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THE KEITH
BEEDIE STORY
PART 1: LAYING THE FOUNDATION
CHAPTER 6: GOING IT ALONE
that I’d already done it. He couldn’t see it.” Keith had done his hole
as laid out by the boss, but a concrete wall and a dormer meant that
the hole was inaccessible. His partner couldn’t do the job, so Keith
started brainstorming about how to make it work. “ ‘Forget about it,’
this guy told me,” says Keith. “He said he’d just run the pipe to the
wall, so it would look like it worked even though it couldn’t connect to
anything.” Keith was shocked when his partner
explained that since they wouldn’t be paid for
any extra work, they would leave it like that. “I
didn’t like that answer or attitude,” says Keith,
“so I quit on the spot.” Ineffi ciency had been
hard to take, but dishonesty was impossible for
Keith to ignore.
“Bob taught me
how to frame a
wall and lift it
into place.”
Unemployed again, Keith threw himself into
working on his house. With the help of Bob Hay
he made terrifi c progress, picking up new skills
each step of the way. “Bob taught me how to
frame a wall and lift it into place,” says Keith. “He
taught me so many little things, like stair risers,
for instance. It sounds easy, but if each stair
doesn’t have the same rise, you’re in trouble. His
help saved me a lot of time.” Bob found Keith an
eager student with an able mind and a natural
aptitude. He knew Keith was out of work at that
time, so he off ered him work as a helper on
some of his construction jobs. Always keen to
learn and work, Keith accepted. A few months
later they formed a partnership and Keith was
able to obtain construction materials wholesale
through a connection from his woodworking
days. “Our fi rst job was a basement suite,” says
Keith. “We worked well together.” But there was
one detail that Keith had failed to point out
to Bob. When it came time to bill for the job,
Bob charged the client just the wholesale price
for supplies, without any markup. When Keith
learned of the savings passed on to the client, he
wasn’t happy. “I was there when the guy pulled
a wad the size of my fi st out of his pocket and
peeled off a few bills to pay us. Th e invoice,
which Bob had made out unbeknownst to me,
was for less than the original quote,” says Keith.
“It wasn’t like he couldn’t aff ord to pay. Aft er all,
it was our connection that got the competitive price, which included a
markup. So that diff erence came out of our pockets.”
Bob and Keith went out of town for a couple of days on a remodelling
job that Bob had lined up. Th e owner of the house that they were
working in let them stay in his cabin nearby. In the morning, when
Keith woke up at about 6:30 with Bob banging about, Keith thought,
“I just need a couple of cups of coff ee to get me going.” Much to his
chagrin, Bob said, “I don’t have any coff ee, I only have tea every
morning.” Th is was one more reason why their partnership wasn’t
going to last.
Th e next time Bob and Keith worked together, Keith felt he had
to say something when Bob was preparing the fi nal bill. “I
told him we had to add a bit to the material charge,”
Keith says. “Bob was an older guy, he did things an
old-fashioned way. ‘You can’t do that,’ he insisted.
‘You can’t charge more than you pay.’ ” It was a
fundamental diff erence in business practice
that Keith could see was not going to be easily
resolved. “Hay and Beedie Construction lasted
about a month,” says Keith.
“I donʼt have any coffee,
I only have tea every
morning.” This was
one more reason why
their partnership wasnʼt
going to last.
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