How many mistakes do you make in a work day?

Good problem to have.

 

It's like when it rains on me. Look, you don't want a 10,000 lb machine in your yard after 2 inches of rain.

 

true, I have a couple of that type. you just have to remain calm and talk confidently. I had a doctor once who said "what's the worst case scenario here?" I proceeded to show him and then he goes "this would be like a cancer patient coming in and me telling him he's going to die. what's wrong with you?" you can't win with some people. I got defensive and that was my mistake. I should have answered like I would answer with anyone else. some people are natural bullies if you allow them to be.

 

For the most part, our clients don't know. This is pretty specialized esoteric stuff. Some think they know, but they don't realize how variable sediment, soil, etc can be in terms of chemistry that affects processing. And most of the time the only way to really know is to try a method. They want a Bat Computer they just plug their stuff into. Just not the way it works.

 

I'm not complaining, but I'm booked until July right now and that's just people I routinely do work for

 

I had a guy trying to tell me how to run my mini ex. I got off and told him to dig. He couldn't hit the ground with the bucket and finally walked off.

The calm part is the hard thing to do sometimes. I've got into it with a lot of architects.

 

Guy I used to work with shot a 4" mole through a water line under a fairly busy road. It was all I could do to not laugh as he and the water company guys were freaking out.

I've destroyed lots of fun things with an excavator or trencher, never my fault on the record though.

 

I hate making mistakes, especially big ones. When someone around me makes a big mistake it takes everything I have not to lose it on them, especially if the mistake was made because they did not follow my direction.

 

Oh, I can relate to this. Heaven forbid I get bad monitoring results. I must have done it wrong, someone spiked a sample, or it was a fluke.

 

Corrected a $30k mistake yesterday that had been made by someone else. That was fun.

 

I agree. And I think a frame of trying to minimize mistakes is a bad policy all around for what I'm doing. It prevents you from making the mistakes you need to make so you won't make them again.

 

This is great if you are simply working at a job with a supervisor. If you are trying to get new business, it's not so great. The next guy will come along and over promise and there goes your potential client.

 

Put it balls deep in em.

 

In some lines of work, they are only paying for your competence, though. If so, fake it till you make it.

 

Are contract disputes common? How long before you're gonna be big enough to need a general counsel?*


*Not that you couldn't hit me up for legal tidbits before you have occasion to go the full GC route. I can't say that I've done much in construction law, but learning new areas of law is something I dabble in.

 

If you tell the client something that is wrong you don't look very competent

 

I've never ran into any, but what I do is pretty black and white. I'll do exactly this for that amount, okay. The standard AIA form leaves you plenty of room for "unforeseen circumstances". I work for a lot of the same people over and over, so we all know what happens if one of those "unforeseen circumstances" happen.

 

The customer is always right is a business model, not a statement of fact. Customers are usually wrong.

 

That's not a business model I use. Unless they are so rich that them being a pain in the ass is worth it, I don't deal with customers who think they know more than I do and actually know jack shit. Life is too short

 

Absolutely. My favorite is when a customer asks for my opinion, goes in the complete opposite direction, what they chose doesn’t work, and then they call me all worked up because something we sold them didn't work.