My enlightening experience with a self-identified “christian” contractor

As part of our recent bathroom renovation, our general contractor (Brad) pointed us in the direction of a self-professed “christian” flooring contractor for our new bathroom floor and baseboards. Now, Brad made it clear that this flooring contractor is not someone that he'd ever used before, but his usual flooring contractor was too backlogged with work to help us. Since he'd done a pretty good job for us so far, I trusted Brad's judgment and agreed to work with this contractor, I'll call him “Sam.”


Sam was friendly enough, and he measured for the new flooring and baseboards the same day I met with him and picked out our new flooring. (If he noticed my footed Darwin fish emblem on the back of my car, he made no mention of it. *smirk*) Within a week, the new vinyl flooring was delivered, Sam's installer arrived, tore out the old flooring, replaced it with the new flooring, and it looked great. All that was left to complete were the baseboards. The original baseboard which was removed from the bathroom was 4” wide scrubbable vinyl-strip type, which is what I wanted the new baseboard to be. However, Sam recommended a painted, two-part wood baseboard (a ¼ round, topped with a 5” flat trim.) Despite his recommendation, I did not want wood baseboards in the bathroom at all, and made my preference known for an all-one-piece, vinyl-type trim. Sam told me he could get me what I wanted as a 'special order', but it would cost approx $100 more than what Brad had paid him to do my floors. I told him I could handle the extra cost, and left him $40 down. Two weeks later, Sam called to say that my new baseboard had arrived, and would I like him to paint it, or did I want to paint it, myself? (Huh?!?) I asked Sam, “Doesn't it COME in white?! Why would you have to paint it?!” Turns out, the 'special order' vinyl trim that I THOUGHT Sam had ordered for us, was actually a 4 1/4” wide WOOD TRIM. When I expressed my frustration at now having to have WOOD baseboards in our new bathroom that I had not only now “special ordered” but had also PAID for part of, Sam assured me that I would really like it. I told him that I would have to like it, since I'd already paid for it, and since it was a 'special order' it was not returnable.


After a few unsuccessful tries to get Sam's installer to my house to install the new wood baseboard, Mr. Installer Guy (I'll call him “John”) finally showed up one day after my son arrived home from school and I was at work (but NOT on the day I had pre-arranged with Sam) to install the baseboard. But John the installer did not arrive alone, he had company: he brought with him his 80-year old stroke-disabled father, whom he parked in a lawn chair in our front yard, where he sat and alternately whistled and moaned for the next three hours. (WTF?!?! I mean, I admire the guy for wanting to do right by his dad, but cripe, even when I was earning sh*t wages, I managed to afford daycare for my toddler son so I didn't have to take him to my work with me!)


It just so happened that my husband, Randy, was home sick with sinus issues from work that day, and it was a darn good thing he was, too, since John the installer seemed to have no more experience or carpentry knowledge than my husband (who, incidentally, does NOT do carpentry for a living.) My husband watched in disbelief as John proceeded to cut the trim using a substandard saw with an extremely dull blade by holding the trim vertically with one hand, and using the saw to TRY TO cut the trim straight down with the other hand, rather than laying the trim FLAT, and using the saw or a mitre box to make the appropriate cut. (WTF?!) When Randy saw just what kind of job this man was doing in our bathroom, he offered his own saw for John to use, and then had to SHOW HIM how to cut the trim so that he didn't have to hold it upright. Three hours later, we had 4 1/4” wood trim in our bathroom that looked like SH*T.


After John was done nailing it in (using 3” long nails, btw) he then had the nerve to ask my husband if we had any caulk that he could use to fill in the gaps that his inept workmanship had left. Randy demurred, and told him he didn't want any caulk used on the baseboard. Then John muttered something about Sam giving us a 'discount' and claimed that the balance due on the job was only $40 instead of the $60 I was expecting to pay. Randy paid the man, and got him (and his moaning father!) out of our yard. After they left, Randy noticed that John must have accidentally put the toe of his shoe down on top of our new heat/air register which was just installed in the bathroom at baseboard level, effectively flattening the fins on half of the register, and now it must be replaced again. Sure, it's probably only a $5.00 register, but if the installer couldn't have been more careful, couldn't he at least have acknowledged the damage to us rather than pretending not to notice it?!?


The very next day, Randy pulled all the new baseboard out of the bathroom, and we replaced it with new trim which we purchased ourselves from our local Home Depot, and it looks BEAUTIFUL. Funny, while we were there, we saw wood trim identical to the baseboard which Sam claimed to have 'special ordered' for us for $1.14 a foot, pre-primed. (We only needed 24 feet of trim for our small bathroom. At $1.14 a foot, does that come up to $100 ??? Or even $ 80 ???? I think not.)


What irked me the most about dealing with Sam and his installer was that Sam obviously prided himself on being a “christian” businessman...he had the obligatory christian 'fish' on the front door of his store and in his yellow pages ad, and mentions on his answering machine that he is a 'christian'-run business, but his treatment of me as a customer was anything BUT. It would have been nice if Sam had offered to allow my husband and I to purchase our own choice of baseboard, instead of bilking us out of $80 on a phony “special order” scheme, and it disturbs me to think of how often Sam might be misleading other customers in this same way. Is THIS how 'christian' businessmen do business???!


