Farmer Cancels Major Plumbing Contract After Finding Out Who The Plumber Voted For
Business and politics really don't mix.
PeopleImages.com - Yuri A | Shutterstock Politics has always been a contentious subject but has become even more so in recent years. As the two sides of the aisle have become more starkly divided, it’s only become more awkward to talk about who you voted for.
But should who you voted for affect your business? A farmer and plumber let it do just that and now disagree about who’s in the wrong.
A farmer called off six figures worth of plumbing work because the plumber was a Trump supporter.
A farmer took to Reddit to share the decision he made to fire his plumber after discovering who he voted for and to ask if he was in the wrong.
“I recently canceled a six-figure plumbing job because the plumber I was looking at hiring flew the Trump flag in his truck after the election,” the farmer stated.
“I have a large plumbing job I’m trying to do for a cannabis farm,” he explained. “It requires a ton of work to be done but especially running plumbing for the plants, feed room, etc.”
“I have had six to seven meetings with the guy going over the project in detail,” he continued. “Dosing systems in particular are complicated and require significant planning to get right.”
After the farmer realized his chosen plumber supported Trump, he just couldn’t move forward on the project with him.
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“Unfortunately, after seeing his support for Trump, I decided doing business together wouldn’t work,” he said. “As a veteran, anyone who voted for Trump is spitting in my face and betrays everything I stand for. It’s not a matter of political disagreements, it’s values and morals.”
The farmer was very candid about his reasons for not keeping the Trump-supporting plumber on the project.
“I do my best in life not to be a rank hypocrite, and as soon as I saw that he was a Trump cultist, I told him it wouldn’t work,” he stated.
“He was, of course, extremely angry and threatened to sue,” the farmer said of the plumber. “I told him he was more than welcome to sue and that no contract had been signed. I also told him I would file a countersuit to recover legal fees for filing a frivolous suit.”
“I do everything possible to make sure my time and money doesn’t go towards supporting fascism/fascists,” he concluded.
It’s true that politics often affects business.
When we think of political differences impacting relationships, we typically think of those within our personal lives. However, professional relationships are also largely impacted by these differences in beliefs.
Professor Elizabeth Kempf co-authored a recent paper on the subject and told Harvard Business School, “Partisanship seems to be a really important determinant of many decisions made by businesses.”
When discussing the effects this can have, Kempf said, “There’s even the growing importance of partisanship in determining who works together and who does financial transactions together.”
Knowing this information, and given the current political climate, it’s certainly not surprising that somebody who voted for one candidate wouldn’t want to work with someone who voted for another.
In this case, the money also likely played a factor. It makes sense that someone who supports a certain political candidate would not want to give such a large amount of money, even in exchange for work, to someone who supports another.
Legally, the farmer did nothing wrong.
Technically, nothing was legally amiss here as the contract between the two parties had not yet been signed. As the farmer pointed out, there was nothing to sue over, really.
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As an American, you have the right to free speech. You also have the right to choose who you want to work with. Both of these men exercised their rights.
It seems they will have to agree to disagree.
Mary-Faith Martinez is a writer with a bachelor’s degree in English and Journalism who covers news, psychology, lifestyle, and human interest topics.