On 9/30/2015 11:30 AM, micky wrote:
In alt.home.repair, on Wed, 30 Sep 2015 01:00:43 -0700, Don Y
wrote:

Should I have asked for a reply IN WRITING -- *notarized* -- before
considering it reliable?

Yes.

Maybe I should have included a smiley, but that doesn't capture, "Yes,
it looks like that's what it takes."

Understood. My point was that this is just plain ridiculous. *Nothing*
would get done if that was the case. As opposed to "very little" getting
done "satisfactorily" without! :

So, by extension, my clients should have insisted on written estimates?
Which, of course, means they'll get NO estimates -- unless they are
willing to invest a comparable amount of time/money to prepare written
RFQ's!

Would you have been willing to prepare a written set of requirements
prior to expecting a *written* commitment from the mill operator?

Would the operator have even *bothered* for "such a small job"? Or,
would he prematurely have said "No" just to avoid the effort required
for that "proposal/estimate"? When does the "let your fingers do the
walking" approach fall apart?

I needed a partiuclarly shaped piece of foam rubber one time, and called
in advance to see if he could do it. He said yes, and I went all the
way downtown when places much closer also sold foam rubber. I hadnt'
quibbled about the price at all, and he didn't bring it up either, but
he tried to talk me into a standard shape, just so he wouldn't have to
do the work, cutting, gluing.

But, presumably, he would have been willing to produce the custom
shape -- at *some* price.

And he didn't actually charge much. Not much more than the basic shape
that foam wedges come in, iirc. And ironically, it turned out to be
too big for the place I planned it for. Then I found another wedge
already covered in cloth, and I didn't get around to using the first one
much for 25 years. I'm glad to say that although the foam in the
second one is falling apart -- it keeps getting smaller as the outside
"layers" fall off, the first one is still in good shape 25 years later
and 6 months of use haven't affected it. But like I say it was too
big and I'm not using the full thing. I'm using a 1.5-foot length of
it, and when that wears out (surely it will, since it's already so old)
, I'll split the remaining 3 feet and use each one in turn.

In my "medical test" example, they were unprepared to perform the
test at *any* price! "Sorry, but we can't do that test, here..."

My laughing was about everytiing but that you went home with nothing.

If I had only "invested" a couple of phone calls and the time to
drive to the facility, it would have been "merely annoying". But,
given that I had already been inconvenienced by having to prepare
for the test I was nowhere near as "accommodating" of their
idiocy.