Imagine being hired by a contractor to create metal awnings for a building. If the contractor changed the order, would you expect more money since you had to do the job twice, or would you give the contractor a credit since his new order is less work than the original order?

In this story, one man who owns a metal fabrication business is in this exact situation, and he disagrees with the contractor about who should get paid what. Keep reading to find out how the issue is resolved.

You want a credit back? Ok, now you owe us.

My dad own a metal fabrication business. Meaning everything from awnings, to railings, to spiral stair cases we do out of ornamental aluminum.

We only do metal, no masonry work.

My dad has built up a really great business over the years and has great connections with a lot of the General Contracting businesses around.

Right now we are incredibly busy but still make our deadlines. Anyone who has ever work with GCs know that their minds always change and specs and dimensions are always changing.

This story is about one particular contract.

So, my dad gets a contract to do the metal awning for a big medical plaza by us.

The first contract was quoted for two 12’ wide awnings priced at lets say $12,000 everything said and done.

Cool, contract signed and we order the metal.

A week later we get a change, it’s only one 32’ wide awning.

But there’s another problem.

So we build the awning and get ready to go out there and the building isn’t finished. There needs to be some blocking for us to secure into, there’s none.

My dad calls the GC and says he has the materials but asks my dad to have his guys just do it.

Like i said we don’t do masonry. We do it and install the awning.

My dad goes to walk the job with the GC and they get to talking. D is my dad. GC is the contractor.

They disagreed about payment.

D: Ok, so cool, everything’s done? Can you sign off on it so we can get paid?

GC: Oh, well I figured we were going to get a credit?

D: A credit? For what?

GC: Well the job initially called for 2 12’ wide awnings and we only did one.

OP’s dad complies with the contractor’s request.

D: GC, you had my guys come out and do blocking and spend a lot of time on it, when we don’t even do it. Why don’t we just call ourselves all square?

GC (getting angry): No no no, go back to your shop, I expect a credit. Come to my office later and we’ll talk.

So my dad comes back to my shop and talks with our metal fabricator and goes over the job and it turns out WE were owed money, about $4,000.

My dad shows up at the office, with the original contract including all of his scopes of work, the paperwork asking for a bigger awning that the first two supplied, and work for the blocking.

His dad proved the contractor wrong.

D: So I got bad news, we are owed the credit, not you.

GC: What do you mean? That’s nonsense (my dad said he said other stuff) but blah blah.

D (closes the door): Listen, if you would’ve just taken my advice we could’ve been all square, but you made me go back to the shop and do MORE work on your job to find out that you owed more money. I could’ve used that time to sell another $6,000 of metal but you wasted my time. I expect my $4,000.

Like I said my dad is friendly with a lot of these guys and there’s no bad blood, work just gets aggravating in the construction business.

That sounds like a really frustrating situation, but I’m glad that it’s not a real problem between OP’s dad and the contractor.

Let’s see how Reddit responded to this story.

One person rants about general contractors.

This person shares the best way to handle change orders.

A signature is important.

This is a good question.

The price should always be clear upfront.

If you liked that post, check out this one about an employee that got revenge on HR when they refused to reimburse his travel.