lol, poor boat guy. it's probably too late now, but I wonder if you could get him to give you a firm completion date with penalties for missing the target date? I guess that could be counterproductive though if he missed the deadline by a lot then he may never finish if the money becomes inconsequential.

He emailed me back. I will say, to his credit, he is very responsive when I reach out. He just doesn't do any of the reaching out.

He told me that the boat he sent pictures of was actually brought in before mine. I'll take him at his word, but I also know for a fact that he has put others in front of mine.

He told me that he believes the eta on the tanks (Friday) has not changed and that he has "made room" for my boat to go in next.

He once again told me my boat is his number one priority.

Sort of lost in all of this is the repairs needed to make the boat lift suitable for the new boat. I hired a guy over 2 months ago to do this. I remember him telling me "next week". Aarrgghhh..

I contacted him today and he said "in a couple of weeks". I prepaid him for the materials and he confirmed the bunks were in his shop (and have been for quite some time).

I feel like my new job is pestering people to do the job they promised me they would do.

maybe stop paying in advance. once they got your money they have no pressure to do your job.

Yeah - or only pay a small portion. Perhaps you could even negotiate milestone payments so they have to confirm certain work has been done to get paid.

bingo. start using contractors who aren't so broke they have to have material money up front.

Well, in both cases I only paid for materials. I'm not sure it would have mattered at all with the boat guy. The lift guy is another story. He was literally the only guy I could hire. The condo/dock association only approves a few contractors and of those he was the only one that would do this particular work.

If the condo/dock association makes you use them maybe they can light a fire under his ass?

That would mean they are actually useful for something

From BB's reports on the condo association he'd have to light a massive fire under their asses for smoke to even end up at the contractor.

Hopefully this all turns out well in the end and time on the new boat can help erase all this trauma .

it will all work out fine. but its like waiting at the bus stop for the last bus of the night that is late and you dont know if it will ever even come.

The frustration just never ends.

The lift guy still hasn't done anything. He told me last week. I texted him yet again and he said I was on the schedule for Friday. We'll see.

The boat guy told me he still hasn't started because the tanks aren't there. They should have been there last week as well. He told me they were shipped on the 2nd. I followed up and he is correct so there is something going on with the shipping company that I guess I need to follow up on because he surely isn't going to.

My mom's death certificate was lost by UPS.

Is there a single competent human being left on this planet?

OK, I just got the tracking number. The tanks are scheduled to arrive tomorrow.

I know you were in software pre-retirement. I get the feeling you were one of those people who understood dependencies, and when a dependency lagged, immediately notified the people who would care so it wouldn't be a surprise down the road.

My experience is that there are very few people with the level of diligence, attention to detail, and caring about their work that I suspect you had.

I write this intending it to note a positive attribute about you, not as a slam.

I also don't understand why people can't take simple actions now to avoid complications later, and make the customer manage the project.

Best of luck. Good news that the tanks are on the way, I guess.

Yeah, that's correct.

Both of these guys probably have more business than they can handle so they manage it based on the total flow, not individual customers. So, they will prioritize based on how much money comes in as quickly as possible, maybe possibility of future business, or a lot of factors that don't involve customer priorities. In the case of the boat guy he can continue working regardless of how long it takes for the tanks to come in. He just doesn't care when.

I think this is why one man operations stay one man operations. They can do the work but they just cannot manage the business properly.

I still haven't sold my boat.

A guy called and appeared to be extremely interested. I sent him all the info because he said he was working with his bank to get a loan. Turns out he was just using it to show a dealer that he was moving with another boat so the dealer would give him a better deal.

All of this has really lowered my opinion of humanity.

Sounds too hard Mr. NoFunAtParties. I'm just gonna do the next thing that comes to me randomly instead. #YOLO

Well well well. Apparently while we were exchanging texts about the tanks, he actually started. FINALLY!

Have you started shopping for a local company to put all that **** back together when this guy ghosts you?

Yikes! It looks a mess now, but will be great when it's all back together. I hope soon we'll be getting pictures of fishing.

Things are happening!

The guy is working on my lift!

The tanks have arrived!!!!!!

He said the old tanks weren't in horrible shape but I don't regret my decision to replace them.

I remember when I took the test ride so long ago that the boat listed. He didn't think I noticed but he eventually said something about it. I figured it was because one of the saddle tanks had more fuel in it than the other.

I was correct. He said one was empty and one was full. He probably didn't know because the fuel gauge wasn't working. I told him to replace that. It will be an add-on but that is fine.

Here are pics of the old and new tanks.

Good news on two fronts! Congratulations!

So......

The lift guy comes and does his thing. Only he didn't completely do what I asked. We went back and forth on it and I think I'm just worn down from all of this because I just decided I can finish it up myself. Not a huge deal but still.

Anyways, he said he was done and left (on his barge). I pull the boat onto the lift and it proceeds to tilt about 45 degrees. Something definitely wrong. So I called him since he had only been gone about 5 minutes and we argued about it for a bit. He insisted the issue was that he fitted the bunks for the new boat but there was no way they could be off that much. After arguing a while about it he agreed to come back.

He continued to argue when he got back until I pointed out that the new bunks weren't lined up at all like the old ones. Once he figured out what I was talking about, he got a sort of lightbulb moment and apologized. It was definitely his mistake.

So, he asked me to raise the lift. It went up about a foot and then stopped. Turns out he messed that up too. Good thing he came back. He had to fix two things.

But, all is well now. The little thing he didn't do will bug me until I correct it so I might be working on it this weekend. It's probably about a 2 hour job but I'll go crazy until I fix it.

dont pay him the rest of the job money until its done fully how you agreed and its working.

sounds like you and him are on a bad foot somehow anyway. and he doesnt want to compromise on things.

you can sell your old tanks for a decent price