It's too bad we had such a trying experience with Sam...he would have been getting more business from us had he and his installer done quality work, because he would have been our first choice to call when the time comes to replace the flooring in other rooms in our house. Needless to say, Sam will not be doing any more flooring for us.


I am in the process of notifying my general contractor, Brad, about the type of service we received from Sam, and if he responds back to me, I will post his response here. I do not hold Brad responsible for Sam's disappointing service, as he, himself, had had no prior experience with Sam, and he made that clear to me before I even talked to Sam.


So just what IS the point of emphasizing that you are a 'christian-run' business? Is that supposed to inspire a level of confidence and trust on the part of the customer that cannot be earned in other ways? I hope not!


Oddly enough, both my husband and I have learned that the 'christian' fish symbol on cars or businesses actually serves as a warning sign...it is our experience that people driving cars so labeled are much more likely to stop in the middle of the street/road for no reason, to not use their blinkers, to drive at least 5 mph under the speed limit, and, on the freeway, to drive precisely AT the speed limit in the passing lane. And unfortunately, it is now also our experience that businesses labeled as such are even more suspect than a business which is not so labeled.


Sorry, in this day and age, being a self-professed 'christian' inspires NO comfort OR trust.

An Inconvenient Truth

Hubs and I saw this movie last week. VERY compelling. (Run, Al, run!!!!)

We enjoyed it so much, we also bought the book.
Now we are looking at ways we can reduce our carbon emissions, and Hubs is even entertaining the idea of solar panels! Luckily, we aren't one of those families that drives gas-guzzling SUVs, but I was equally surprised to learn that the cars in China get excellent gas mileage, but american cars do not. Why can't we have higher mileage standards here? Because we have multi-million-dollar petroleum industry lobbyists making sure we don't.

The Power of Addiction...

I am continually amazed at the power of substances to impact not only the addict's life, but the lives of everyone around him/her. And it's interesting to see which people fall victim to which substances and why. Saddest of all, are the lives of the children whose parents are addicts...

These children learn early on that they cannot rely upon the addicted parent to look out for their needs 100% of the time. Like all of us, I believe that addicts have "good" days and "bad" days...on the good days, their children are happier, but they can never fully relax, knowing that another bad day can be right around the corner. These children grow up wary of adults...never sure which ones they can trust and which ones they can't. What burns my butt the most about addicts with children is that even if the addict is aware of the fact that their addiction is harming his/her children, they are too far under the influence of the substance to care. These are the same parents who will go running to the school principal to complain about their child's conflict with another student, but they refuse to acknowledge how their own actions/inactions are crippling their kids (AND threatening their futures as healthy adults) every single day of their young lives.

So what causes these people, who would probably otherwise be great parents, to abandon their children precisely when they need them the most, to pursue their addiction? And what about the parents with multiple addictions? The parents who are not only addicted to tobacco and alcohol, (which are both legal, btw) but to other (illegal) substances as well? After spending the money to purchase the substances, and investing the time and effort in order to procure the substances, and the time and effort required to use the substances safely from prying eyes, and the time and effort required to lie to everyone who isn't in on the "secret," tell me: just how much time, effort and INTEGRITY is left to be an honest, moral, effective parent? And what about the mood swings when they need their fix but can't, for one reason or another, get it? How can children trust a parent who behaves like that?

Oh, I'm sure these parents have lots of good reasons (ie, excuses ) for WHY they are addicted: I had a horrible childhood, my parents beat me/abused me/allowed others to abuse me/were alcoholics or drug addicts themselves/didn't meet my needs, etc. Lots of people endured less-than-ideal childhoods, so why aren't we ALL addicts? What separates those who succumb to addiction and those who don't? IMHO, it's their inner strength...those who don't have much feel unable to deal with real life without the crutch of drugs and/or alcohol. These addicts may have been shown the example in their own childhood that the way to deal with their problems is to get drunk/high/stoned...perhaps they never had adults in their lives model appropriate, healthy ways to handle problems/frustrations. And then there are those addicted parents who are continually in so much emotional pain, from an awful childhood, from poor life choices of their own, from the rejection of those who may have been close to them, from the multiple failures of their own attempts to be "normal," that drugs/alcohol are the only things that allow them to "forget"... even though using the substances only exacerbate those problems.

IMHO, even addicted parents can decide that their children are more important than feeding their own addiction/s. Aren't they able to look at their own lives and decide that they don't want their children to be addicted like them? Don't they want their kids to have all of the advantages they can possibly have so that they can grow up to be honest, UNaddicted adults who handle their problems in HEALTHY ways? Don't all parents want that for their kids? Since I'm not an addict myself, this is the part I have the most trouble understanding...how can addicted parents allow their addictions to rule their entire lives, even to the point of losing custody of their kids? Sadly, the kids are the ones who suffer the most, and carry the maladaptive coping mechanisms they learned in their chaotic childhood into adulthood...setting the stage for their own difficulties in relationships with others (both personal and in the workplace) their own issues with substances, etc.

If I could ensure that every child in the world had a happy, healthy childhood would I? Of course. But ultimately, it's the parents who bring these children into the world who shape them into the adults they will eventually become. And sadly, 99.9% of the time, kids can't choose the parents who raise them.

*sigh*