The email popped into my inbox, and I hurriedly opened it. Finally…the estimate from an electrician I had been waiting for.
Such is my level of excitement these days, that an email from an electrician makes my day.
***
You see, we have a new car. It’s an EV, and we needed a home charger.
$2500 to install.
$2500?
No way, I said, as I scanned the price. That’s way too much! That charger is $688 online, so that’s nearly $2k of labor and a bit of wiring.
No way, I said again. Saying it twice made me believe it more. I even contemplated doing it myself.
***
Knowing that doing it myself would end in an explosive death, the likes of which would garner me the greatest ever posthumous Oscar given at the Darwin Awards, I called another electrician with glowing 5-star reviews.
They’ll know what they’re doing and I bet they’ll be cheaper. With hundreds of reviews, they’ll have volume on their side. Discounts. Cheaper parts. Cheaper labor.
So what if they charge $99 for a call out fee, it gets put towards any work you do with them anyway. Perfect.
I bet it’ll be half the price!
They came out and I paid them the $99.
An hour later I got the estimate via email.
It was $3500.
$1000 more.
****
I spent $99 to find out I was wrong. The point is, I was convinced I was right.
Assured to the point of certainty that I’d be finding someone who’d put my EV charger in for $1500, tops.
I had no facts to base it on. No comparisons. Just a hunch.
****
How often are we so dead certain of a fact that’s not a fact?
It was quite The Jolt.
I went back to the $2500 estimate and read it again. It was pretty detailed. It explained all the steps that were needed. The work entailed. The parts. The labor. With hindsight I realized it was actually quite a bit of work to install an EV charger.
They have to run conduit through the basement, getting on their hands and knees in the dust and dirt. They have to test the electrical load on the main panels. Weather proof it. Make sure it’s positioned on the right part of the house.
I realized I had simply run my eyes down the page to the number and decided I didn’t like the answer. I’d ignored everything else.
***
This week, I’m reminding myself to take a pause before jumping to conclusions.
I’m spending more time to actually read what’s in front of me. And then read it again.
I’m going to challenge my first assumption, remind myself to be curious and ask if the assumption is whispering from the mystically hopeful side of my brain, or preaching loudly from the altar of good old fashioned fact.