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2025-11-06.md

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+---
+id:
+aliases: []
+tags:
+  - authorship/original
+  - destiny/permanent
+  - original-format/digital-text
+  - type/daily
+title: 2025-11-06
+---
+# 2025-11-06
+
+## 2025-11-06 18:12 "Bad Bid Practice"
+
+I might be reprimanded for the things I've said about deceptive bid practices
+were I to repeat them to the wrong person,
+but I can't, in good conscience, take them back.
+
+In my previous position,
+I regularly saw good opportunities lost,
+perfect jobs turned into absurd overruns,
+and historied relationships with good customers soured
+by people trying to play poker instead of just selling a service.
+
+Now I feel myself sour when I see the same warning signs.
+
+> [!quote] Proverbs 21:6, New International Version
+> A fortune made by a lying tongue
+> is a fleeting vapor and a deadly snare
+
+> [!quote] Robert Palmer, "Every Kinda People"
+> There is no profit in deceit
+>
+> Honest men know that
+>
+> Revenge does not taste sweet
+
+When you bill your customer to provide scope
+that they thought they already paid for,
+they don't say "Touche" and move on,
+they ask themselves what they've done for you,
+what they're doing, and if you still deserve it.
+**You are cashing out on good will.**
+
+> How upset would you be paying fifty dollars for an oil change,
+> just to be billed another fifty for the cost of the oil and filter?
+> Would you ever go back to that shop?
+
+When you take from a contractors profits,
+they _will_ make sure you don't keep all of it,
+whether intentionally or not.
+
+Harsh words of lost profits reach the field immediately,
+and they only get harsher on the way down.
+Your superintendent _was_ golf buddies with the contractor's.
+Now yours is buried in QA and safety paperwork
+that they used to get away with pencil-whipping.
+
+Estimators may account themselves clever
+when they sell toggle switches as lighting control
+or conduit as equipment grounding
+but they're only playing at law.
+
+It is... _inadvisable_ to get into a dispute over contract terminology
+with an organization that---necessarily---has a larger legal department than you.
+Much more so when your basis for complaint is a typo-ridden checklist
+written by estimators with degrees in anything but law,
+rarely construction management,
+or even nothing at all.
+
+I don't mean to disparage my well-meaning peers,
+(that last category includes myself)
+I only mean to say that we don't seem to be asking
+the first question that should come to mind
+when writing a document that could end up in court:
+"How would I look explaining this to a lawyer?"