss to figure out where things went wrong. I sit and stew the rest of the day, getting a little madder as the day wears on. By the end of the day I'm ready to wring someones neck.

Friday morning, I get a call from the countertop company, the templater called in sick, so no meeting. Sick my ass. Lets do the phone call reenactment shall we.

Sean: This is Sean.

Countertop company lackey saddled with the chore of calling the angry contractor: Hi, Sean. ______ called in sick so _______ (______'s boss) has pushed the meeting to Monday between 10 and 1.

Sean: I'm sorry, did you say that ______ called in sick?

Lackey: That's correct.

S: Is he actually sick or just scared?

L: I don't k...

S: He's not sick he's scared, as he should be.

L: Uhh...

S: Here's the problem with his strategy of avoiding me today. All I've done since yesterday is sit and stew and get more angry. All he's done is get more scared, so scared in fact that he chose to use a sick day to avoid seeing me today. Now my anger is going to continue to fester and grow over the weekend and so will his, now more than ever, completely rational fear of me. By the time we finally see each other I will be the maddest I've ever been about anything and he will be the most scared he's ever been, so things will not be better better for _____.

L: I don't kn...

S: If this meeting doesn't go down Monday, I don't know where this is going to go because we currently taking my anger into uncharted territory.

L: I'll relay the message.

S: Thanks.

This conversation is of course somewhat edited for space and memory, but I do know that articulated myself much the way it's spelled out here and for me, that's pretty impressive. I'm usually not so linguisticly good on my feet. So that brings me back to the title of this post; What would Patrick do?

This pure strain of evil wrapped up in human form, spawn of Satan(sorry mom), capable of making grown men hand over off limits children's toys with a single stare. On a oversold airplane he always has an empty seat next to him. He once whipped an employee with a straightened coat hanger for taking an extended break. He's been accused of creating a hostile work environment(I think he's teflon because the boss is scared too). I have literally seen people cross the street when walking towards him. No joke, I've seen attack dogs go nuts only to get within strike range and then cower in front of him. For some reason the elderly gravitate towards him and love him(protection maybe?).

So as angry as I am, how much worse would this be if you were to replace me with Patrick? What would _____'s future hold? I shudder at the thought.

6 comments:

Old Fat and Slow said...

Dude, the sub deserves your wrath. I had an contract engineer f*** things up for the last time a couple months ago. When I started getting excuses during the phone call with 4 engineers on the line, I said, "I'm about to get very unprofessional now, so I'm hanging up." Problem solved. Never heard from him again.

Now, WWPD was a bit over the top. Yeah, he uses the tough guy image when needed, and does it very effectively. "Spawn of Satan"?? Damn right "sorry Mom" If he got the evil eye from anybody, it was me!

Paul said...

Two words. Lunchbox labratory... soothes the soul. Plus, it will give you strength to rip him a new one on Monday.


Or Whiskey… if you want to get yourself Dennis Hopper mad…

Unknown said...

Dad - Did Pat tell you that he made the mistake of reading the post aloud to a co-worker without having read it through first?

Paul - I think it's out of the question before Monday morning but I'm free Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday evening, tell me when and I'm there.

Pat - For you, Lunchbox Lab is worth the drive, pure evil food.

Old Fat and Slow said...

Nobody should ever read your blog aloud the first time through, especially when someone else is in the room, especially when that someone is an employee. Maybe you should eat at Lunchbox Laboratory before you see Pat again.

Anonymous said...

So WTF ended up happening with this special sub?

su ling

Unknown said...

We had the meeting the following Monday and they caved right off the bat. Of course they fucked up a couple more times in the process and it's only today that they actually finished the job.