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I am part of a group of retired EC’s that gets together occasionally. At our Thursday morning coffee meeting, the 5 of us began to talk about the worst decisions, best decisions, and thrills that we made during our business years. Ex-wives were excluded although there are 14 of them among us. Some of the suggestions are EC’s who were in business as far back as the 50’s. What about today’s EC’s?
Worst
Hired my brother-in-law.
Bought a large stock of small gauge AL wire.
Told my comptroller that computers would never be useful for contractors.
Bought Studebaker trucks.
Bought a race horse.
Best
Fired my brother-in-law.
Hired outstanding people and paid them very well.
Insisted that my kids get a university education and stay away from contracting.
Purchased a railroad car load of copper romex when WWII ended. Only copper available for a while. Several commercial buildings had romex pulled into conduit.
Refused to work weekends.
Retired while still able to do what I wanted.
Thrills
Energizing ballpark lighting for the first time.
First million dollar contract.
First contract.
Seeing name on building.
Making the mayor personally hand me the check when I won my lawsuit against the city.

AZSam

Appreciate the list Sam. Especially the part about hiring outstanding people and paying them well.

I don't have enough successes or failures to contribute yet, I have only been in business since the 90's.

Worst decision so far - letting someone else look after the business side so I could concentrate full-time on that large project I wanted to run. - big mistake! I'm still dodging the tax department because of that one.