MCALLISTER'S LANDSCAPING AND GRADING

Part of the issue was Duke Energy's fault for not getting the word over to the contractor quickly to start the repair as far as I can tell, however, when Roger McAllister showed up at my door to discuss the repair he apologized to me and said that it was his fault. The hole in the driveway had already sat for 4 days shy of a month and it was muddy and filled with water. Mr. McAllister first tried to get me to wait a week to have it repaired as his crew was all the way across town or something to that effect. I simply asked him if he could at least put gravel in the hole as Google had done the first time that the driveway was dug up. He balked and didn't seem to want to do that even after I pointed him to the nearest Lowe's where he could get some type of stone that would work. At this point a friend had already driven into the hole and I was parking my pickup truck in front of it to block it off. I explained to him that my wife had to back out of the garage and maneuver around my truck each time that she left the house which was a recipe for disaster. I could tell that Mr. McAllister was a man used to getting his way and he tried all of his good old boy tactics and acted all polite and nice and as if it would really put him in a bind to have to get to it right away so I politely insisted a number of times that I could wait a week if he would at least put gravel in the hole. He then asked me if it would be okay to just put concrete in the part that had been cut out to access the line. Anyone who knows anything about concrete knows that you can't just patch a piece in and call it a day. You have to remove one entire piece and re-pour the area. I told him no, that he would need to at least replace the entire half of the apron as one piece. You would think that he would understand that. A couple of hours later, two of his guys came to the door and said that they were there to patch the driveway. They acted as if they were going to mix up some concrete and fill the hole. I may have misunderstood them and they may have been there just to fill it with gravel but I don't think so because when I showed them the area and told them that they could not just patch the one section they said that they weren't ready to repair the whole section and didn't have enough concrete. They also said that they didn't have enough gravel to fill the hole which led me to believe that they came to my house expecting me to say that they could just repair the hole with concrete and not pour the whole section because they didn't even have enough gravel to fully fill the hole. They did put the gravel in and it turned out to be enough but not ideal. At least we didn't have a huge mud pit anymore. I was still expecting the apron to be patched by the next week as Mr. McAllister had told me he would. Today is the end of that next week so I called Mr. McAllister. I thought that I would do him that courtesy before calling Duke and asking them what was going on. Big mistake on my part. He told me that he had been out with Duke Energy and that they had told him to replace the ENTIRE apron. Part of the old apron is not settling properly and that is probably Google or Time Warner's fault because of when they trenched under the driveway. He didn't seem to agree with them from what he said to me so I asked him why he hadn't contacted me and when could the work be done? Keep in mind that it has been five weeks since the hole was cut in my driveway by Duke. The impression that I got was that this contract that Mr. McAllister has with Duke is not really worth it to him because he seems reluctant to do the work in a timely fashion or to the full extent of what actually needs to be done. He seemed to be waiting to see what would happen and, as a matter of fact, he said something to that effect to me. I don't think that he wanted to do the work for what Duke wants to pay him. I asked him if his crew was proficient in concrete pouring. Again, if you know anything about concrete, you don't just pour it and walk away. It has to be mixed properly and tooled at the correct time and in the correct manner or it will not attain it's maximum strength and it will break up over the years. Why wouldn't I ask this of someone who had asked me if it was okay to just fill in the hole that was cut out instead of replacing an entire section? When he said that he had been working concrete for 40 years and that he knew about it I told him that I would take his word for it. ****, if a guy tells me to my face that he knows what he is doing, more often than not, I will believe him. The point is that you have to ask to see how someone answers. This is where it gets weird. Apparently he didn't like the fact that I used the phrase "I will take your word for it". He seemed to think that I was implying that he didn't know what he was doing. I might chalk this up to some sort of regional difference in communicating but I have lived in the south since 1981 and I have never had any difficulty like this. To me, telling a man that you will take his word for something means a lot and is a very sincere gesture. He begged to differ. He went off the deep end and started rambling on about how he knew that I would be a problem (I guess that a problem is when someone has had their driveway dug up for 5 weeks and then dares to ask if someone knows how to pour the concrete or when they may actually do the work). He said that he was going to call Duke and tell them that he didn't want to do this work. At this point I figured that maybe he did know concrete well enough to do the job and I certainly didn't want to wait forever to have the work done so I apologized to him if he felt that I was insulting him and told him that I was sincere in taking his word on his abilities, which I was. I even offered to call Duke myself if he wanted me to and tell them that he just didn't want to do this job. He calmed down and said that he would do the work but then he told me that it would be another two weeks before he could have someone out to do the work. That would mean that our driveway will have had a gaping hole in it for a grand total of seven weeks. The more that I sat around and thought about that and the way that he had acted throughout the entire situation made me think that he needs to know that he shouldn't try to blame me for his problems and act as if I am the one being difficult. I just want the hole repaired. Is that too much to ask? You can tell that he is just a frustrated individual who is unhappy with the situation and is looking for someone else to blame it on. I mean, I actually went out of my way to be pleasant to everyone involved in this (full disclosure: I am not always that way and I haven't always been that way in the past but I have made a concerted effort in this situation and I have been extremely nice and understanding which makes me even more upset that this guy is trying to bully me and get his way and vent his frustration on me. Your business issues are not mine. Deal with it like the mature grown up that you seem to think that I am supposed to treat you like. If you want respect, give it and earn it; don't expect it just because. I immediately lose respect for anyone who tries to work me for their benefit and my spidey sense was at full tilt with this guy. It was all about him and I don't play that game. The impression that I get is that Duke probably doesn't pay him much for this type of work and it isn't something that he really wants to do so he puts it on the back burner and tries to push it off as long as he can and then tries to do the work to the absolute bare minimum of what is required. Who knows? I still haven't seen the work. I probably won't since I called Duke after a few hours of reflection and told them about my experience.