Patience is a virtue — and, I’d argue, impatience comes with a price.

Like in today’s story where a customer is so impatient to get the entrance to his carport modified that he doesn’t want the contractor to take the time to measure anything.

Obviously measuring is super important before starting construction, but this contractor uses malicious compliance to teach the customer a lesson.

See how the story plays out…

You want a bigger arch? Sure!

So, this is a story my dad told me from when he was a contractor in California.

My dad built this house back in 1983. [The] biggest and most extravagant house he ever built. The driveway had a carport with a beautiful archway to drive into (about 10 ft) that lead to the garage.

He got a call from the customer, and this is roughly how it went.

Customer: “I just bought an RV. I need the carport entrance raised another 16 inches to make room to park the RV in the garage.”

The contractor wouldn’t go off of the customer’s measurements, right?

Dad: “Sure. Bring the RV by, and we can measure it.”

C: “I measured it already. I need the archway raised another 16 inches.”

D: “…are you sure? Let’s double-check.”

C: “I checked three times already. Trust me, just do it.”

He made the necessary changes.

Eventually, my dad just said sure, charged him $4,000 for it and made the change. But the roofline was too low to go another 16 in, so he just converted it to a rectangle shape with rounded corners.

Three weeks later, he got a call again.

The customer’s wife is unhappy…

C: “Hey, uh…there’s a problem with the arch…”

D: “What’s up?”

C: “…it’s tall enough…but I didn’t measure the width…the RV is too big, and my wife won’t shut up about how she preferred the [other] arch…I need the [old] arch back…

The price just went up!

D: “No problem…that will be $8,000.”

C: “8,000?! But last month it was only 4,000!”

D: “Yes, but I wasted all that material tearing the arch out, and I have to pay for the materials and my guys to go in and reinstall it.”

It took much longer than the customer had hoped.

C: “…fine…just get it done before the weekend, or I won’t hear the end of it.”

My dad deliberately spent 2 weeks on it.

[The customer] netted $12,000 extra on a house for no reason.

That customer should’ve let the contractor come out and measure everything. Then he wouldn’t have had this issue!

What does Reddit have to say about this cash cow of a customer? Let’s read the comments to find out.

Redditors paid their compliments with a pun.

Here’s another arc and arch pun…

Others noted how foolish the customer was.

And others hailed the Redditor’s dad with a little wordplay.

This is why they say, “Measure twice, cut once.”

If you liked that post, check out this post about a woman who tracked down a contractor who tried to vanish without a trace.