Repeat after me

[calimary]

16. Ahhh... that "two weeks" thing.

I knew, and was regularly frustrated by, a builder who almost literally lived by the comment “oh, that’s gonna take two weeks.”

Translation: “I could probably do it in an afternoon, but it works so much better for me if I string it out over many days before I actually pronounce it finished. Little trick that lets me charge you WAY more before I decide whether it’s finished or not.”

That little trick works on anybody who isn’t in the building trade in one way or other. You tend to want to trust the builder and not push him, so you save yourself a deliberately substandard job that runs up an extra few expensive (and totally UNNECESSARY) days toward “completion”.