“When you are up to your a** in alligators, it is difficult to remember that your initial objective was to drain the swamp." I certainly have found that to be true, but then what to do about all those alligators?
Case in point, clients are having some work done in their home and, to greatly understate the situation, things are not progressing as smoothly as they had hoped.
Their contractor under-estimated the job. He is willing to fix things and finish up, but he wants more money. My clients think that their contractor should do the job at the agreed-upon price and want me to sue the [guy] if he won’t. That’s what a contract is for--right? Right... but if you had a job that cost you money every moment you worked, would you keep working?
Find out what's happening in Montrose-La Crescentawith free, real-time updates from Patch.
Should my clients fight, or make a new deal that gets the project done?
I don’t think they can do both: they either have to work something out that keeps their contractor on the job or he walks and they live with a half-finished project as they scramble to find a replacement contractor over the holidays--probably for more than the original contractor wanted to finish the job.
Find out what's happening in Montrose-La Crescentawith free, real-time updates from Patch.
What to do? Like most people, my friends hate to compromise. It makes them feel weak. By compromising, they feel like they have lost the benefit of the bargain they negotiated and that they are being taken advantage of. In some cases, those feelings are justified. But in a situation where one party to a contract has made a mistake, the way I want to approach the situation is to focus on outcome--hopefully a win-win result. In this case, a completed job in time for Thanksgiving--instead of a house in disarray and a lawsuit--feels more “right” to me.
It’s the same any time something doesn't go as planned: do you focus on how you got in to trouble and who’s to blame, or concentrate on how best to extricate yourself and achieve your original goal? The choice you make depends a lot on your personality and how much real fighting you have done in life over truly important things. After all, litigation is a form of revenge. And you know what they say about seeking revenge, ”first dig two graves.”
