Busy week and Winter's here!

How busy was this week? Not a single post all week, that's how busy. The irony is that on Tuesday morning I showed up to begin a large, ambitious bathroom remodel and the customer cancelled! You might think that would have led to a splendid four days for yours truly on a beach somewhere; you'd think incorrectly. I've never had a customer cancel a sold job before, but it wasn't any huge problem. She was upset by current events by my employer (Chase-Pitkin, western NY); I understood her concerns, sympathized, and helped her reach the right people to set her refund in motion. She called me back two hours later to ask if I could come back and get her job started. She had been reassured and was ready to proceed now.

That's not why it was a busy week, though. I won't get back to my worried customer's bathroom job now until early 2006. When a hole opens up in the schedule, especially in the weeks just before any major holiday, you fill that hole almost immediately with work you had pending. That only took two phone calls, and made two other customers very happy. Now if I could only figure out what to do with the other up-in-the-air sold jobs. Christmas is coming, and they can't all be done by the holiday. Impossible. But Mike P and I installed four exterior doors, along with four storm doors; and we worked 'til nearly dark to finish them, too. I started work on a website for an important client, from scratch. And last this week, refitted a left-over door and frame for another customer whose existing door was ready to fall out of the wall onto the driveway.

I'm not complaining at all. Despite the impending closing of my employer of thirteen years, I have more work than I can reasonably handle for the immediate future. The process of shutting down has been smooth so far, with the exception of my cancel/don't cancel bathroom. I have a good reputation, and have industry contacts with some outstanding people who trust me. If life is a roller-coaster, mine at least has good seatbelts. I like roller-coasters, anyway. Now, about that week on a beach...yeah, that would be nice, too. I'll just have to earn that break, and find a way to squeeze it into the schedule. Until then, back to work!