Hmmm

We needed our deck completed, so I sat down one day and called a variety of contractors with good Google reviews, and we ended up entertaining for bids from three of them.

One of them was easy to dismiss. The person who arrived to build the estimate was a little cynical about everything before delivering a too-salesy pitch that more-or-less touted the saintly qualities of both the company and its founder. Thankfully his bid was twice as much as the other two, so it was easy to sweep that bid aside.

But the other two bids were terrific.

Both the contractors had great reviews and were highly experienced while exuding a tremendous amount of know-how as they talked through everything with us. Then as we asked for clarifications and modifications during the decision process, both were incredibly responsive and patient, and basically easy to work with. To top it all off, they were the same price almost to the dollar.

Who to choose?? And, worse, who to disappoint?

Sometimes it’s challenging to pick someone because they’re all terrible. But even worse is when there are two (or more) who are sublime, because in the end we only have one deck but two deserving people which means one person is going to be disappointed.

In the end, I explained the situation to the contractor we didn’t select. And he was very gracious in his response, which I’m thankful for.

There’s that great line in Amadeus, where he can’t decide on wigs so wishes he had more than one head. And so it was with our deck: I hated to disappoint someone, and wish so much we had more than one deck to build.

It’s hard in life to be a people pleaser. Because in the end it’s impossible to please everyone. Such is my cross to bear.