The Great, the Good, the Dangerous, the Bizarre, and the Neurotic

Part 5 of a 5 Part Series 

The Neurotic: Borderline, OCD, and Paranoia 

Note: This blog post is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Borderline Personalities

Have you ever been around someone that made you feel like you were walking on eggshells? That you never quite knew what would set them off. Yet, you certainly knew that when they did go off, it was a bad scene. Well, then you’ve dealt with a borderline personality. The broken eggshells are the cue.

Out of 700 clients, we encountered a handful of borderline personality types. Two we didn’t see coming because we were young and naïve. The other two we did. Yet, we took them on because of slow times. We survived them because of our systems and our organizational strength, but we paid a heavy price. 

Borderline type personalities tend to be outwardly successful people. They’re intelligent. They’re good at getting what they want. They can be quite charming, witty, and gracious at first. That’s how they lure you in. Then when you’re committed to working for them, you see a whole other side, one that’s quite ugly. They know exactly what strings of yours to pull and they’re not afraid to play those cards.

However, there are some look ahead tells that, if you’re paying attention, can give you a heads up. For instance, how they treat others, whether it’s family members or servers at a restaurant.  If they are disrespectful to those they love and those who serve them, then know that you will not be an exception. 

They might play favorites initially, to groom you so to speak. As a young contractor, I had one tell me that, “Oh, I can see that you’re not like the other 3 contractors who worked for me in the past. I’m sure you’ll be able to make me happy.” 

I thought, “Of course I can. We build a great product and provide terrific customer service.” 

Well, we did just that. And nope, we couldn’t make him happy either. So even though we did our best, we joined his list of contractors who couldn’t make him happy. It almost felt like he was taking scalps and counting coup. As in, “well, that’s 4 general contractors I’ve scalped. I wonder if there’s a fifth.”

So here’s the warning cue… if 3 other contractors can’t satisfy a client, chances are pretty good that it’s not the contractors. 

With this client, I was given another tell, and that was by a friend of his. Since we live in a small city where everyone seems to know everyone else, savvy people are usually pretty circumspect in their warnings about bad actors. They don’t want to go on record as saying too much. In this case, his friend said to me, “Oh, you’re going to be building for So&so… All I’m going to say is just be careful.”

“Just be careful.” 

Pretty innocuous comment. Now when I hear that, it’s like someone is hitting me with an electric cattle prod. I sit up real straight and start paying great attention to the signs. 

With borderline people, it can seem like there are multiple personalities in one person. There’s not one “Jack” you’re dealing with, there are at least 2 “Jacks” and perhaps even more that you’ll be dealing with.  

For instance, we were negotiating a contract to build a second weekend home for a successful LA fashion maven, known for edgy, hip fashions which included selling ripped and torn T-shirts for $300. 

It was a negotiated contract and I was selected to help assemble the design team. We had a great architect. Working together from concept to permit, we provided pre-construction pricing updates along the way. The client was always very calm, professional, and prompt. I even visited their family home in LA. The fact that it was important for me to travel 90 miles to see how they lived might have been a clue.

After several months of the typical slow Santa Barbara approval process, pre-construction design work, approvals, permitting and estimating, it was time to sit down at our conference table in our office, go through our Scope of Work and our Construction Agreement. Our Scopes tend to be long and detailed. By the way, our Scopes are what have saved our ass from losing money many, many times. It’s one of the reasons we do this.

We were about 15 minutes into what is normally a 90 minute meeting on the Scope when “Jack” uncloaked his dark side. It was a brief unveiling of rage. As I hadn’t seen that in the previous 15 months of working with him, it was startling. 

Since we hadn’t signed the contract yet for a proposed $2M build, I remember distinctly thinking, “Good God, whoever that guy is, put him away. I sure hope that’s not who we’re building for.”

And since we hadn’t signed the contract and we weren’t beholden, “Jack” did indeed put that guy away as it was just a brief unveiling of who he really was. And that turned out to be the guy we built for… a miserable, unhappy, borderline personality type. Oh, and he also happened to be narcissistic and paranoid. That’s a tough combination of personality disorders to deal with.

