Ya win some, ya lose some.. probably gotta write that off.

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$1250 owed to me by a contractor I worked a few jobs for. He was paying too many guys to do the work vs. being able to do it himself because he's in very poor health and declining, and then as a double whammy his clients (especially one) really stiffed him and paid ultra low prices so he couldn't afford to pay everyone + costs of doing business + himself etc. I was there when he got screwed by the general contractor that insisted he was only going to pay him the rock bottom price/square foot for our work regardless of the fact that it was not the most simplistic work in the industry - it had some pretty detailed custom (time consuming) stuff & dimensions etc. (Rock bottom rate should be reserved for the fastest easiest work to do, not fancy stuff done well.)

Anyways, last I chatted with him he said he had another job to do in a nearby city that should make him enough money to pay me out and it'd be a couple weeks. That was 5 weeks ago. I followed up with him yesterday, chatted on messenger then he phoned me and we talked for 45 mins or something. Bottom line: He had a heart attack 3-4 days into that job and hasn't worked since, is behind on rent for his family, and doesn't know What he's going to be able to do to try to sustain himself never mind possibly catch up on paying me so realistically I'll likely never get paid unless he somehow comes into some lucrative contracts and catches everything up. It's not like he got paid well and just kept the money or anything like that.. he's legit dying - on kidney dialysis 4 days/week, and now with a new diagnosis of calciphylaxis it basically makes him no longer a candidate for a kidney transplant and docs have told him he likely has about a year to live so get his affairs in order.

Apparently he's been a stand up guy in the business for nearly 30 years and has a good rep for his work as well as as a contractor, it's just that now his health problems are compounding faster than it's possible to deal with them and he's just scrambling to figure out how to not be homeless with his wife and 12yo daughter. Sooooo unlikely I'll ever see that money.

Another contractor still owes me $636.10 of a few grand, might not see that. Another owes me about $1200, which I'll eventually get I know.. he runs up tabs then pays them. That old guy just got screwed by a business partner of sorts for $110k worth of jobs, which after expenses and taxes should have probably net him several 10's of thousands.. poof, stolen, gone - might have legal recourse, might not. Crazy. That guy's gotten kicked in the nuts big time over his years as an entrepreneurial contractor.. and this is a big one, especially at his age of ~68.

Another contractor friend that owed me $1800 from ~8 years ago finally paid me yesterday when I asked him again - so sometimes money comes through. In that situation his renovation financing loan fell through and he had a mental break down. He's in the process of suing a contractor he worked for that didn't pay him for 2 jobs.. did several jobs through the guy, got paid, then he does 2 more and the guy ghosts him for $35k. He's spent $7k on a lawyer so far and they went to court and the defendant Just hired a lawyer 2 days before so the judge postponed the hearing another couple months. He thinks this guy is gonna skip the country.

Lots of posts of tradesmen/small contractors seeking work/running out of work lately.. I asked my friend about that - he knew exactly why and it's a perfect explanation. Interest rates. People aren't borrowing $100k+ out of the equity of their homes to do renovations when it's going to cost them 7-8% interest like they were when the costs were less than half, so major renovation work is drying up fast. There's still work out there for me to pursue, small one man jobs, and work with the 68 yo working on a mansion and some basement + he might take on finishing the interior of a $50M mega house. And/or I could partner with him and go out of town to work at some point. Or film industry might kick off again and need me building film sets. And/or I Always for the rest of my life basically have an option of going back to early morning Union work doing my trade on commercial sites - worst part for me is getting up REALLY EARLY, 2nd worst is paying for parking lol.

Blah blah blah - sharing in part because if any of you are working for yourselves as any sort of contractor in construction trades, or even doing cleaning or landscaping maintenance etc, you've definitely got to be prepared for the simple fact that some people are going to be late paying you and others are never ever ever going to follow through on their word to pay you/never intended to in the first place. People on the spectrum are probably more likely to be too trusting And more likely to be too lenient collecting money owed, too. Another thing is that you've got to charge more money than you'd make at a Job to make any business worth all the extra work, and if some client suggests your price is a bit too high - and you Know that its not even on the high side of your industry - point out to that likely job holder that contractors have to charge a small premium for the risk we take of not getting paid sometimes. That's business. We don't have the stability of a paycheque every 2 weeks like clockwork and sometimes we end up working at a loss for material costs/fuel etc and never get paid, so, that's my price and I'd be happy to do a good job for it - but I can't afford to charge less and stay in business.

