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Posted by Abe on July 23, 2006, 2:36 pm
>>Rexy's story rings true. I've had the unfortunate experience to once
>>hire a contractor similar in attitude and performance as his floor
>>refinisher. Just because he wanted to vent and warn others in the
>>third person doesn't make him a crank.
>Rings true. Hmmm. If I took a real story and simply changed the
>contractor's name, for nefarious purposes, would it still "ring true"?
>It would, wouldn't it? There's no way to tell whether the story is
>true or not. There's no way to tell how much the actual events were
>edited.
Maybe it just rang true to me because I can identify with it from a
past experience.
>Look at this another way. If some random person posted a glowing
>recommendation for a contractor on Usenet, would you automatically
>figure that the contractor is wonderful and hire them without further
>investigation based on that random posting? Or would you take the
>recommendation with a grain of salt?
Clearly with 2 grains of salt.
>Lets review the OP's account:
>- anonymous posting (you can't do that with the contractor's licensing
>board or BBB)
That's not an issue. I post anonymously also for privacy reasons.
>- third person posting for some reason (attempt to make the crank post
>appear more valid?)
>- wanted the contractor to use epoxy to cover up termite damage (spell
>cheap)
Not an issue either. Cheap doesn't mean untruthful.
>- didn't like the contractor's helper because "he looked like a loser"
He was trying to get the point across that these guys were totally
nonprofessional.
>- listens in on contractor's phone calls
Maybe he couldn't help but overhear because of proximity. Clearly the
contractor wasn't smart enough to take the call privately.
>- didn't insist on stain samples (normally, no samples, don't let them
>proceed)
That's a big mistake, but again not an issue here because he had
decided on a particular stain - he trusted the contractor to use that
stain - and the contractor used a different stain without notice to
customer.
>- cares that the contractor calls cigarettes cancer sticks (WTF?)
He was trying to get across that the contractor wasn't the brightest
bulb.
>
>Check out the OPs posting history.
>http://groups.google.com/groups/search?enc_author=23eF5wsAAADaKmcNbLHSywSaMXvFGVZ2&scoring=d
>Also check out what he posts and where. He posts long political
>diatribes in the most random, unrelated newsgroups. This is a person
>desperately seeking attention.
Agreed. He's clearly possessed by something.
>
>To even up the playing field a bit so it's not one-sided anonymous I'll
>provide a little information. Rex Curry is a libertarian, lawyer
>(non-practicing?) and general Internet crank. You'd think that someone
>trained as a lawyer would have the mental wherewithal to locate and
>checkout a potential floor refinishing contractor before hiring them.
>It's not rocket science.
Clearly he messed up by hiring this guy. Big mistake on his part.
>Instead of protecting himself prior to hiring the contractor the OP is
>trying to retaliate against the contractor after the fact.
True.
>Were there problems on the job? Absolutely. Is the OP's account of
>the vents the complete truth? Not hardly.
You cannot know that from the information provided unless you've got
some sort of crystal ball.
>I don't see the benefit of relying on "not hardly" posts to locate or
>eliminate a contractor from consideration.
I agree, but as I said, you cannot arrive at "not hardly" based on the
information provided.
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