Story Time

Here is another story from my experiences as a self employed trades person, from a collection called "Painting to Learn". Mrs. Bergen passed away a few years ago, but she will always live in my memory. She had no next of kin!

TIPS, AND OTHER FOUND MONEY
Asking for money is a distasteful task at the best of times, but in effect, that is what a contractor does every time he bids on a job and endeavours to curry the favour of the customer to the point where he will be chosen above all others. Knowing how much to ask for in exchange for fulfilling the desires of the homeowner is a challenging task because the homeowner has a preconceived idea of how much either the job is worth or how much he is willing to pay for the work being done. There always seems to be a fine line between what seems right and what seems to be too much. Estimating becomes an art as it moves beyond a simple formula of so much per square foot or so much per hour. Other factors come into play and soon it becomes a matter of gut feeling more than anything else.
The variables are unending and the challenge is to ask a lot of questions before arriving at the final price. A few of the ingredients in this recipe of success or failure are, gauging the economic strata to which the customer belongs, from whom did the customer get my name, according to the general appearance of the house what are the expectations in terms of desired level of perfection, and, the personality of the customer. Again, experience is an essential ingredient for integrating the variables into a desirable outcome for both parties. It is not a matter of getting what the market will bear. There is competition to consider but most importantly, there is the magic of word of mouth advertising which is the bread and butter of a good tradesman. If it were a matter of getting as much as I possibly could, I would have had many jobs where the profit margin would have been obscene. I would have come away from a job like that much richer and the customer, in their naivety, would not have known they could have had the job done for much less money. Where it catches up to you is when word gets around to their neighbours or family members, many of whom would be more knowledgeable about such things, and it comes to light that they have been taken advantage of. Then the negative side of that word of mouth advertising kicks in and is a more potent force than the positive side.
And so it was, as I received a call from Mrs. Bergen, that everything that I ever knew or learned about estimating was about to fly out the window.
She was a plain but very pleasant lady, in her early seventies, living on her own, having recently been widowed. She had been a housekeeper for almost all her life and married late, at age 65, for the first time. She had been frugal with her earnings and knew how to save money so she always had the means in later life to do what she wanted to do. Her husband, who was a widower and a retired longshoreman, had been a wealthy person, having made some wise investments and was on a lucrative union pension in his old age. Five years of marriage was all he lasted and when he passed away, he left everything to his wife, Mrs. Bergen. Her late husband had been ill for a year or so and her house, spotless and looking immaculate to the novice, in her estimation, needed a thorough paint job to bring it back to the pre-marriage condition to which she was accustomed. She gave me the impression that although Mr. Bergen had been a fine gentleman, men in general were to be observed from a distance, and not harboured under the same roof because of their unclean habits. Having said that, she assured me that I was probably not one of them and that my wife, being young, and I being trainable, probably had already taught me proper bathroom etiquette, the kind which greatly reduced the intensity and distastefulness of the job of cleaning the bathroom. Desiring to get on her good side and therefore get the paint job, I concurred.
She told me what required painting and also how it was to be done and then made me a cup of coffee as I sat down at her kitchen table to do the figures. I was distracted because she wanted to tell me about her neighbour who had just returned from South Dakota where she had been taking care of her late brothers estate. This is what she told me.
The neighbour, Mrs. Simmons, had an elderly brother who had recently passed away and she and her brother's 2 sons went to the old homestead to clean out the house and prepare it for resale. Her brother had been a bit of a recluse after his wife had died early in their marriage, shortly after the 2 boys entered school. He farmed a piece of land that had been passed down to him from his pioneering parents and now it was going to be sold so that the sons could finalize the estate and get on with their lives. The father had ignored his sons in their growing years and they had reciprocated. Now they were going through their father's things and were finding nothing of great value. They wondered out loud how he could have lived in such squalor and what he had done with the money he had earned. There were no bank records or statements to be found. In the end, the three of them decided to burn most of the household furnishings and salvage as little as possible, as it appeared to have little or no worth.
They started a fire in the front yard and proceeded to haul old newspapers, shelving, furniture, and clothes, to the pile. An old overstuffed easy chair was tossed on the fire and when the matching sofa was hauled out to join it's mate, something curious was discovered. The fabric on the chair was burning and curling away, only to reveal a stack of dollar bills underneath, as they also began to be consumed by the flames. With a shout, one of the sons grabbed a rake and frantically pulled the burning chair away from the burn pile and snuffed the flames, almost with bare hands. As it was later revealed, the chair contained nearly $10,000.00 in varying denominations of bills. Needless to say, that incident inspired a vigorous search of the house, including the walls, floors, and ceilings. Besides more money being found in the sofa, the largest other find was in a secret safe beneath the floorboards of the pantry. There, much to everyone's delight and great surprise, were 4 old-fashioned dairy cream cans with lids sealed, revealing contents of over $85,000.00.
Now, when Mrs. Bergen excitedly related this story to me, I should have clued in as to why the story so resonated with her. But I had only met her an hour ago and little did I realize that I would get to know her much better over the next 10 years. I eventually finished working the figures into what I considered a fair estimate and presented the numbers to her. She looked right into me with a bit of a squint and I could see the wheels turning. Here it comes, I thought. A frugal old lady who wants to negotiate the price downwards. She didn't get to where she got to by being free and easy with her money. But I would stand my ground. The price is fair and I would dare any other painter to come in and do it for anything less.
And then she spoke.
"After careful consideration, I have decided that this job I want you to do is worth more than that. You can do the work if you agree to taking an extra $100.00."
I was speechless. This was new territory for me. I asked her to repeat what she had just said. She did. I stammered something about the work not being that extensive but she was adamant. I had no choice but to agree to her demands.
Over the next 10 years, we became friends and on a yearly basis she would have me in to do another bit of papering or painting, more because she was lonely than because her house needed more work. And each time we went through the same routine. I gave her a price, she negotiated me up, and then the most interesting part, she would go to her underwear drawer and from her great huge pile of bills, she would count out the cash and didn't mind a bit that I had seen it all. She would count out the money and then, rolled up as thin as pencil, she would tuck another $20 bill into my shirt pocket and tell me to take my wife out for dinner.

Life is full of surprises, mostly because life is full of people. Never put people in a box. They will surprise you. I also learned from Mrs. Bergen that some people are so lonely, they will buy a few hours of human interaction. We who are not so lonely have to realize that these people exist and we must seek them out and be there for them. This is not an isolated case for me as it relates to the loneliness of the elderly. I have come to enjoy their company and in the process it has been gratifying to know that I have fulfilled one of their most basic of needs, not painting their house, but relieving their lonely existence, if only for a little while.