Honest Coot

The second remodeling company -- the young start-up -- finally came back and finished the seemingly endless window project. One window had to be remade and several tasks had to be redone or revised. Everything was done, redone to my satisfaction. He even took all the leftover paint from the garage to the basement -- "You shouldn't leave it out there." -- something the painters neglected to do. Several other tasks I thought were above and beyond.

He gave me some energy rebate forms for my taxes and we finally sat down to settle the bill. There have been several revisions back and forth as items were returned, credited, new items were bought, etc. But I immediately saw that his skills in math are not equal to his construction ability: he had mistakenly billed me for one of the adjustments instead of the final adjusted total: $180 instead of $1100. I couldn't do it. I pointed out the mistake and paid him the full amount. I think he was a little shaken up. I'll sleep better tonight knowing I paid an honest worker fairly, and I'll bet he'll sleep better knowing he can pay his crew. But I bet that in the future, he'll probably have his wife (or someone, anyone!) double-check his work.