THIS TIME FOR SURE

I’ve been enjoying the thrill lately of dealing with this one remodeling company. We had some bad weather a while ago and our city hall building ended up with damage. Of course the main problem was that there had been spot in the roof that were in bad condition, but it just frankly got overlooked.

It got complicated for me because the department head in the room that leaked never bothered to tell me about the problem. That was until the leaks created some major damage and naturally at that point I finally got told.

So I had to order an inspection and we found out that the whole roof was going to need to be replaced. Plus the damage to the department had to be repaired and one thing led to another and before I knew it we were looking at some major remodeling. What started out as a simple issue turned into a something complicated.

Oh we went through usual routine of getting bids from various contractors. (Naturally the one with the “private” understanding in terms of my personal needs was given the nod.) And when we got done it came time for the remodeling.

Well that was the theory at least. In reality what I wasn’t prepared for was that whole process it took before any remodeling took place.

Now I know as a Mayor I ought to be used to such things, but I was dumb and stupid in this situation and honestly took the contractors word for how things were going. So when they told me everything was ready to go, I believed them.

Unfortunately I came to discover that with the contractor there were various levels of being ready to go. There was the planning stage, the preparing the plans stage, the — I think you get the idea here I hope.

Which all came down to this issue of me asking for a timetable for when the project would be completed. And of course that timetable has had to be amended almost weekly.

I of course am used to stalling people myself. That’s a standard ploy. So I really feel stupid when I let somebody else do it too me.

At this point though, it has sort of become a challenge to see how many times I’m going to be told this time for sure in terms of deadlines. I’m thinking of starting a pool at city hall and the individual who guesses the correct number of times the person is going to tell me that before actually starting the remodeling will win a prize.

As far as what kind of prize, for this type of thing I think I’ll make the person guess as to what it will be as well as when they will get it. Hey anybody who is lucky enough to guess how many times a contractor is going to lie to me can sure as well enjoy waiting too!