todays bad customer

[Ad-Vice_Man]

You may want to write up a one page addendum to your contract that you can include with your contract for those who have the Galvanized piping. this addendum would state the risks inherent with working on these older pipes, have them sign off that they've been notified. This is something I'd have them sign once you have the job and are on site.

This might also be an opportunity. You could provide an "optional" service contract in this addendum that will allow someone in this situation to pay you a monthly retainer of $X for a year in lieu of labor costs and travel fee's and maybe some dicounted % on materials.

[huggytree]

galvanized piping is one of the worst, so i could do that

problem is there's always something that can go wrong....to cover myself id have to have 100 different forms on hand and give out only the ones which apply to each job...

homeowner supplied fixtures are another big problem...people want to take away my markup and still have me fix their supplied fixtures for free....i ALWAYS charge them, but i dont think any of them were happy with the situation...never got a 2nd job or referral from any of those people...I do have a disclaimer for that one....doesnt seem to help

i had a problem a while back with a customer piling up his belongings under where i had to work...i moved everything and got blamed for damaging his guitar(i didnt)...do i need a disclaimer for personal belongings? i work ontop of people junk in basements on 95% of my jobs...

there's just no end to warnings and disclaimers....yes ive learned a couple of things from this and I will make slight changes to how i conduct myself in the future..

people always take a 1 sided view of everything...its human nature..some people will always blame someone else for their problems

A friend of mine just had to take a guy to small claims court....so my worst customer doesnt seem so bad..im lucky this is as bad as its gotten..