I drove up to a construction project the other day to see the progress of a job and take some measurements for our cabinets. There was no parking on the street except in front of the driveway where the work was being done. A truck and trailer were parked side by side taking up the whole driveway, so that was not an option. I parked in front of the driveway blocking the truck in knowing I was only going to be 10 minutes. When I got out of my truck and walked through the temporary construction fence there was someone standing in the driveway and I asked him if he was going to be leaving in the next 15 minutes. Immediately, he said yes, he needed to hook up his trailer to his truck and then asked me why. I replied that there was no parking on the street and I would be blocking him in for a bit while I took some measurements. At that point he asked me who I was and I told him ‘the cabinet guy.’ He was amused by this reply and said he was Elias (the general contractor on the job). I had spoke with on the phone a couple of times earlier.
We walked through the job and there was a lot of activity going on; at least 6 guys putting up drywall, an hvac guy, someone working outside and several others I couldn’t exactly identify what they were doing. I thought to myself, ‘this guy is obviously a mover and makes things happen. Look at all these people! There must be 12 workers in this house.’ I asked him when the drywall would be up and the floors in. He responded quickly that it doesn’t matter when the floors are going in as he always – and he made this abundantly clear – on ALL his jobs he NEVER puts the floors in before the cabinets. He also let me know that he didn’t need our installer to install the cabinets and that he would be doing that. I hesitated a bit and then told him that would be okay, but that my concern was just to have everything go smoothly as our cabinets would need to be assembled (a bit) during installation. Another words, they are not just boxes you screw to the wall. While I was speaking he was already going though his phone to show me the cabinets he installed after a guy left him a room full of cabinets with no drawings. Indeed he showed me the finished project. Big kitchen. Many cabinets. They looked great.
Now, I’ll be honest, I thought to myself as we were standing there in the middle of this chaos around us talking, ‘Wow. This guy really has an ego. It’s important for him to let me know he’s in charge and running the show. He stepped away momentarily into another room to tell someone what they needed to be doing and left me waiting while he ‘somewhat’ returned to speak to me 10 minutes later and make some closing conversation remarks. It was clear he wanted me to know how important and busy he was and that I could just wait. Now, I didn’t really get too worked about it. I just noticed it. It was very evident to me. I didn’t need to emotionally invest myself into this conversation because he wants to do things the way he wants to do them. So I didn’t. It didn’t feel worth it to me. I’m not sure why, but I had no desire to pick up the other end of his ego-braided rope and pull on it.
That man’s attitude had nothing to do with me and I recognized that and left it that way.
I had been there around 20 minutes and when walking out the driveway the trailer and truck were in the same spot with no intention of moving them in the near future.