ALWAYS Trust The Experts
Many years ago, I worked for a contracting firm in New York that specialized in Lexan glass windows. We were contacted by a very well-known jewelry firm near Wall Street about replacing their aging front display window with an extremely large panel of Lexan. By “extremely large”, I mean two inches thick, six feet high, and fourteen feet long! This panel was literally going to be bulletproof! The owners wanted to get rid of the “jailhouse ambiance” of having huge vertical bars all across the display window.
They and we agreed upon a price for the installation — almost astronomical considering it was just a big window. As we removed the old window and the bars, we realized that the framework surrounding what would be the new window badly needed beefing up for better security. We recommended a couple of other contractors to perform that work as that was outside the scope of our knowledge and experience. The owners, already unhappy about the amount they were having to spend, declined to do so even after we practically begged them to and required them to sign off on an agreement holding us harmless for the framework holding the new Lexan panel.
A week after we completed the installation, we got a frantic phone call early in the morning from the owners of the jewelry store. My boss and I arrived at the store’s location to find that the thieves had come very well-prepared. They had drilled two holes in the Lexan panel, installed collapsible grappling hooks on chains through the panel, and apparently simply hooked the chains to a tow ball on the back of a large vehicle. The entire Lexan panel was laying on the sidewalk — completely undamaged except for some minor scratches and the two drilled holes — along with the chains and grappling hooks, having been completely jerked out of the storefront.
We all — the police, the store owners, my boss, and me — stood there gazing at the now-empty display window and cases in the store. The store had lost close to a million dollars in jewelry and expensive watches.
The owners immediately tried to blame our company for the failure of the Lexan panel to protect the store. We took the position that the Lexan had done exactly what we’d promised and that its mostly undamaged condition was a testament to that.
Our insurance company and their attorneys argued with their insurance company and attorneys in arbitration for months until the judge hearing the case finally found completely in our favor. His analogy and the lesson: when the plumber putting in your new toilet says you need to replace the floor under it, and that’s out of his scope of work, LISTEN TO HIM!
