I guess I'm a bit lost. He bid to clear your drive and walk for
250/300 for the entire snow season regardless of the number of
storms? If it snowed 10 times, he made decent money assuming he
can do it in less than an hour. At 20 times it doesn't sound good
for him. I've seen pictures of some of your snow storms. I
wouldn't want to try to shovel the snow high enough to get it off
the drive, especially after last week's pile. I just don't
understand anyone agreeing to an unlimited number of snow
shovelings. A set fee per time makes more sense to me.

How do kids make "coke money" now days? I don't happen to live
where snow is an issue anymore.

(top posted for your convenience)
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Keep the whole world singing . . . .
DanG (remove the sevens)




"Lesley" wrote in message
oups.com...
In late November I hired a guy to shovel my driveway for the
2005-06
winter season. I live southeast of Buffalo, NY so it snows
quite a
bit. He first quoted me $250, and then he changed it to $300
when he
saw that my driveway was longer than average. I agreed to pay
$300,
and I agreed to give him $150 up front and the balance in
January.
Last weekend he showed up unannounced asking for the balance.
He
really caught me off guard, and I had company and didn't want to
get
into an argument, so I just paid him. Meanwhile, it has snowed
a
couple of times since I gave him the first installment and he
only
showed up once to shovel my driveway/sidewalk. But since the
snow
wasn't too deep, I let it go. I know the snow was deep enough
to
shovel because he shoveled the driveway/sidewalk across the
street (he
works for them too). Now today he shows up (and we had some
lake
effect snow last night) and he wants more money. He says that I
have a
really long driveway and I should pay him more money. I tell
him very
nicely that I understand he has a business, but that I agreed to
pay
$300 and that is all I am willing to pay, and if he feels that
it is
not adequate, he can refund the rest of the money I already paid
him
and I'll find someone else. He says, let's talk about this
again when
I finish your driveway, and then he goes out to shovel. While
he's out
there I'm inside steaming because this is the second person who
has
done something like this to me (the first was a drywaller who
quoted me
one price and then demanded more money after he had done just
enough
work in the room to make it impossible for me to scrap the whole
job).
But I decided that I wanted to be reasonable, so I decided that
I would
agree to pay him more money under two conditions: First, he
would do
my driveway so that I can leave the house by 8:00am on weekdays
(the
two times he showed up he didn't even get here until after 9)
and
second I would pay him the new balance due some time in
February. Well
he had a fit. He wanted the money now. He said that my
driveway is a
lot of work and he's very trustworthy and it's not like he won't
show
up if I pay him now. I said I've already paid you $300 and
you've
shoveled my driveway twice. Even if I agree that it's worth
more than
$300 for the whole year (and I don't necessarily agree on that)
I do
NOT agree that the balance is due NOW. How the heck does he
figure I
should pay him another couple hundred dollars NOW???

I have definitely learned my lesson this time. I'm not hiring
anyone
to do anything anymore if I have to pay them a deposit up front.
People can really suck sometimes. I don't know if these guys
would do
this to me if I had a husband or boyfriend living here with me
who
could deal with these kinds of things, but I tend to think not.
I can
probably kiss my $300 goodbye. He probably won't show up to
shovel
anymore, and I guess that's what I deserve for paying him up
front.
The only reason I even trusted this guy was because I watched
him LAST
YEAR do the shoveling for the people across the street, and he
was very
reliable. But I guess reliability isn't everything.

Lesley