I’m sure he suffered some abuse as a child. Now in a position of power, he made sure to emotionally abuse others. I’m sorry that he suffered as a kid. Yet, that does not give him the right to be abusive to others. 

And so that’s the delicate walk the custom builder walks… dealing with all kinds of people, some who are terrible to other human beings just because they can be. And if the builder walks from the job, then they’ve done the ultimate act of disloyalty and therefore they must be punished. 

That’s when the borderline client brings out all the lawyers and “experts” and sets out to make the builder’s life even more miserable. So, as the builder, you’ve got to stick it out. Think of it like chemotherapy… what doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger.

I found that borderline clients are super attuned to your emotional state of being. They’re looking for ways to gain your sympathy. And then they play on those emotional heart strings. If you deny them what they want, even though they’ve played you, that’s when the rage comes out. And so you capitulate to make the rage go away because it’s so awful. Then they’re training you. “Succumb to my emotional guilt trips or deal with my wrath.” 

I admit it. I’m a slow learner. I’m a sucker for damsels in distress. Perhaps because I grew up with a single mom.

Lose your home in a catastrophe? Check. Insurance company sticking it to you? Check. Your father is dying? Check. Your first contractor, one of our prime competitors, has let you down? Check, check, and check. 

I did multiple jobs for a damsel in distress and lost money on every single one.  She made a point of that. Yet, I willingly signed up for project after project with because as she once said to me, “You have to do this job. I know you.”

Being a slow learner, I finally got it. I told her that I would always stand behind what I had built for her but that I would no longer build anything new for her. I finally realized that even though she used the damsel-in-distress strategy really well, that neither I nor anyone else could ever rescue her. She had to do this to us in to justify her behavior.

The bottom line is there’s no fixing people. The best thing to do is not to deal with folks you don't mesh with. If you’re contracted to build something for them, you’ve got to gut it out and get it done. Then learn from it and watch out for them in the future.

When we were younger, we would skirt the truth and say we were too busy to take them on. After two said, “Well, we’ll wait for you then”, we learned that we had to be honest, but do so in a way that saved face.  So we made it about us. You know, the old “It’s not you. It’s me,” break up method.

So I learned to tell a few potential clients, “Look, I appreciate the opportunity you’ve given us to be your builder. I can tell though that I’m not the right builder for you. So, thank you for your time and interest.”

And then be quiet and leave it at that. Anything more you say is just going to come back at you. Remember, it’s you, not them.

 

 

OCDers

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) can be debilitating.  Yet, for many people who have it, they are able to work around it for the most part. Until they start hitting their trigger points.

So, here are 3 of the 5 trigger points:
1.    Fear of contamination or dirt.
2.    Doubting and having difficulty tolerating uncertainty.
3.    Needing things orderly and symmetrical.

So do you think a building or remodeling project is going to be difficult for these people? And if it’s difficult for them, you can imagine how difficult it’s going to be for you as their builder, trying to navigate the build and their disorder.

I admit that I like order and symmetry. I find it pleasing. So I can relate to people with mild cases of OCD. In fact, we often get along and I’m able to pull off a successful build. The key is lots of communication, a clean and organized site, and looking for those axis lines in a home where you can attain symmetry. Much beyond that though and I find it extremely challenging. 

Early on in my career, when once again I was either feeling invincible or naïve, or perhaps naively invincible, I took on a whole house renovation for someone about my age. He was “a trust fund baby” and as a result, he didn’t have to work. Yet, he was young and so he had an underlying fear about making a mistake that might be costly. It seemed that the idea of actually having to get a job and work just might be terrifying for him. 

So once we got past the rough framing and mechanical stages of the project, making a decision was agonizing for him. It would take weeks to make a decision only to have it be rescinded shortly thereafter and more equivocating going on. This of course dragged out the job by many months and ate up the project management, supervision and general conditions budgets. 

Then to justify the delays, he started finding flaws and blemishes, some of which were imperceptible to the human eye. We completed the work and then he produced a punch list of alleged defects.  He refused to acknowledge his role in extending the timeline of the project and also refused to pay the final draw on the contract which was about $20,000.

