I've got lots of experience with this. Really Means: Never seen it before in my life much less heard of it. You'll be my guinea pig while I try to figure it out.

I'll be there first thing tomorrow morning. Really Means: I'll mosey in around 10 or 11 if I ever show up all. And I won't bother to call because I know you don't have anything better to do than sit around and wait for me.

If you hire me, I guarantee my work and I'll make you happy. Really Means: I'll take care of any problems you find before you pay me. After that we'll see how I feel.

I've had my share of bad contractors. *sigh*

I'm working on your quote right now and will get it to you in the next couple of days.

Really means: "My chicken scratch note to myself about working on that is scribbled on my "notepad" in my truck. I came across it yesterday while looking for my potato chips. I should start calling my subs in to actually look at your house this time so I can get more accurate numbers instead of the wild guess I gave you in the first six months of our talks when I handed you some low number to get your project. I probably won't have the quote compiled for you for another six weeks, on the day AFTER you move your family, including infant, out to make way for demo. And, then, the total will be ....oh...let's see....about $50,000 MORE than what you told me your budget was in our first meeting."

"Let me get back to you on that." = "I will call your husband's cell phone and see if I can get his go-ahead to do it my way. I wil not tell him that you asked for this and I'm hoping you don't talk to him about it until after it's already done my way."

"Lady, we can do anything" really means "If we've done it once and it turned out well, we can probably replicate it more times in future. But don't get any high-falutin' ideas about exotic stuff. There are limits, Lady."

LOL. All good ones. Thank goodness no one tried to do that going behind the back to my husband thing though, that person would not have been long for this world and I'd have been in prison instead of some day maybe moving into my new house!

"My truck broke down" = "I had to meet with my parole officer."
"My guy's in the hospital" = "I forgot to book any subs for your job."
"He does great work, it's just his English isn't too good" = "He's never held a power tool in his life before but he's cheap because I picked him up behind Home Depot."
"OK, we'll do it your way" = "I don't bother listening to a single word that comes out of your mouth, because we're just going to do your job the same way we do every job anyway."
"If something goes wrong, give me the chance to make it right" = "If I just send your calls to voicemail and don't answer texts for two weeks you'll probably forget all about it."

"No... that's not the way it's done"... means your way is too much work for me.

"You'll see... it will look perfect"... your way is too much work for me.

"I know this will work just fine"... your way is too much work for me.

A couple of questions= Better drive thru McDonakds, it'll be at least 5 HOURS before you get away!!

"Of course" = Of course, I'll forget about it the moment you leave.

"You're gonna have to do plans for that" = Sub will glance at them, not follow anyway, then get really annoyed that you make him whip out his tape measure and "discover" the built object is incorrect.

"Circuit schedule" = optional information prepared that the electrician will not follow anyway causing you to fail inspection.

"dh" = man who was smart enough to say "You have to run it by her" when the chicagoans maneuverer was tried.

"three months" = non-consecutive, days weeks, or months that add up to 90 days spread out over an unspecified period of time.

"by December"= [of no specified year], see above

"I can built it from a sketch on a napkin" = I can't understand real construction documents or follow them any better than if it were a vague suggestion like a sketch.

" I am sick" = I started another job for someone else
"My truck broke down" = started another job for someone else
"It's too wet out" = started another job for someone else

I have had my share of good ($$$$--prima donna-ish), and bad contractors, including one who abandoned his equipment onsite, but I did avoid the contractor who ran over a nun while lighting his crack-pipe before I got his bid.

to my dh: "You are only 21" wide. "[measuring his shoulders] => "The last thing I want to do is correct the mistake of our architect who should have known not to put a 28" pocket door leading from the mudroom to the house where you carry in your groceries"

HIs next comment was "are you uncomfortable walking into the bathroom? Same size door."....to which my dh responded, "I don't carry 2 bags of groceries into the bathroom".

Door changed.

oh wait...another one

"Flood insurance is only like $38 each year" => "I really have no clue" (Turns out the lowest part of our house is 70feet above a creek, and our flood insurance is around $500 a year....If it were to flood, there will be nobody to file the claim with because it will be the end of the world.

STOP! YOU'RE SCARING ME!!! We "started" on the 12th, and today, the 20th, is the third day anyone has shown up to work. You've illustrated for me what I have to look forward to. I guess it's better to know what to expect, though...

Why do you think we're DIYing our kitchen. We built a guest house and had the first contractor disappear with our money and the second lie to our faces about important (like structural/foundational) mistakes - until we proved they were lying.

Here are my contributions:
" I supervised the work myself so I know it was done right"... means "I was at another job."

