You hear a lot these days about how the current generation just doesn’t have the work ethic of their parents or grandparents. I really don’t know if that’s true or not. I want to talk about business ethics, or lack thereof.

I’m getting ready to start a project on the RV that involves total replacement of a slideout floor. Instead of paying a dealer several thousand dollars to do it and live in a motel for a week, I decided (after much careful thought) to tackle the job by myself.

The slideout in question is 12 feet long by 4 feet deep so a single sheet of plywood isn’t going to hack it. Somebody very familiar with woodworking advised me to use baltic birch plywood, which is typically not available at big box hardware stores. I started off calling building supply stores near me. The first place I called wasn’t sure if they had that particular type of plywood but helpfully advised me that plywood comes in different thicknesses (1/2″, 3/4″, 1″). OOOOOkay. Scratch that place.

Next I called a place called Texas Wood Supply in Donna, TX. I was initially impressed with their helpfulness. They told me up front that they didn’t have any in stock but would call me back the next morning to confirm whether they could special order it. Much to my surprise, I got a call back in about 20 minutes. This time they told me they had a similar plywood in a smaller size to see if that would work. I reconfirmed that I was only looking for full size sheets of baltic birch. Then he had a few followup questions. He wanted to know how many sheets I needed and whether I would need to make continuiing orders. Out loud I told him that I needed 3 sheets for a one-time project. In my head, I was thinking I would never hear from them again since it wasn’t recurring business. He politely told me he’d call me the next morning with more info and we ended the call.

After waiting 2 days with no call back, I called another lumber yard several hours away in a large metropolitan area and got the info I needed. 6 days after talking to the local lumber yard, I wrote a 1 star Google review for them.

The very next morning I got a phone call from someone’s personal cell phone. It was the employee from the local lumber yard calling to apologize for not calling back. I told him his apology was worthless since it took a 1 star review to make it happen. I also think it was pretty crappy that the manager or owner was too cowardly to call. So, there’s my rant about business ethics today.