The architect thought he could mediate and offered to do so. So when we sat down, the owner had a list of 27 alleged defects and we had a bill in hand for $20,000.  The architect, a very deliberate and methodical person, thought he could navigate reaching an agreement on most of the items on the list in a few hours. And with a rational person, he probably could have. 

However, after almost 3 hours on point 1, where the owner refused to acknowledge any compromise or adjustment, the architect slammed his pencil down, picked up his documents, and said to the owner, “You need psychological counseling!” and stormed out.

As I sat there chewing on that, the owner said to me, “Bruce, what do you think he meant?”

And I quietly replied, “Well, I think he meant what he said.” 

Then I picked up my documents and left too.

Ultimately, we filed a mechanics lien on the property for the $20K. Eventually, several months later, we settled on splitting the difference, the list of alleged defects to be fixed by the owner’s forces at his expense, and that our company would provide no warranty service ever for his home since we hadn't been paid  in full. 

So, if in your interview process, you start to pick up on the cues of OCD, it would be to your benefit to pass on the job.

 

Paranoid People
 

People with tendencies towards paranoia tend to be suspicious, distrustful, fearful, obsessed and unreasonable. Now, don’t get me wrong. I believe that a certain amount of paranoia is healthy, especially if you’re running a business. You need a certain dose of skepticism to protect yourself from fraud and business errors. So a certain amount is key to survival.

And since the disorder is on a spectrum, as a home builder / remodeler, it’s highly unlikely that you’ll ever deal with someone on the deep end of paranoia. You’ll never get that close to them. But it is probable that in your career that you’ll deal with someone who has a pretty good dose of it. They’re good enough to manage it when their stress level isn’t too high, but when their personal stress level gets maxed out, then they’ll default to the paranoiac behaviors. 

So you might have signed up a job with someone who just seemed cautious about taking on a sizeable project. That’s understandable. We’ve all heard the horror stories of remodeling and home building projects gone badly. And I’m a pretty patient and empathetic guy.  To a point. 

I could listen to people’s concerns, address them and sell the job. That was good when we were young and hungry. However, once we were into the job and these folks had to make a lot of decisions and life was stressful, then the old patterns of distrust, fear, obsessiveness and unreasonable behavior came out.

Over time, I learned that if someone was too cautious and / or analytical during the sales cycle, they weren’t going to be a client that we could do business with.

Some toxic people are combinations. Such as a combination of borderline, narcissistic and paranoid. That’s a very tough set to deal with. When you're in the thick of it, all you can do is keep managing and seeing who's the best person on your team who can deal with this individual, because sometimes it's not you.

One such client ran through me, then my partner, and finally our onsite foreman. Fortunately, we had a woman project manager on our team. For some reason, he was okay with females. She was the only one who could talk him off the ledge, give him straight talk, and not become persona non grata. 

While the guy had his issues, I did have some more compassion for him when I learned that his parents had shipped him off to a boarding academy at the age of 5. I’m sure he was terrorized by the 12 and 13 year old kids. Pretty criminal thing to do to a 5 year old in my opinion. However, that still doesn’t excuse him from abusing others as an adult.

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To wrap up this 5 part series, if you made it through all 5 parts, congratulations! Either you’re a veteran of the building business or you’ve got enough smarts to want to learn as much about personality types and disorders as you can before you encounter them.

Unlike production and commercial builders who deal more with product and other construction professionals, we custom builders and remodelers deal with homeowners. Homes are highly personal. They are a reflection of who we are. As such, toxic people tend to create toxic environments for those around them.

As I said in Part 1, we’re all crazy. It’s just a matter if my crazy can mesh with your crazy. If our crazies don't mesh, better decline to take the job. Life is just too short.

Let me add that I am not a psychologist. I’m not implying that I am able to clinically diagnose neuroses. Yet, I have completed over 4000 custom projects working closely with all types of people in improving their homes over 48 years. These descriptions are simply to tag behaviors that I’ve observed.

I am extremely grateful that 99% of the people I dealt with were none of the preceding types. However, those few are the ones who give you the most trauma. Sad, but true, dealing with those few toxic people over the course of many months are the jobs you learn some deep life lessons. Best to take the hit, learn the lesson, and look for cues and clues when you're interviewing your next prospective clients. 

Here's to your success!

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