In a mythical land - rain laden at this time - exists a beautiful historical community called Avondale. Avondale has seen its trials and tribulations over the years. Most houses were built before the great depression and have withstood hurricanes, tropical storms, and few ice storms here and there. Today we are going to focus on one particular house on winding way. The owner of this winding way home wanted her fireplace to work. It had been sealed since she bought the house some 20 years ago. So a year or two ago, she hired Jethro - a contractor to open up the sealed fireplace and make it a gas fireplace instead of wood burning. Jethro promised he could get the work done in a month and half. He proclaimed it was "no big deal", he had done this before. He could start tomorrow.
Our home owner was pleased, her request would be satisfied. In the late fall, she would sipping warmed cider by a warming fire. It was early May now.
Unfortunately as goes the tale with this contractor, there were some sudden items which popped up - here and there. The fireplace plugging took longer to remove than anticipated, apparently the gas line needed to be extend to the fireplace - this needed to be fixed. The nice remote control to turn on and off the gas fire was not clearly understood as being needed by Jethro. Time continued to slip by some days Jethro showed. Other days he was no where to be found. Maybe he suffered from the salt water flu - a common affliction of surfers in the Florida area - our homeowner mused. Come early September, our homeowner saw the finish touches about to be completed and was hopeful. All that was left was the inspection. Unfortunately, the 1921 Fireplace apparently needed to be hurricane proof, and it currently wasn't. Surprisingly to Jethro, the code had changed over the last 90 years. So throughout the month of October and a most of November, the fireplace was made hurricane proof. The homeowner watched her next years vacation funds going towards the hurricane-proof fireplace as she wondered why had they gotten here and how had so many things changed.
A couple of years went by and our homeowner decided to once again endeavor into home improvements. This time, she wanted to get the kitchen remodeled and replace the electric stove with a gas stove. She went with a new contractor Stan. Stan was the man. When our homeowner invited Stan into appraise the work, Stan took a couple of moments and explained how the process would work and the actual work with the kitchen remodeling and replacing the stove. They both agreed and then Stan said something different. "Let me share with you a little bit on how we are going to assure we understand the same things. I'm going to provide you with a binder notebook of what I understand we are looking to accomplish. I'll have one too. Yours will be here in a couple of days. I have a few things I want to check to make sure it is right. In a week or two, let's sit down together and review making sure we have everything right. You'll sign both copies, and I'll sign both copies. After we understand what is needed we can decide when to start. Along the way if something comes up or changes, just let me know. If I see anything I'll discuss it with you. We can evaluate the changes together looking at the implications and see if the juice is worth the squeeze. Then we will both sign the updated changes and add it to our books. This way at the end we will compare what's in our book to what was done. " Our homeowner was a bit hesitant as work wouldn't start right away, but was willing to try something new. She was suspicious of the time involvement this would take from her. She got the book a couple of days later, and there were some minor changes - it didn't take long to review about half an hour. A week later she and stan reviewed the book together and agreed to what was needed. During the construction, there were some changes here and there. Stan and her evaluated them together. All changes had reviewed the downstream effects to budget, resources, and schedule. Some where good suggestions for now, others were good for next years home improvement effort. When all was said and done, Stan and our homeowner compared the delivered work to what was in the books. Everyone was on the same page, and work had been delivered to schedule. If the change needed a schedule change, and it was an approved, then the schedule changed to accommodate it. Our homeowner reflected on the two construction efforts and realized taking the time to plan was good, but collaborating on suggested changes was what really made the experience pleasant.
Courtesy - http://www.anticlue.net/archives/000917.htm
