That tearing sound you hear is me pulling my hair out.

Imagine: investing 12 hours in estimating from a blueprint, two hours spent on site visits, checking and rechecking calculations, product pricing, equipment rentals.  I submit the interior proposal and hear that our $96K number falls within $5K of 2 others--great, we're in the running.

Then, the project manger calls..."we're going with a bid we know makes no sense, with a company that will require close management, but with a number that low....we think it's worth the risk".  What was that number? 

$30K

Deduct our $12K allowance for materials and there's $18K in labor this company has devoted to prep and paint a 4 story Brookline mansion to exacting specs...and even higher expectations.

With the 26% overhead of liability, worker's compensation, and payroll taxes there remains approx. $13.4K in direct labor; we estimated 1,440 hours for production, which means this company theoretically pays an average hourly wage of $9.25.

What's a professional painting company to do?