3 Lessons From A Rough Tuesday
At 10 a.m. Tuesday, it was a beautiful day in East Texas. By late afternoon our house was 80 degrees, our heating system wouldn’t shut off, and Brenda had seen a flash from an electrical panel that was hot to the touch.
All because we thought a $95 heater tune-up sounded like a pretty good deal.
Yesterday, Brenda and I had a rough day as homeowners. I’m still committed to being a homeowner (barely). But it reminded me why I chose to put the hassle, taxes, and time on someone else for so many years (boy, did I love maximizing my golf time in the bachelor years!).
We decided to use the home warranty the previous homeowners provided with the sale of the house. The warranty provided a heater “tune up” for what we thought was a very reasonable price: $95.
We scheduled the service, had the experts come out to look everything over, and we even purchased a new thermostat so that it would connect to Brenda’s phone. Woohoo!
An hour later (after I had gone to the office to work on some end-of-year tax planning for a few clients), Brenda sends me a text: “there’s a noise and the A/C won’t turn off.”
By mid-afternoon, our house was hotter inside than outside, the system wouldn’t shut off, and Brenda had resorted to flipping off breakers (and she saw a large flash when she did).
It was a beautiful 78 degrees outside with a light breeze, but inside our house was a stuffy 80!
I called, texted, left a voicemail, and eventually received a message from a chatbot. Hours passed without a clear plan.
When I finally heard back from the company, the question was whether we were available…tomorrow.
Tomorrow? We weren’t even sure whether our electrical system was safe!
When I pressed the techs to come back out to fix it, guess what the response from the HVAC company was? “File a report with the home warranty company.”
What?! Are you kidding me? File a report?
At this point, the beautiful day had devolved into chaos. Brenda’s work had been interrupted. My work had been interrupted. Breakers had been flipped. And we had zero accountability from this company.
No one had called me or Brenda to apologize. In fact, they sent a last text at 5:53 blaming us, saying they were “pretty sure your electric panel is wired wrong.”
I had lost confidence in the company. Whether the problem was caused by the installation or something else, I no longer felt comfortable having them work on our home. And that was frustrating - because all I really wanted was for someone to take responsibility and help us find a solution.
But the silver lining is that I was reminded of several lessons that I intend to keep applying in our own business. Here they are:
1. Cheaper is not always better.
I was reminded that price and value are two very different things. The cheapest solution isn’t always the one that costs the least in the long run.
We had an electrician out a few weeks ago named Brandon to install our Tesla charger in our garage. He and his wife Katie did a fantastic job. And he casually said they also had an HVAC license.
We mentioned that the thermostat was not connecting to Brenda’s phone. We talked through the options, and, ultimately, Brenda and I decided it might be more efficient to see if the home warranty would cover the thermostat. So, we scheduled that tune up and hoped we could get the thermostat covered under the warranty.
Looking back, that was a bad move. When it was going to cost money to install a new thermostat, we should have stopped and used a trusted professional. And to take this idea even further, we shouldn’t have tried to “save money” at all. We should have just gotten Brandon and Katie to do it right then.
Sometimes, you get what you pay for. Cheaper is not always better.
2. Personal accountability matters.
When you call a company, knowing who’s going to answer your call (or call you back) is priceless.
I appreciate efficiency. And technology certainly has its place. But when someone has a real problem — especially one that’s causing stress — there’s no substitute for a person who listens, takes responsibility, and follows through.
People want to be heard. They want to be understood.
I needed someone to answer my call. I didn’t need a chatbot. I wanted a person to say “we’ll get right back out and take care of this.” And then I needed them to follow through and show up.
And that’s exactly what happened when I called Brandon and Katie. They didn’t answer the phone on my first call. But it was after hours, so I wouldn’t expect them to. Brenda and I can’t always answer the phone when we’re in meetings or on the other line, so I get it.
But how long did it take Brandon to call me back after hours on a Tuesday? A whopping 8 minutes.
And guess what he offered to do after talking with me on the phone. He offered to come take a look (right then, after hours) and make sure our house wasn’t in danger of burning down.
That’s personal accountability in action, and that’s the way to do business.
3. Recognize a bad investment.
We made some mistakes in this process, but I will say this: when we realized that the first company wasn’t performing, we didn’t fall prey to the “sunk cost fallacy.” It’s so easy to try to recoup the time, energy, and money you’ve already put into a bad investment.
I wanted so badly to have the first company fix the problem. It’s still my position that the first company caused a problem that didn’t exist before we hired them (a position confirmed today by Brandon and Katie when they discovered the first crew got the wires crossed while installing the thermostat).
But at a certain point, you have to cut your losses. You have to do an honest accounting. Sometimes companies simply don’t perform the way you expected.
One of the hardest things to do is separate what we’ve already invested from what we should do next. But the time and money we’ve already spent shouldn’t determine whether we keep going down the wrong road.
As soon as we realized we had made a bad investment, we changed course. We admitted to ourselves we had made a mistake.
That’s hard.
But there’s no telling how much time, money, and effort we saved ourselves in the long run.
So, there they are. Three lessons from a rough Tuesday.
Cheaper isn’t always better.
Personal accountability matters.
Know when it’s time to change course.
None of these lessons is particularly complicated. But sometimes it takes a frustrating Tuesday afternoon to remind us how important they are.
They’re also principles I want to keep applying in our own business. Because whether you’re hiring someone to work on your home or trusting someone to help you make important financial decisions, you deserve to work with caring, competent folks.
And if you happen to live in Hideaway and need a good HVAC/electrician recommendation, I know a guy.
