Oh yes, it is finally that time. Jay and I are reviewing people to help us with our kitchen.

We had our first guy come in yesterday. His bid, to replace 2 cabinets, 1 pantry and add an island (with 2 cabinets)? $12,000! But if we signed a contract today he could do it for $10K. Oh you negotiator you! You think a measly $2,000 will get us to ignore other bids? And you told us to keep the kitchen as is and most of the work is the Island and a few roll out drawers? Oh, you are so cute!

Jay listened and said, "Well, if you had told us that you would be offering a discount, we would have booked you last. But we have another person coming out this week." The man tried to explain that getting 2-3 bids on a project is a waste of time. They are not statistically significant. Oh, please don’t argue statistics with us. Not Gaussian nor Poisson (small number stats). We know stats. We have also researched the bidding process. We aren’t idiots.

We told him, sorry, getting other bids. We also pointed out that other groups may have different ideas. We wanted to explore other ideas of what to do also. He seemed uncomfortable with that. He was also focused on colors. Who the hell cares about colors right away? Function should take precedence. Any idiot would know that!

 Finally, Jay said, "Listen, after our other bids, we’ll get back to you. And we know you can do this for $10K. Maybe if you have a slow week and you want to fit us in, we can work something out." The man laughed nervously and replied "Well, we’ll see what I can do!"
Jay repeated that we haven’t got a set timetable for doing this. The man said "well, even Christmas week?" And Jay said "sure! If you want your guys working instead of getting paid for doing nothing, we can do Christmas week"(the advantage of being Jewish!)

In one sense, I love getting a chance to play the game back with these guys. On the other hand, I wish this wasn’t just a huge jerk your chain thing.

Friday morning is our next bid.