My customer's teenager called me out on a lazy install and I had to admit she was right

I was finishing up a panel swap in a house near Arlington last Tuesday when the kid comes out and asks why I left the motion sensor wire draped across the attic truss instead of stapling it. She said her dad paid for a clean install. She was 15 maybe. It hit me that I was rushing because I had three more stops and that's not an excuse. Has anyone else had a customer or their kid point out something that made you tighten up your standards?

2 comments

2 Comments

andrew77828d ago

My cousin runs a high end trim carpentry crew and he told me once that the best quality control he ever had was when his daughter started tagging along on jobs. She was 12 and kept asking why he didn't clean up sawdust before painting. He had to admit she was right because he was skipping steps to save time. That girl now runs her own remodeling company at 23. Kids don't have the bad habits we build up over years of cutting corners. They just see what's in front of them. Maybe we all need a teenage inspector on site once a week.

fisher.charlie26d agoMost Upvoted

@andrew778 that story is good but sawdust before paint is actually fine if you vacuum it up. The real issue is she spotted the skipped step.