Well one pool has not worked out as well as I would have liked.
The pool was fine. The owners just added too many things, and would not leave it alone. Not only was our agreement at the very beginning to minimize additions and changes and especially nothing big without my approval, but I also felt responsible for how it looked.
The last straw was them putting a lot of gravel in the bottom. When I asked about it they first emailed me repeatedly that they hadn’t put _any_ gravel in, that I didn’t know what I was talking about and that I must be mistaken. I’m pretty sure by this time in my life I know what chips of rock look like.
And then finally blaming it on the fish moving a minimum of 10 pounds (probably more like 40) of sharp-edged chips of rock from a pot in the shallow end down to the deepest part of the pool. And in just a week, without losing any in between.
For 20 years my job has been to speak for, and protect the fish first because they can’t speak themselves. And it was definitely not the fishes’ fault in this case :-). And with me it is the little things that count!
if I specifically tell them not to add gravel (And gravel honestly won’t hurt me, or the pool much at all).
And they agree.
And then they deliberately add gravel …
because they want to for some reason–any reason at all, and besides, they think: “it really will not hurt him”, or worse yet “it doesn’t matter if it hurts him it is not us”.
If they do this then in all likelihood… they will also add anything else (including toxins) that they want to, and that _in their opinion_ won’t hurt me. Or…
Think about that phrase “_in their opinion_” my friends.
I simply do not trust their opinion as to what is toxic to me
It’s the little things that count.
Recommendation for all new clients: don’t agree to conditions about not adding stuff without my knowledge , turn around and do it, and then flat out lie to me about it. It is the tiniest bit annoying to me.
Regardless, I have picked up several new projects and here is one already a couple of months old.
I am particularly fond of this one because of the self-cleaning system that I believe is called a Polaris, that runs around and collect leaves.
I am a bit mechanically inclined and I believe that I can maintain the functioning of the polaris even in a naturally filtered pool. I am a microbiologist and I promote biological diversity in systems and believe that I can set up these ecological systems to filter water in swimming pools. So a leaf collection system is not going to “leaf” me with no work to do :-) I amuse myself every once awhile.
Bob