Episode 11 – Engineering Gravity with Gord Bendus
Please rate this podcast
2 votes, average: 4.50 out of 5
Loading...
Tim is especially excited for this week’s guest. To be fair, he would have been excited to have any guest this week. The stunning list of people who have refused to appear on this podcast continues to grow daily. Luckily, Tim really fluked out when, for no apparent reason, wildly successful engineering wunderkind Gord Bendus agreed to be interviewed. Gord is one of the founding partners of Gravity Engineering in Toronto. The firm has racked up an impressive list of projects in just a few short years. It’s success if even more impressive when you realize that Gord is just 33 years old. He has made very few mistakes in his decade long career but appearing on this podcast is definitely one of them.
For reasons that remain unclear, however, Tim chooses to start this episode with something totally unrelated to Gord. The podcast begins with a five minute long story that some have called “shocking”. Others have denounced it as “disgusting”. The details of this story are too vile to commit to print but suffice it to say it will almost certainly end in a mass exodus of listeners and, very possibly, a major lawsuit. The story – which we will only refer to as “The Smart Car Shit Story” – is easily one of the most horrifying yet undeniably hilarious stories Tim has told yet.
The episode manages to recover after that horrifying interlude when Tim finally gets around to starting the interview. He does so in his usual tactful manner.
“I hear that most engineers are alcoholics,” he says.
“Where did you hear that?” Gord asks.
“From a bunch of engineers I know,” Tim replies
The conversation moves into the horrors of trying to recover money from clients. The engineering business is just like any trade. Having clients ghost on you happens for them too – though not nearly as often that contractors have to deal with. Tim shares a business near death experience from early in his career. After doing $140 thousand of work for a client they immediately went into receivership. Tim’s company faced insolvency and he was facing total bankruptcy. He got the money though.
“I know a guy that can collect money from anyone,” he says.
The episode ends with yet another shocking story. Tim reveals one of the few times he fired a client. Tim couldn’t stand working with the guy running the job. It was a constant battle. The guy wouldn’t stop screaming at Tim. He worked up the courage to march into his office and declare that he would no longer work for him. After leaving the office Tim realized he has left his tool belt in the office. He had to work up the courage to go back to the guys office to get his tools the following Monday. When he went back in the receptionist had a surprise. The guy had died on Friday. Needless to say Tim decided not the fire the client after all.