It's also pretty critical to agree on a price up front in advance, too, vs. trust that a general contractor will pay fairly - even if you've worked for them before. If the guy with the health problems had known the minimal piece rate the guy was gonna pay him he'd have simply declined the work and said he couldn't get it done for that price - good luck finding someone. We did a pretty damn good job for the custom stuff they wanted, way better than they paid for. There are some details that Could have been done even better if we were paid to take the time and do some of it in multiple stages and use lasers to install trim as perfectly as possible; but almost no one pays for that ever - but due to the very odd design of this place they Should Have IMO. That contractor walked with only $200 after paying everyone else what he could. Lame. He should have been able to pay everyone and walk with $2500.

Kinda like the time I quoted a Realtor $4500 for a job and she damned near fell over and died she was so sticker shocked.. umm, $800 for materials and gas to drive there a bunch of times, and a week and a half or so's work doing PITA work. She got a quote for less than half - if someone did that for 2 grand they likely did a terrible job And I'd rather go to the beach every day for a week and a half than do it for around minimum wage.

Anyways, at least with this contractor's health issues it's not like he's pumping out jobs and has cash flying through his hands and just decided to stiff me. Not at all. I'll likely never see the money, but, it's a different situation and I'm at peace with it. His wife got a turkey given to her from work and they're having a thanksgiving dinner tmw and invited me - I'll probably go, even if I get up and go work with the old guy tmw morning. Invited to another friendgiving dinner on Monday (someone else that owes me $600 still from a small personal loan they've been paying off) and I might go to that, too. With the unhealthy guy, he's a good guy.. and I just kinda figured f**k, this might be his Last annual *everything* and he's on the brink of losing his home and he invites me to share dinner w/ them ? Mmmmaybe I should go, yeknow? It's gonna rain and I don't have anything else planned. Also, I told him if he's legit never gonna pick his tools up again there are a few things he has that I don't that I'd buy from him - one of them is a trowel that's impossible to buy because the guy who made them died a few years back and I wanna be the first call he makes when he decides he needs to cash out on a few things. (Business wise he should GIVE me tools in lieu of cash, but in reality I know if he parts with the tools he'll sell them to someone else before giving them to me - I would to buy groceries, too.)

Maybe I'll get my s**t together over the next couple months a little better, catch up on long overdue paperwork of a few sorts, and then have a clear mind for either more contracting work Or maybe timing will be just right and I'll shift gears to a Job working building film sets for the movie industry once all the strikes are over and the film ppl are all back to work. Time will tell. At least when I was working full time+ and making more money than I Needed to float bills I was good enough at saving a lot that I can weather these sorts of storms - another thing ppl need to learn to do better; most people spend everything and then some and live in debt. Don't do that, too stressful.

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No for supporting trump. Because doing so is deplorable.

Update: I'm doing a handful of small jobs with this contractor that got stiffed by a GC and couldn't pay me on that job. He's in failing health and Needs my help as I can climb scaffolds and reach and do things he can't. He's very talented at some aspects of our trade due to 28 years experience so part of the deal is he's teaching me to be better at it. We're splitting the profits on these jobs, and he feels bad about that other one (which I'd already mentally written off) and says he'll chip away at it bit by bit to pay it off if he can. If so that'll be a nice bonus.

I also have another open ended offer to work with another contractor - which I might do 1/2 days with each sometimes etc. And an open ended offer for a full time commercial job again in the union if I ever want. And and future opportunities etc. Good to have options as the economy slows.. interest rates are killing renovations and some new construction so there are ever more guys looking for work these days and times are about to get very very tough, especially when people are barely hanging on by a thread when they're working full tilt.

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No for supporting trump. Because doing so is deplorable.