Corby Baumann's deposition

This isn't the Jack Nicholson - Tom Cruise showdown in A Few Good Men, but still, it's pretty good, from Corby Baumann deposition, being triggered by my attorney -

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Q.· · This indicates to you that he is not terminating the correct; correct?

A.· · No, it does not.

A.· · It does not at all.· You know what it means?· It means that he again has to tell us how stupid we are and how smart he is because he needs to give us perspective on construction.· And, again, he can't say "I was wrong, I didn't mean what I said in my e-mail."· He doubles down again. And, in fact, he breached the contract by stopping work, removing things from the property, saying he cancelled future work.· This does not negate all of the prior days' behavior for multiple days. This is his way of trying to bully us into continuing after he had already bullied us and old us he no longer wanted to work for us.

Q.· · But there is a very clear statement here correcting you saying if you are not agreeing to terminate the contract, then we will just move forward with it.

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A... He had spent a day and a half, two days, not responding to any e-mails or phone calls.· He knew exactly what he was doing and on that call he tried to bully me into agreeing to something that I didn't agree to.

 Chuck speaking now - the fact that she thought that a day or two went by without any return call or email shows just exactly how good we are to set that type of expectation. My god, I've been working with people for 25 years who don't return my calls for 2 weeks who I send lunches and chocolates to just so they get back to me.

No wonder they were seething about the trash and the 'communications' - completely unfair expectations, I guess we created our own monster by being so good, cooperative, responsive and expert. Goes to show how my suggestion to hire an Owner's rep was exactly what the project needed - so I could build a home, and they could gain valuable insight into the reality of a construction project. She's upset because I'm 'giving her construction perspective' - what in god's name is wrong with that? Isn't that part of my job?

Wowza. And the deposition transcript is 200+ pages long so stay tuned.

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As I read through the deposition, which of course i take with a grain of salt because clearly anyone going into a deposition has thought about what they want to say and what they don't want to say so her answers have to be considered under that light, but some of the things that came out of her mouth that speak to her state of mind as to the services we were offering her- calling Amanda, probably the hardest working, most accomplished designer in the Hudson Valley an 'administrative assistant', nitpicking our accuracy on their round after round after round after round after round of powerpoint presentations to us adopt, adapt, change, and alter in the plans, denigrating and diminishing all my personal efforts to help them safely select, vet and purchase a perfect piece of land while on a parallel track walking them through a pre-construction build process so they are literally under construction within 2 months of buying a piece of land in a construction environment where no one is returning anyones calls and I'm leveraging every ounce relationship capital to get this project moving.

I mean, if she felt even 50% of what she relayed in her deposition - felt that our year long efforts to help them launch this building project in one of the toughest construction environments ever - no wonder they felt comfortable calling us unprofessional and feeling put out by our efforts. That was their perspective - and one that became increasingly clear to me. Can you imagine sweating blood and tears on a Saugerties mountaintop for a year for two people who view your efforts in that light, coming out of the pandemic where every single laborer, skilled and unskilled, was exhausted physically, mentally, and emotionally?

I mean, no one just out of the blue writes an email calling your sole trusted advisor 'unprofessional and purposely sabotaging your dream home construction site'. I'm sure there is a long line of people who have received the exact same sort of email over the years from these folks. Maybe it worked in the past, and perhaps that created the trap that they inadvertently stepped into - that everyone will kneel and kiss the ring when you insult them, out of respect for the lofty heights from with Ben and Corby are perched. According to Baumannn's transcript, she just thought I should get over it, and actually say I'm sorry for being offended.

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What remains weird to this day is how she wouldn't let her husband fix the problem - which he had mostly done with a kind and gracious and generous email, exactly the type I would hope to write if I made an error in tone or message to an important, respected and trusted colleague. But instead, she took over, started looking for lawyers, started tape recording conversations while trying to get me say something incriminating, and drafting a 6 point plan of terminating the contract.  All with 24 hours of her husband's unnecessary email, after working together for a year.

So the conclusion couldn't be more straightforward - either they are 1, insane, or 2, they weren't happy and were seething about our efforts and just had had enough and this provided an escape route. I guess in the end, the major miscalculation was 2 fold - 1, that finding another contractor would be easy and painless, and 2, that contractor would meet or exceed our efforts, however imperfect they were perceived to be.

It's clear from the discovery I'm receiving from the process they are now engaged in that a contractor I thought was a peer of mine, actually while quite respected and I'm sure offers quality works, has a communication and administrative process that can't touch ours. I'm sure complaining about a lack of return phone call in 24 hours seems small potatoes to what they are experiencing now, based on the records I'm reviewing. I know we are good, and in this up close and comparative light to a 'peer', I'm starting to really see how good. One thing unexpectedly beneficial about this process was we were able to and continue to request a lot of communications from the current contractor - bids, invoices, contracts, subcontractors - I'm mean we are like one of the team, and I'm able to up close and personal compare my efforts to his, which has been insightful.

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