" You don't need (insert long lead item here) to get occupancy"... means "Your CO will be delayed for many months because we didn't schedule correctly"

And my favorite, spoken by both contractors:...
" You are a highly difficult client."... means "How dare you insist we follow the plans, fix mistakes, and honor our contract".

Thought of a few more:

"We've never done that before."- We are going to try to install it, hope that it works and charge you an extra $500 which you won't see until the final bill and which we hope you will just pay.

"Gee, these knobs are really fragile."- Don't blame me lady when I snap one of your glass knobs in half and put it in a drawer and don't tell anyone I broke it and then when someone else tells you I broke it, don't expect ME to pay to replace it.

"This chandelier is crooked." - I am going to twist the arm of your antique chandelier to "fix" it until I break the arm off of it. Then I'm going to tell you that you need to buy a replacement because it was crooked.

Fresh off the presses:

"I pulled all my guys to work on a project in a million dollar house in ______" means "We aren't even going to try and work with you on your tight timeline".

No lingo here. It has been 11 years for me but it did not take me long to remember when the GC came into bid on my kitchen remodel. Multiply what ever time he gives you by 3 or 6 and you will only be slightly frustrated when that deadline is missed. My house was never finished so the final 10 percent payment from the construction loan went to pay down the mortgage, so I feel for you. Then I started getting calls from the subs that were never paid. So when your contractor asks for a small advance on his next cut so he can go get married and promises to finish xxx the day after the honeymoon, your response should be NO.

No lingo here. It has been 11 years for me but it did not take me long to remember when the GC came into bid on my kitchen remodel. Multiply what ever time he gives you by 3 or 6 and you will only be slightly frustrated when that deadline is missed. My house was never finished so the final 10 percent payment from the construction loan went to pay down the mortgage, so I feel for you. Then I started getting calls from the subs that were never paid. So when your contractor asks for a small advance on his next cut so he can go get married and promises to finish xxx the day after the honeymoon, your response should be NO.

Any overheard curse word: Wont't involve a workers finger.
It will, however, involve an arm and a leg.
Yours.

Goodness. I am thanking my lucky stars for our fantastic, meticulous and honest GC who is building our home right now. I didn't realize how fortunate we were. Our experience has been wonderful. We heard the same from every person we knew that used him. I didn't realize good and honest contractors were so few and far between. And we're three weeks ahead of schedule! I'm so sorry to read these comments. It makes me realize how fortunate we are to have gotten the contractor we did.

I have nothing bad to say about our most recent builder, but......

Several years ago we did a remodeling / addition and that is a different story...

When discussing a contract, and DH points out, we should have that written in and contractor says, "I'm honest, this will be a relationship built on trust." Translation: I certainly don't want anything written down, because I have NO intention of honoring my word.

When you notice same contractor did not put in the "firestop" in your chimney and you ask him about it. And he responds, "No problem, I'll take care of it right away."
Translation: I will never take care of it, but will instead take the time to hide the evidence and will hope it never comes back to bite me, and I will additionally reassure you that it is now taken care of, but the wall is already closed up so you cannot check for yourself.
(When you are running away from your burning house with your small children the first time you turn on the fireplace you will become a language expert, and at that point your mistake in understanding the language will become evident).

"I just have to finish up this other job and then I can 100% focus on your job."
Translation: I promised you that once I began your demolition that I would be here every day until it was finished. However, what I meant by that was I will be here until I find another job, at which point I will no longer appear at your house for months at a time, despite the fact that you have an entire exterior wall missing, covered by a tarp and it is the middle of winter in Ohio."

When he promises to be there in the morning and work non-stop until the house is closed up and finished and you tell him great, we will leave town for 2 weeks so you can work as early and as late as you want to just get the pain over! When after 2 weeks you return and the house is the same as when you left it and you call his phone from the house and ask him, "how is it going?"
"Things are going great here, we are just wrapping things up here and it won't be too much longer."
Translation: I will never ever finish your job and thank goodness I didn't get it all written down in the contract and just went with the "honest relationship" scheme.

This has been many years and we learned many lessons --- the most important is if they promise they'll do it, then they should have no issue putting it in writing.

Thanks for the stories, it is fun to vent!

Often when GC's are discussed here, it makes me want to paraphrase the Lama in Kim:

GCs are the remodeler's greatest blessing if of best sorts. Otherwise no earthly use.

I'm thankful for having had a nearly perfect GC for our recent remodel. One who makes everything run smoothly and is responsive to fixing any glitches.

beagles,
Sorry to hear about your delays. Hope your cabinets worked out well. We are due to install in a couple of weeks.

