Contractors are part of your team

At GreenMellen, our team is almost entirely full-time employees, as that type of structure works well for us. However, also pull in some contractors from time to time to help with additional work, as that can be a huge benefit.

From our perspective, those are a different kind of employee (W9 vs 1099, not in regular meetings, working on a single project, etc). From the perspective of our customer, though, they’re one and the same. The customer hired our company, we’re doing the work, they expect everyone involved to be held to the same standard — as do we.

Home Depot

A few years ago we had Home Depot do a few things for our house (which they ultimately used contractors for), and very quickly it become clear that they were separate entities.

Back in 2018, we bought a dishwasher from Home Depot and “they” were going to deliver it. We ordered it at Home Depot and paid Home Depot for the dishwasher and the delivery. Cool. When multiple missed deliveries went by, Home Depot was very quick to point out that those were contractors trying to deliver it and it wasn’t really their problem. After a few weeks of running in circles, we cancelled the order and got one from somewhere else.

Around the same time, we had someone from Home Depot over to measure, order, and install a new kitchen sink. The measure and order were with a person from the “real” Home Depot (I guess?), but installation was a contractor, and he refused to do it for the amount Home Depot…