Casper,
Just to be clear, I wasn't ( as I said ) talking about the specifics of this situation, since I wasn't there fo all the events. My point was not to exonerate anyone for anything. And anyone who has followed my posts for any length of time will know that I constantly rail at the lack of business-like behaviour all throughout the industry. So, I'm not looking to make excuses for anyone who doesn't exhibit the proper degree of professionalism.
That said, as always, I like to look at both sides and poke holes into everyone's "righteousness". As someone who has owned his own businesses for over 20 years, I can hardly imagine how many silly promises I have been made. In fact, just in the past few days, I was sent an offer which I knew couldn't be correct. Now, I could have assumed that the broker involved knew what he was doing, and that I had been made "promises", but that wouldn't have ended me up with what I wanted. So, what did i do ? I made certain assumptions about what the likelihood was of what eh actual term of a deal might be, and moved along knowing that at least a number of the terms I had been "promised" would evaporate. Of course, the deal is far from being "done", and already two of the terms have changed. Now, I could jump up and down, scream bloody murder, and crater the deal. But that wouldn't end me up with much, would it ????
Does this make the broker invovled anything but an idiot and bad businessperson ? Of course not. But if I took what he had to say on face value, when i should have known better, well, then, to some extent I'd be an idiot, too.
I see guys getting into situations every single day in this hobby, because of various permutations of the "sin" of not thinking about "reality". There is sooooooooooooooooooooo much hearing hoofbeats and thinking "Zebras!!!". And the funny thing is, everyone sees it when it's "the other guy" ( Did you see that post by Arnold Ziffel ? Who is he kidding ? What king of moron is he ? I can't believe he thinks that .......etc.,etc.,etc. ).
Now, this is way too much of an "all encompassing" topic to flush out in this little thread/post, but I'll close with something I said to a disgruntled customer about 15 years ago, when they called me to complain about one of my salespeople: In the history of the world, I doubt that there have been too many, if any, arguments where one side was 100% right, and the other side was 100% wrong. Things just don't work that way. And when you start thinking that you are 100% right about something, that's when you have to watch out for the possibility that there may be more to the situation than you are looking at.
I just hate to see guys getting "hurt" because they walk into some of these encounters without thinking, because getting stood up is hardly the worst thing which can happen in our little euphamisitacally named "hobby". There's plenty of folks who are out there "playing for keeps", and you'd better keep your head up, your ears open, and your wits about you. It's just plain dangerous not to read the road signs before you go around that curve. You can complain all you want about that bridge being out when you find yourself in the river, and you can point to everything "they" should have done to better warn you about that bridge. And you would be right. Dead right.
