interesting points guys. timely too. my little small engine repair season is about to start and last night I was thinking about last season.

there was this one customer who brought his mower for me to fix. after I fixed it, I called him up to tell him it was ready and what the tab was ($80) for parts and labor.

he did not want to pay. he claimed that since I never called him for an estimate of how much it would cost, he never authorized the repair (so why did he drop it off?). it was just a standard repair and a standard tab and nobody has ever complained since I started doing this 5 years ago. If people bring me a broken mower, I am going to fix it. A mower is not a Ferrari.

Anyway, so he pissed me off so much that I said I would install back all the broken parts and he can pick it up. As I was about to dismantle the mower, it dawned on me that doing that was just stupid since I would be doubling my work for nothing. I decided to leave it in the 'fixed' state. I left a note on the machine tell him that I decided to keep the machine in the fixed state to prove to him that I am not an %hole. So he came and picked it up. He left me a note that just said 'thanks' but no money.

I happen to know that that mower of his is very sensitive to ethanol in the gas. In time, that mower will need to be worked on again (maybe not this season) and he will probably call again for help. I am the only small engine repair guy who has a one-day turnaround time on repairs. The next guy will sit on it for weeks.

When this donkey calls me again for help, either I will insist that he pay me for the prior repair and pay in advance for the next repair OR I might just tell him to take his biz elsewhere since he will probably find another technicality to avoid paying.

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Ben
1987 190d 2.5Turbo