Thanks guys, that's all a big help. I'm all excited on a new building purchase and am frustrated I can't Amazon 1-click everything to get a budget going. I have no clue what ANYTHING costs. I just want to know if windows cost X, then I have Y left over to fix some other things. But everything is a big mystery, so I thought I'd be able to find out some prices myself, since I have the time. Hit a brick wall and had to vent. Foggy, you seem like a great guy to work with, but there are so many horror stories of people working with the fastfreds or much worse in your industry, you can't take offense if some rant it doesn't apply to you, you have to know it DOES apply to a lot of people in your biz. And you are right, a small job like mine is not priority. In my line of biz, every fucking job is as much priority because I treat my customers the same. If I can't do that, I say no to the job. The smaller budget excuse is for people who don't know how to run a biz, period. (Not syaing that's you at all!) So it's frustrating, in the past, (not this project), when I'm treated like I'm a waste of time when I know that's shitty biz practice.
I do find it weird that you run away from projects where customer wants input. Are you saying you want the choices done between him and the architect beforehand, and you want to come in with all the choices done? That would make sense of course. Totally understandable! I'll try not to question the GC so much if it's not the norm then, and if he has no free time to look at options anyways...
THAT SAID, the contractor I'm working is a friend and I'm going to work with him and cut him slack as necessary. I like him. He finally called me back and will sort out some window prices Monday. I want to be an informed customer and not waste money, not a pain-in-the-ass customer. I don't see anything wrong knowing what a contractor can get price-wise compared to Lowes, but now I think I should have not told him I went to Lowes, ha.