A lot of people underestimate how much information is needed for you to be an expert at something.

In this story, a man shares how his dad, a contractor, took advantage of a situation in which a client (who assumed his RV didn’t need to be measured) inevitably called him to go back and fix an arch.

Let’s read the whole story.

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, biggest & most extravagant house he ever built.

The driveway had a carport with a beautiful archway to drive into (about 10ft) 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.”

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

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

The client made the decision.

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

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

Eventually, my dad just said sure, charged him $4000 for it, and made the change.

But the roofline was too low to go another 16in, so he just converted it to a rectangle shape with rounded corners.

3 weeks later, he got a call again.

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

It wasn’t the contractor’s fault, though.

D: “What’s up?”

C: “…its tall enough…but I didn’t measure the width…the RV is to big and my wife won’t shut up about how she preferred the arch…I need the arch back…

D: “No problem…that will be $8000”.

C: “8000?! But last month it was only 4000!”

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 & reinstall it.”

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. Netted $12000 extra on a house for no reason.

Clients need to assume the person they’re hiring knows a bit more about what they’re doing than they do.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this.

Take notes, everyone.

And I thought they would square things away.

Someone shares an experience.

No editing needed.

It was all just a rounding error to him.

This could’ve been avoided so easily.

Rule of thumb:

If a professional says “let’s check that again,” just check the thing again.

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