Big Problems Between Contractors And Procrastinators

If you're a building or remodeling contractor and you've never had to deal with a procrastinator before, I suggest that you pay attention to the information on this page. One of the biggest mistakes that I made was working with a procrastinator that couldn't make up his mind and it cost me a fortune.

Here's what happened. I designed a room addition that was going to be built on the back of this man's house. While I was designing the room addition for him, he couldn't make up his mind, for the exact size of anything, windows, doors and bathroom fixtures. I didn't need all of this information, to simply design the room addition and told him that it would be okay and he could give me the information later on.

I didn't want to slow the job down, because he was in a hurry to move one of his family members into the new master bedroom. I got the plans through the city building department and started construction.

It was now time for him to select the rest of the building materials that would be required for his new master bedroom. I explained to him that it was a priority to select the windows first. I told him that we needed to order the windows, because sometimes there is a two to four week waiting period.

This was just the windows I'm talking about. I framed to the room addition and made the rough window openings a little larger than I thought I needed, because he still hadn't even ordered the windows yet. I had never dealt with a person like this and really wasn't prepared psychologically for what was about to happen.

This guy couldn't make his mind up, about anything. The room addition sat for an additional six weeks, before I finally got the windows. I couldn't tell you how frustrated I was and threatened to quit. He said that it wouldn't happen again and he would get me all of the information for the rest of the building materials that we needed to order.

The rest of the job seemed to go a little bit smoother, but the lesson that I had learned, I would never forget. It's never a good idea to work for anyone who can't make their mind up, but if you are going to work for someone like this, make sure that they have everything picked out that they're going to use, before you start building.