Who to Trust

I am always willing to give someone a chance both personally and professionally. I often see potential in people that others do not and hope that people will overall just be good people.

Because of my career as an engineering project manager and ability to work well with other people, I was not too concerned about contractor management as it came to the reconstruction of my house after the fire. In the past I had led projects as large as building new distribution centers or as small as installing new conveyors for an assembly lines. This involves working with many different contractors. I felt that if I could manage multi-million construction jobs, managing the reconstruction of my home shouldn’t be too difficult.

Especially since I could choose my own contractor.

My insurance adjuster did try to push a contractor on me. She actually brought this guy with her to the initial walk through of my house. After we walked through the house, he sat down at my dining room table, in my smoke infused house, and asked me to sign this contract. Immediately my gut was in knots and I knew that this was not the way this should be happening. It almost seemed like the adjuster recommended this guy to take work off her plate because she was nowhere to be seen when he gave me this contract.

I politely told him that I would take the contract, look it over, and let him know if I had any questions. This was my first look into how dicey this process was about to become.

When I got back in the car with my boyfriend, I told him we needed to find other contractors as we drove to a local coffee shop to work.  He found a few different companies that specialize in leading fire damage repairs and we were able to have two or three come to the house that same day to take a look and talk through the next steps with us. This is when we decided to work with Roy.

Roy was a quirky guy. In fact, I soon realized that no one really enjoyed working with him. He was supposed to help with communication between my insurance adjuster, my HOA, and the HOA contractor, but I soon realized no one returned his phone calls, while they would always return mine.

I also was noticing that when I would start to talk through construction items or work to be done, he would be dismissive and primarily be focused on communicating everything with my boyfriend like Roy’s only goal was to impress him. He would even make comments to me that he picked the shoes he wore that day with the goal to impress my boyfriend—very strange.

In the beginning when we initially gave him the job, Roy said that he would work with the insurance company to ensure I was covered for everything that needed to be replaced but then when it came down to it he would say that there was no way I was going to get items that were clearly damaged covered. He also started saying it would be best for me to call the insurance adjuster and ask for it to be covered instead of him calling the adjuster. 

All of this should have made me cancel this contract with him early in the process, my boyfriend actually wanted to get rid of him a few weeks in. But I just felt I was meant to give this guy a chance. Most importantly I felt God would ensure everything would workout.

Months passed, limited work was getting completed, and Roy had yet to actually provide me a detailed list of the work that had been completed and the costs associated with it. In that time, he learned that I had received my first insurance check which resulted in him asking me to bring him a check for the full amount. I told him I will happily pay him, as soon as I see an invoice.

Throughout this time, we had many walk throughs in the house and during those walk throughs he had told both my boyfriend and I that if we saw a deal on material, we should purchase it and his guys would install it. Suddenly, on a day in January, over 5 months since the fire, Ron decided he needed to get paid.

I was in between work meetings when he called me. He told me that I needed to send him the full amount of the check that insurance had provided me otherwise all work would be stopped. Keep in mind, we had been asking for an invoice for over 2 months at this point and had not received one. I did not have a problem paying the guy, but wanted to ensure it was for the correct amount.

We had also already started purchasing material because we realized purchasing the material ourselves would allow us to ensure we got what we wanted for a decent price point and Roy initially had told us this would not be a problem.

In response I told Roy that I needed to see an invoice and I had already purchased some of the material which would come out of that check, he lost it.  He started saying that I could not project manage my own job, and it was up to his guys to find the material for a cheaper price so that the extra money would be his.  And that is when I knew enough was enough.

We fired Roy that week.

But then a few questions continued to swirl in my mind. How do I know when I am supposed to give people a chance? If I have given them a chance, when do I know that they are not capable of fulfilling that opportunity? Was God trying to give Roy an opportunity to be better and Roy failed?

A few weeks after this occurred I read the following passage in my Bible.

He rescued me from my strong enemy and from those who hated me, for they were too mighty for me. They confronted me in the day of my calamity, but the Lord was my support.

Psalms 18:17-18

We had been able to work a deal with the contractor that was actually doing the labor within the house and I felt in that moment I was being reminded that God will ensure we are back home before this baby comes. And look at God—we are planning to be home in mid-April.

All that to say, I have seen many times that even when people fail me, things still workout as they should. Doesn’t stop me from having those questions.

So, let me ask you – How do you know when to give someone a chance? And how do you know when they have outlived their chance?