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Hot take: a job trailer in Duluth taught me to never trust a handshake bid again
Last August I was wrapping up a framing job in Duluth and the GC pulled me into his trailer to talk about the next phase. He shook my hand on a $14,500 bid right there, no paperwork, said we were good to go Monday. Monday came and he acted like we never talked, then handed the work to his nephew for $9,000. I lost two weeks I could have spent on other bids because I believed a handshake over a signed scope, so now I get a one page agreement signed before I move a single tool. Has anyone else had a GC pull the friendly handshake thing and then go silent?
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lily571mo ago
My old boss used to say a handshake was worth more than a contract and for years I bought into that. Then a guy in Cloquet stiffed me on $3,200 of tile work after we shook on it in his driveway, and that was the end of that for me. Yours is way worse though, losing two weeks of bid time hurts more than the money sometimes. Getting it in writing first costs you ten minutes and saves you a whole lot of grief. Lesson learned the hard way, but at least you learned it.
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