corporate bullcrap and not outright thievery, so it’s a little harder to deal with for me. add into that equation my new life path which is a long way from the shady side that would know exactly how to handle it three years ago. anyway, here it is: was asked to do a site survey for an ethernet circuit extension for the dhs (homeland security) and if it was too long for ethernet (~300ft) to survey for fiber optic. i found building maintenance and they walked me from demarc to customer and i measured ~200ft so i added 50ft to make it 250 ft total, well under the 300ft limit for ethernet.
fast forward three months (govt sub-contract -itself illegal, subbing out a govt contract that is) and i get an email asking when i was open for the job and to resend the estimate. i sent the ~$1600 estimate that included electrician adding an outlet, but was told building maintenance did that so i gave them one for $800 that included two techs for estimated two hours pulling cable then flat fee for installing the backboard and rack. they said cool, sent the material to my house and i saw that it was a bunch of fiber and a huge rack.
i called and told him and he told me the project manager changed from ethernet to fiber and i told him that was way more expensive to work with than ethernet. they also sent the wrong type of connectors that didn’t match my test equipment and uni-cam fittings instead of fusion splicing connectors. i told him i had to buy new tools for the job and had to charge them something for them. he said ok and send the new estimate and it came to $2050 with $600 for the tools i spent $1550 on and they approved it. when i got there, the elevators were being worked on and there was one for 12 floors and it only went down so it took forever if you had to wait for it to come and take you up.
long story short, it took 5 hours running the fiber and i didn’t charge them for terminating and rolled that into the testing fee. the rack didn’t fit so i had to find one, building maintenance had a small one a tenant had left and gave it to me so i used that. i told them on the first day when i had to come back how many hours it had taken and that the rack didn’t fit and got approval to use the smaller one. it took me two weeks to get the rack taken back to the customer and they tried to pay me $2050 instead of the $3250 on the invoice i sent. i explained the issue and they tried to pay $2982.72 for some reason. they never did give me the other ~$260 because i closed the ticket and took the money so i could pay $1200 on the tool account so as not to ruin my business credit.
here’s the issue. what do i do about it; leave it alone, complain to their finance dept or supervisor, repossess the fiber i ran or a few fittings off of one end, or something else? my first thought is to turn them in for waste, fraud, and abuse, since it’s a govt contract and they opted for the more expensive fiber solution when ethernet would’ve worked and the office is moving in a year. the customer used that phrase when i informed him of the change the first day and i put that in the email i sent when i tool the low payout. i’ll probably do that anyway, but what are your thoughts on what i should do with this?