I hate to say this but my contractor originally anticipated June as a finish date, and we should be done within 3 weeks. We would have been done by now had I been more decisive with my kitchen plan and if my doors had come in on time. I guess we are lucky that he had no other work for the first 3 months of the project, so his crew showed up here everyday.

Babs, sorry -- you said "building" .... meaning ongoing. Please check back at the end of the day. So to speak.

Maybe you'll be one of the lucky ones... I'm sure there must be someone out there of this description. Maybe cloudswift. I still blush to the roots thinking of all the laudatory things I said of our guy in mid-stride. A realtor-builder I know said to me "wait, you're still in the middle of things, right? Just check back with me when you're all done and we'll see if you feel the same way". I was insulted. I was wrong.

I was amused, recently, to meet someone with 6 grandparents. I remember someone - marcolo perhaps? Make mention of the GC who had multiple grandparents die on him. It could happen...

"I'm not comfortable doing that" = 'My last client stiffed paying me for the rotten job I did of that nature'.

I can't help notice the absence of kateskouros on this thread...perhaps she is still writing up her list.

This is one I have had consistently across various GCs and carpenters and is my all-time favorite:

"No, you don't want to do that". It really means *HE* doesn't want to do that.

finestra, our cabinets are wonderful. No problems there. Really, there aren't any problems w/ our builder either. A lot of the delay was caused by me adding things or bad weather... although we had some issues w/ tile people that significantly slowed things down (and angered me a lot) and the electrician has made some serious gaffes, but the process was mostly OK just slow.
Our current problem is the world's most inept mortgage broker. We were supposed to close on the loan on February 2. When he bothers to call us back (which is maybe 1/20 phone calls), he keeps telling us "2 more weeks." Umm... OK.

"We will sharpen our pencil for you" when writing up the quote knowing we were on a tight budget. What that meant was we'll give you a number similar to what everyone else did and then will change order you to death and never complete the job. Our gcs must have been wearing colored contacts to hide the dollar signs in their eyes when they were seeing all the ways they'd upcharge us after the estimate was signed.
I think the sharpening of the pencil was really for sticking it in our backs!
You will notice that gcs tell you about the many years of experience and how confident they will be about every aspect of your job, until after you sign the contract, then every material or method you want is "newfangled" or they have never even heard of it (i.e. Marmoleum, Mocketts, Plugmold, Ikea cabs, etc...).
Oh, and until you are 100% done, reserve your love for the gcs. Midway, we'd have sung their praises. By the end, dh had to hold me back or I'd be in jail now.

"That faucet/appliance/tile is forrin". (Extra points for sceptical look on face)

Translation - in my 40 years in business, I have only installed Kohler/Whirlpool/Daltile, and I have no idea what to do with these.

I am so lucky. We're dealing with "measure once, cut twice, measure again, cut....", but that's about it.

I feel fortunate that I've only had to deal with a slight (and possibly/probably deserved) scolding. Otherwise, my GC's accommodated my every request/change. For 20%, but I knew that going into the project.

How about a few from the other side;
"we're just looking"-means once we figure out you sound like you know what you're talking about we'll ask you 50 questions and pick your brain and waste your time because we found it cheaper at HD or Lowes.
"we'll be ready after the first of the year"-means even though you were under budget, returned every phone call and re-quote promptly, we won't be calling you back even after the 5th call, made in late Feb.
"I've got my own installer"-means even though he declined a pre-installation meeting he now will be holding my feet to the fire wanting more trim, etc. and making clear how HE would have done it better,faster,quicker had he been able to do it his way.
"Just give us a ballpark figure"-means you just scarred the hell out of us and even though we are told the same figure other places we will be shooting the messenger who was honest & first.
And finally "We can't get the financing"-means we can't get the financing because we didn't do our homework before we wasted your time.

LOL alaris! I will but we only have about two months left. Unless he does a complete 180 in that small time frame...

When your GC says "this (plumber, framer, electrician, etc. ) is really good", it means this (plumber, electrician, etc.) gives me a great kickback!

"you'll be in by April"= you won't get in until September when you kick me off the job for months of no work and finish the job yourselves
"change order"= another chance for me to weasel money out of you to pay for a job other than yours
"it's going to be fine. They do it all the time"= it's going to be majorly screwed up and they do it all the time in their lazy a$$ way. It's not going to meet your standards.
"we will be back tomorrow" = hasta la vista. We are out of here.
"I paid him" = maybe for another job that was a year ago but not for this job.