Jodi Wallace

Monarch Solid Surface Designs

Walking away from business is never an easy thing. But sometimes it turns out it is the right thing to do for your company, employees, and your self-respect.

This week I made the serious decision to terminate a relationship with a general contractor who we have worked with previously. It’s not the contractor that’s the problem, it’s their end customer, a large retail chain; we have worked on at least four of their new stores as well as doing repairs when employees decide to go “through the door” instead of opening it. 

This past week was one of those defining “stand up, or shut up” moments. And I have to admit I’m just not a shut up kind of girl.  

Monterey, California is a 90-minute drive from San Jose on a good day – and another 90+ minutes drive back if you are lucky. That is not including packing tools, materials, and bodies and then unloading the same tools, materials and bodies. By the time anyone makes it inside the job site they will have been on the clock for hours and nothing accomplished except for travel time. They’ll spend over 4 hours on the clock without doing a lick of work except sitting (or driving).

Now, I actually did not sign up for this job – in fact, I thought we had agreed to not work on these stores after my son and husband left me running Monarch, to pursue some promising opportunities. But there were other issues in play and Monarch Designs ended up committed.

Very importantly, our contract clearly stated working hours were 8:00am – 5:00pm… not the night and weekend hours we had struggled through before, but regular M-F business hours. If an after-hours schedule had been stated up front, we would not have even submitted a proposal.  

The general contractor was way behind, which meant so were all the subcontractors. Everyone was struggling and unfortunately we couldn’t do our part until other trades had completed their part.

The customer (store management) decided they didn’t care and they were going to take possession of the store and open, regardless of the fact there was a huge amount of work yet to be completed. 

Finishing the remaining work now became the subcontractor’s problem.  

With their “soft opening” approaching, employees stocked shelves, worked on inventory, tidied up, and went through training. Anyone who has ever tried to install on a “working job site” knows that is a train wreck waiting to happen, and it definitely did. 

My guys showed up on site and after unloading everything were then literally thrown off the job. They were informed subcontractors would no longer be able to work during regular business hours and would only be allowed to begin work after 6:00pm. As I said, our contract clearly stated 8:00am – 5:00pm. This was the first of many hotly discussed issues I had with the project manager. As I have mentioned a time or two, I stand up for my people!

The reason we were given was that the company did not want any (sub) contractors there in case someone chose to sexually harass store employees. No kidding­ — I seriously made Mark repeat that to me twice when he called, because I honestly couldn’t believe what I was hearing. My crew was rudely informed by mall security to pack up their tools, load up materials, and not come back until the employees were gone. Oh, and security would be there to ensure “there were no problems” – translation: make sure we didn’t steal anything. To add insult to injury, after picking up and re-loading tools which involved going in and out through the back area, Mark was instructed to empty his pockets because he was walking through an inventory area. (You know, in the case he was stealing inventory and stuffing it in his pockets!)

To say I was furious and went off on the project manager is putting it mildly. She tried to smooth things and repeatedly told me she knew we weren’t supposed to be working after hours, but please, if we could just be patient in this stressful time, and help out. She literally begged me to please work with them as they were in trouble on this job. She offered to buy the guys dinner and get them hotel rooms so they could crash for a couple hours before they had to come back. 

I talked to my guys and they agreed with that plan.

The onsite supervisor then promptly told my guys in a rude and insulting manner that there was no way he was putting any expenses on HIS company charge card, and that included food, or anything else!! Like a game of “telephone” where you pass a message and see how garbled it becomes, I called the project manager, and once again she called the onsite supervisor. He then made his displeasure known by getting a room with a single bed and telling my guys one of them could sleep on the floor. Bryan and Mark were seriously irate and when they called me they were packing it up and ready to head home! Once again, a phone call was made to the project manager who called the site supervisor who told him to fix it NOW!! 

My guys had started their day at 6:30 a.m. By the time they finished what they could and made it back to San Jose, it was 3:30 a.m. the following day. We had overtime, double time, and kitchen installs scheduled for the day. The guys went home to crash for a couple hours and came back in. I canceled what I could and sent them home early. This job was a disaster in every sense of the word and I am wondering how badly we are going to come out of this financially since they still owe us a lot of money.

A few days later I received an email informing me that we were scheduled to start the NEXT store the following week. 

I read it and had to laugh– It would be a cold day in Hades before we stepped one foot anywhere near that place!

Things happen for a reason and it turned out I had been so busy I had never signed and returned the general contractor’s sub paperwork for the next store. The contractor in return had been nasty and refused to sign our company contract feeling theirs was sufficient. So although we had provided a proposal, and they had sent a down payment, there was, in fact, no signed contract. I was ecstatic when I nonchalantly confirmed this with the contractor’s office. 

I quickly called and informed all parties that we would not be doing the upcoming store or any others in the future. I would return their down payment and we would be done, done, done with this nightmare!! 

Throughout the day I received multiple calls from multiple people trying to cajole, bully, reason, and sweet talk me into doing this next store until they could find another shop. But I was adamant– I may put up with a lot from customers, but disrespect is NEVER going to be a thing I tolerate.  

The following day the owner of another shop that had been asked to step in and take over called me. He asked about picking up a couple of sheets of material we had already purchased for the job and I told him, “Not a problem.”

It’s a small circle in our industry and I wanted to make sure he knew WE had walked away from the job, and why, not the other way around – of being let go. I gave him a quick rundown of the situation, wished him luck and told him he was going to need it!!  I could hear the hesitation in his voice as he asked if I was sure I wouldn’t reconsider. I told him absolutely not!! 

When I walked into the office a couple hours later, the first thing I did was take the new store paperwork and rip it into many, many pieces!! It felt awesome!!

To some, walking away from business might seem extreme. But I believe we must pick our battles and make a stand for what we believe in. Because as they say, “Sometimes you’re the windshield, sometimes you’re the bug,” – so choose wisely!!

Jodi Wallace is co-owner of Monarch Solid Surface Designs in San Jose, California. She may be reached at monarchssdesigns@aol.com.