Opinionated Thought

Man I hate getting ripped off....

Business - Small Business

The barter system is a great thing, it just is. But sometimes it just doesn’t work out. Sometimes you get the short end of the stick and sometimes you get the better end of the deal. I suppose that’s the way it is in any business transaction so why should a barter deal be any different?

The barter deal I am here to vent about is the one in which I traded remodeling services for dental work. The quality of the work that I got done was second to none and I felt no pain. As an example, I dislike going to the dentist so much that I even built an entire out door barbeque system for a doc in Los Angeles and never went to get my work done. You can punch me in the gut and drag me behind a car but I turn into a baby when you start messing with my teeth. And this doc earned my trust and made me feel comfortable. However, in the end it seems that I have over paid by nearly 50%.

Initially I didn’t start working directly for the doc or his wife but was brought on as a helper to another guy. The guy in question is a thief and a person of shaky values to begin with so we didn’t really get along. This guy was constantly trying to get me to do things I didn’t want to do. And at the time he was my only means of transportation because I had no valid license. In fact, I was with the guy when he went and broke into a vacant house right next door to the docs house and stole a light right off the front porch and the drop in cook top. He tried to get me to help him steal a motorcycle once until I finally talked him out of it. Then he called me the next day all butt hurt saying I owed him a bike because he could have got it. His favorite place to steal from was the Home Depot and just in the short time I was riding with him I saw him steal a nail gun, paint sprayer and countless hardware. The only reason I mention this guy is because he’s the reason I had to leave the project initially. He had to come in and do his work because he still owed and my tab had been paid up plus some.

If I had quit the project once I finished paying for my work it would have been a perfect trade. But instead of leaving the project half finished I was determined to see it to completion. So after I finished paying for my dental work I negotiated some pre paid rent in the smallest apartment in the whole building. A little studio that was slated to be next on the list of apartments that needed to remodeled. The deal was that if I finished the unit that I was working on and the studio that I could keep the studio free of rent until my tab was taken care of. That deal didn’t even have a shot, as soon as it came available they didn’t even remodel it but instead re rented it to some else. But who cares? Pre paid rent or pre paid dental work it’s all the same right?

Wrong. I have been arguing with the docs wife for the last couple of weeks trying to cash in my trade dollars. The doc doesn’t seem to care; his wife on the other hand wants to be a hardliner. See, I have a friend of mine that needs about a thousand dollars worth of dental work done to keep his gums from rotting away. He’s already been in to see the doc, quote has been given and even had an appointment to start treatment at one time. But he missed his appointment like a butt head and I haven’t been able to get him in again since. So it’s not even like they don’t know that they owe. It’s a simple matter of they don’t want to pay.

The more I argue with this woman about money that is already mine the more upset I get. Her latest compromise was that I come back and do some more work in order for my buddy to get his gums fixed. Why would I come back and work some more to get what I am already owed? Does that even make sense to anyone? And on top of that, if I took her up on this ‘compromise’ I wouldn’t even get another cleaning and whitening procedure that I want done. How crazy is that? I don’t know sometimes, I just don’t know…

For all my complaining about this barter deal gone bad there are quite a few barters that did work out. This website I am posting on right now is part of a barter deal. I have been bartering remodeling work for website work for the last six months and they continue to impress me time and time again with the work that they do. If your reading this Lucy let me take this moment to again thank you for all the hard work you’ve given me…

So in the end I say barter what you can, buy what you have to and remember, if you take care of business then business will take care of you…

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