The Job I Walked Away From

I booked a job in today. A reseal job came through and I took it.

I got there and started looking at it properly. The leak wasn’t where I expected. This was an atrium, and the water was getting in from somewhere else entirely. Not the area I’d quoted on, not the area I was set up to fix.

I could have just done the panels I was there to do anyway. Charged for it, packed up, called it a day. But it wouldn’t have fixed the leak. The customer would’ve paid me and thought the problem was sorted, when it wasn’t.

So I walked away.

No charge.

Which meant a day where I’d turned down other work to be there, then had to leave to pick my wife up, and ended up earning nothing.

I’m not going to pretend that felt good. And I get why plenty of tradies in that exact position would’ve just done the work anyway — patched what they could, took the payment, moved on. People have mortgages and kids and their own bills piling up. I’m not about to stand here and act like that’s some kind of moral failure. It’s just reality.

But if I do work that doesn’t actually solve the problem, that’s not a job done — that’s a problem deferred, with my name on it.

It comes back.

And when it does, it costs a lot more than one day’s wage.

Walking away from a job, on a day you can’t really afford to, is one of the least fun parts of this trade.