This is a crazy story about an acquaintance of mine who was helping a woman at a gas station

So I met this guy where I work, the company he works for was performing some work on the air conditioning system, his portion had to do with duct work. He worked in my areas of the building for a few months and we worked together a lot coordinating air outages and temporary feeds and other details that need dealt with when replacing ductwork. He was a good supervisor and a conscientious worker and I was impressed with his attention to detail. That was several months ago and when our job was complete he was onto the next job. Well, we have been saving to replace our air conditioning ductwork at the house, we replaced the unit a couple of years ago and they told me then the ducts were leaky and the wrong size and needed to be replaced. At that time we could not afford the new unit and the ductwork and since the unit was dying the decision was made for me. We did see a drop in our electric bill but I knew we were not seeing the true efficiency of the unit with the crappy and leaky 37 year old ductwork.

I started to get quotes, not thinking about my buddy maybe doing the work on the side. All of my ducts are in the attic and it is not a large attic, it was going to be crappy job for whoever was going to do the work. The first bidder showed up and spent about an hour crawling around the attic and a few days later emailed me a quote, $3,800 bucks and 4 days to complete the work. When he was here, he indicated that hard duct was the correct way to do this job and did not have one good thing to say about the flexible duct that is so common today. I suspect that is due to the price. Anyway, his stunning quote also indicated he would be using flex duct and that he would not be responsible for toting off the debris. Having run my own business I immediately realized that he did not want to do the job, I bid stupid high when I did not want the job and this was an obvious example of him not wanting the job. It seemed strange to me in this crappy economy, but I suppose he had enough work that he did not need my money. The second bidder was a similar story with some differences but basically it was the same story being told by another company. That was more than I had budgeted for the replacement so I was in a quandary.

So that is when I was reminded of the guy who was working at the station so I tracked his number down and called to see if he was interested. He was, as a side job, there is good and bad to that and I knew that going in. No company to back the work if there are issues and insurance and worker compensation issues but I knew without those I would be able to get a better price, and I did. I still do some side work so I understand how that works, risk mitigation is key and one must understand that going into a deal like that. He came out with his helper and crawled around the attic and told me he would give me a call to let me know on a price. A couple of days later he called me back with a price, $1,700 and he was going to be using all insulated galvanized steel ductwork. I was stoked, he said due to cash flow he would need some money for materials. How much I asked and he said a grand is a good start. I was stunned that he was going to do the work so cheap. When we met up to give him the money I asked for clarification. $1,700 for the work plus the materials right I asked. The $1,700 was labor and the materials would be in addition to that. I was bummed but that was still better than the other guys and they were all going to use flex duct. I was still happy.

So after I give him the grand for materials and we set up for the Saturday to get started I was syc’d about getting the work done before it got hot. Anyway, Saturday morning came and went and he is a no show. I call and get the machine. I was not worried at this point, maybe a miscommunication and I would call him during the week. Well he disappears for a few days and I could not get in touch with him at all. After a few days and many calls and many messages I was beginning to wonder if I was just duped and what actions I might take to get my money back. . Come to find out he had spent a bit of time in jail. This is not the first person I know that has spent some time in a jail cell, I include myself in that list from back in my younger days when I still drank. In my case, I deserved it, my own stupidity and at that time I vowed never to bail anyone out of jail because if they were there, they did some dumb assed thing that got them put there. This held true about 15 years ago when a friend of mine called, from jail, asking to be bailed out. He knew my stance on this before he called so I am not sure why he wasted his call on me. I did not bail him out and we are still great friends to this day. I do however have a bit of empathy for the guy in this case and it scares me that I think I would have been in his shoes had I been presented the same situation that landed him in jail.

So, here is the scenario, he pulls into the gas station in his company truck with his son to get gas. He is pumping his gas and the couple in the car in front of him is arguing, very loudly. He attempts to ignore them and their foul language, even though he was concerned because his son was being exposed to this ridiculousness. Well, this lead to that and then the man slapped the woman on the face, she struck him back and they were into it. My friend at this point starts hollering at them to stop, not involved yet and still pumping his gas. There was an exchange of words between the two and then the man turns his attention back to the women he was berating. The next thing was stunning by anyone’s sensibilities – the man pulled back and punched the woman in the face and she hits the ground like a sack of potato’s. At this point he can take no more and as she is getting up he gets in this woman beaters face and that escalates quickly into a fist fight. Well this dipshit gets his ass kicked by my friend and the woman he just punched gets up defending her man and almost immediately the cops show up, called by the station attendant earlier.

Well like so many domestics you see on the TV show cops it never ends well. Both the man and my AC man are hauled to jail, where he spent 7 days. Since they take your belongings he did not have my number that was in his cell phone so that is why I did not hear anything. So, the day he gets out he calls me to tell me this story and it really scares me because had I been presented with the same exact situation I would have responded in the same way. It makes me wonder if “getting involved” is just not worth it. That really makes me mad when I think about it! Just like we are not supposed to stop and help people who are broke down, they may be the boogey man. I still stop and help people who are sitting on the side of the road, I am very careful to survey my surroundings before I get out of my car but I still will help. I am mad about it because our society is almost ingraining into us NOT to help our fellow man. I am so diametrically opposed to that position that this example just simply infuriates me.

He explains to me that he will refund my money if I want but he would appreciate the work, especially now he has legal bills to pay. I still needed the work done so he spends a couple of weekends in my attic, 2 days one weekend and two more days the following weekend. As they were pulling the old ducts out I realized they were worse than I thought. There were numerous holes and nothing was screwed together and the crappy tape they used in 1976 was long deteriorated and I was losing a gob of air into my attic. I was conflicted, pissed at the crappy work all the those years ago but excited by the prospect of a quicker return on my investment by blowing more cold air into my house and not into my attic. I feel for my friend and I have been contemplating that situation. I still believe I would intervene given a similar situation, I just think that could be someone’s sister or daughter or friend and I would go ballistic if I saw such a thing happen to my wife or sister. I hope that a situation like that never presents itself to me because the idea of going to jail and having to deal with a situation like that scares the shit out of me.

Be careful out there friends, call 911 early and holler for others to help as well, but please do not turn the other cheek, picture your sister or your Mom and you will do the right thing, no matter the consequences.