Idle Doodle: Your trip was useless

I've been working on a project in Utah on a weird site, to say the least. This is a plot of land south of Salt Lake City in a town called Springville. My client has been in an options contract to purchase lots in this site to build, with a set of real Mickey Moused together design guidelines and setbacks. Some setbacks would have resulted in houses that could be no larger than ten feet by twenty feet, about the size of a tiny one car garage. We attributed these to, well, gross incompetence, I suppose, and we assumed they wouldn't be enforced.

Without getting too into the weeds about the technical items, the city sprang contradictory requirements and a surprise denial of a variance we thought we had support from the staff on.

So my client pulled together an emergency meeting, and we agreed to pull together some exhibits and we planned to fly to Utah in a week to present our case to the city council. My team dropped everything, expedited the exhibits, and created several pages of illustrations to show why what we are asking for is necessary and a benefit to the new residents while the negatives the city is perceiving are fears not grounded in reality.

The day after Independence Day, we flew out to Utah to meet the mayor and a council member two hours before the city council hearing and make our case to them as a dry run for the presentation that evening.

The mayor was all grins and handshakes when he walked in the room, rubbing elbows and joking with everyone like a good politician. Then also like a true politician, he plunged his seven-inch knife down our backs when the meeting started and started off by telling us that they have tabled our agenda item for that night.

Really? You couldn't tell us a few days ago, before we expedited new exhibits, bought several plane tickets out and back, several nights of hotel rooms, a rental car, and meal expenses?

Let's say you bought a house two states away and are trying to fix it up before you can rent it out to someone. Your friend lives pretty close to the house so he says he'll meet with the contractor when you fly out. Then when you fly yourself and your architect to the meeting, your friend tells you that he told the contractor to not show up to the meeting and to come back in a month. Even if you ignore that he's the one who told you that you can't do what you want to do with your own house, you probably won't be friends for much longer.

Don't be a dick to your friends.

Don't be a dick to strangers.

Don't give people the power to forgo the consequences of being a dick to others.