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Installer Stories


For five years I worked in a retail-flooring store while attending college full time. During those five years I sold a lot of floor covering and learned a lot of things about flooring contractors in general. From time to time on this blog site, I will share some of those experiences with you. Some of these stories are quite funny some are not.

Several years ago I had a sub-contractor install carpet for a customer in which I had sold. During the morning of the installation, I remember thinking that the sub-contractor was going to screw my job up and that I was going to regret hiring this man. As I was leaving school that morning I received a phone call from the installer. The first thing he asked me was: "What rooms does this carpet need to be installed"? I had already given this man some specifics, however he failed to remember them. I immediately drove to the job-site to check on him. When I got there he had all of the small breakables and furniture moved out of the wrong rooms and was ready to nail tack strip into the wood floors. When I asked him what he was doing he said "I just realized where the carpet needs to go". Shortly after that I headed to the office for a day at work. At this point I was certain everything would be just fine and that there would be no problems.

I called the customer the next day and asked the customer how she liked her new carpet. Her response was: "The installer did a good job, but I am a little confused as to why my breakables and furniture were moved upstairs". I explained to her that there was a little mix-up as to where the carpet needed to be laid. Her next response was: "I can understand that, but what I don't understand is why the man ate my daughters birthday cake". At that point I did not know what to say to the customer, so I offered to buy her another one. She told me it was not necessary as the birthday cake was old anyway.

When I saw the installer the next day I questioned him about the cake. He responded by saying "My helper ate it". I told him not to lie and that I was sure he ate some of it too. The next words to come out of his mouth were: "Well it tasted like crap". I instructed him to never do such a thing on any of my jobs again and if he did I would not use him any more. Over time this man continued to be a problem, so I refused to give him any more work.

The moral of this story is: Don't leave old birthday cake lying around and be careful whom you let in your home.
Thanks,
The Floor Man
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