We (also) went to the Pumpkin Patch yesterday.

The farm opened at 10a, but we showed up at ~9 and tailgated with Dunkin' and Howard's Bagels.

16 people. 9 adults, 7 kids.

Sick hang, lol.

s/o to everyone that made it.

☀️

Livin' La Vida Luna y Luca

Neither of them is excited to take a photo with mom & dad.

A Lesson in Decorum

Last week, I posted a poll to my Twitter and IG profiles.

About ten minutes later, I received the following reply in my IG Direct Message.

Whoa, easy buddy.

Take a wild guess who that's from.

Yup. Framer 1, the "huge a-hole".

I didn't realize he followed me on IG. Oopsie 😬.

Background

A few weeks ago, my builder and I requested bids for the framing portion of my new construction project.

Framer 1 submitted his bid through text, which is highly unusual.

I forwarded the text to my builder and asked him to dig into how the bid broke down.

When I followed up on the details a few days later, my builder said the conversation he had with Framer 1 wasn't productive.

"Not productive" in what sense?

"I tried asking for specifics, but he basically yelled at me for 15 minutes."

Huh...?

"Yeah he was like, you think you know better than me? I don't have time to get into the specifics over the phone. If you want to move forward, let me know. If not, whatever"

^This is the PG version of what was actually said.*

What an odd reaction to a potential client trying to gather information on one of the most expensive portions of building a home...

But lucky for us, we had a backup offer from a tried and true framer we planned on going with anyway. The only hitch was his bid came in $5k higher.

Back to the Lesson

I saw this whole situation as an opportunity to make some engaging content.

Hence the poll I posted above.

And people were interacting. I received a few good suggestions via DM.

Some people said to use Framer 2, but show him Framer 1's bid so he comes down in price.

Someone else suggested getting another bid just to be sure we weren't drastically overpaying for Framer 1.

All good ideas.

But I Got Caught

And at first, it made me feel guilty.

"At least I didn't tag him", I told myself.

So it's not like anyone knows who I'm talking about. I'm not costing him any business.

But upon further reflection, the post itself just didn't sit right with me.

I don't want to be the type of person that builds himself up by tearing other people down. That's whack. 🙅🏽‍♂️

So I deleted the post less than an hour after putting it up.

✅ Lesson Learned - Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. In other words, what you put out is what you attract. I was aggressive and he came at me even harder.

But Also...

His reply to my post sort of proved my point.

I'm just glad I decided to use Framer 2 before making that post because Framer 1 ultimately withdrew his bid and blocked me on IG.

I'm not a fan of burning bridges, but I can confidently say this one is beyond repair.

Which is OK because I simply don't work with people that aren't simpatico.

Building a new home is stressful enough on its own.

I have zero desire to add fuel to that fire by introducing difficult people into the mix.

✅ Lesson Reinforced: I have close to zero face time with the subcontractors on this project. All communication goes through my builder. Regardless, I won't subject him to deal with someone I wouldn't want to deal with myself.