Review of the work of Bee Classy Construction, LLC

I recently (work began on 12/10/2024) contracted with Brandon Michael Miller via a county Facebook group to do some mudding and drywall to get a basement of ~1k sq ft and ~2k painters sq feet up to paint ready. It was to have a flat texture, and a simple light knock down texture on the ceiling. My conclusion at the end of the job was he cut an impressive number of corners and confidently gave his stamp on a impressively low quality piece of work, so anyone who hires him will need to hire a different contractor to inspect his work before final payment. Per my hindsight with empirical data (number of cracks when the temperature decreased by 20 degrees), and consultations with other professionals in the field:

• he cut an impressive number of corners to "save on material", but as I was providing as much material as he needed to do it right the first time, this should have not been an issue at all (i asked for a shop list at the beginning and ending of each of the 5 work days), so the only remaining reasons could only be either 
• his ineptitude at mudding and taping despite advertising that that was his forte (borderline false advertising)
• note that when he worked, he would work in 2 rooms only and then do no additional work there until doing the final ceiling texture. Per additional research, this is not industry standard as there is normally 
• packing with joint mud with a cure/dry time of ~8 to 12 hours then 
• application of paper tape (can be applied right after most seams with packed gaps of less than 1/4"), but for larger gaps, it will need a separate application with a cure/dry time of ~8 to 12 hours.
• a topping final fill coat with a cure/dry time of ~8 to 12 hours then 
• a light sand
• for gaps of almost 1 inch between drywall pieces, he did not specifically add/pack any mesh before he started packing mud. These joints were not later taped with paper. These have a few lightning bolt shaped cracks that bounce back and forth across the top and bottom of the entire area packed with mud.
• he did not insist on mud that was specific for the application:
• I provided "heavy topping mud" on day 1, but per consultation with active industry professionals, the first packing of mud into joints should be with "joint" or "all purpose", and only the final coat should have "topping", so I would have expected him to leverage his expertise to request that the type of mud be changed so higher quality materials in the joints would ensure a higher quality end product.

 Therefore, he did not follow the industry standard and used a lower quality in at least 3 pervasive aspects of his work.

• his experience with recurring customers demanding bottom dollar quality work, so his discussion of quality was entirely based on comparing to absolute crap, or
• he kept imagining a holiday on Friday so he recommended poor quality to save on labor which we agreed would be a fixed fee rate before work began.
• Note that when I researched and asked him to redo his first day of work to actually include paper tape on all joints and metal edging on all edges, he asked for a contract change order to include the extra work that would cause him to work Friday. I wanted quality, so I agreed to it, and he did add to most of the seams in the two rooms he redid that day, but he still skipped all the corner seams as I found no tape and cracks there within 4 days of him declaring his work "done".
  
• while I could technically heavily sand then paint it, it had the following issues:
• The temperature of the basement was kept at ~80 degrees F to aid in drying the mud as he worked, after he left, I reduced the temperature 20 degrees to 60 degrees F as there was no additional work to be done for a week until paint, and there were immediately cracks on substantially all "heavy mud, but no paper tape seams". 
• This shows his "high quality mud only based on his experience" recommendation was actually really low quality. I questioned this multiple times as he worked, and he repeatedly, confidently, and charismatically "stood by" his recommendation and usage on most joints at 90 degrees and a few others. Note also that I do not have a background in mudding, so I was inclined to agree with him as an expert unless I had evidence otherwise. After the job was complete, I had it inspected by a contractor who currently works in mudding, and this inspecting contractor was appalled by what "paint ready after a light sand" ending work product was. I had an additional contractor and handyman inspect before I contracted out to one of them to fix the mudding and taping job.
• There were a number of places where the paper tape did not properly bond, (it cracked around the tape and pressing on the tape caused it to "breathe"), and this was not addressed or "filled" and ready for only a light sand after.
• The Ceiling was not properly filled and sanded before the application of the texture as there were several seams that had between 1/16'' and 1/8'' ridges immediately around the paper seam for all 4+ ft of the seam.
• He did not properly anchor the metal edging with screws before mudding/filling, this lack of fasteners caused a few of the "held by mud only" edging to sag as the initial packed mud dried/cracked, and now the worst sagging metal-edging-offenders must be rehung.
• the most egregious one was a bullnose 90 degree metal edging that was to be used on a 135 degree edge (slightly bent on install), and when the mud could not hold it in 135 degrees, he just mudded a 90 degree angle onto it.
• He recommended to have no metal edging on most edges which is
• low quality, 
• not industry standard, and 
• saves "labor and material" on a fixed fee labor job.
• The bathroom which is one of the rooms where I paid twice for him to do, had 
• a gap of greater than 1/8" around where the drywall meets the tub. Per my research, this gap will crack unless the seam is 
• taped to 1/16'' gap or less then 
• silicon caulk the 1/16" taped or paper drywall to the PVC edge.
• There was a 1/2" gap around a cutout for a 2 gang electrical box, and when I asked if he was going to mud it, he stated that the best practice is to get a really large face plate. I asked him to mud it, and it was not complete as of my final inspection.
• There was slight confusion in the scope of work at the beginning as he provided a quote that was verbal only, and the before-fieldwork-begin invoice provided was not itemized as to his understanding of the scope of the work. This may be simply him learning how to run a business, so this may be soon to be remedied via a "quote" form or something.

During the walkthrough and quote process before starting work, he focused on:

• how high his quality was vs the others that quoted 1/3 less than his price of 1.5$ per finished painters sqft.
• his experience with mudding across the last 5 years
• how excited he was to have such a high quality basement with the drywall hung to be complete (substantially all the cutouts were within 1/4" of the drywall), and most drywall to drywall seams were tight to less than 1/8".
• He is just starting out as a freelancer with his contractor license approved literally less than 1 week before he began work on this basement. See the screenshot of my lookup on Utah Department of Professional Licenses: https://dopl.utah.gov/licenses/

During the work on day 1, he was confidently incorrect about all things I mentioned above, and personally as someone without active industry experience hiring someone presumed to be a licensed expert, I trusted him. After consulting with other contractors currently in the field and the empirical data from the number of cracked seams after less than 1 week, I have been "conned" or "gaslighted" during the entire duration of his work, and I expected that I would have to do some fixing of his work at the final inspection, but I was unpleasantly surprised when the scope of what I would have to do to fix the areas that needed work was almost equal to the amount of work to do it from scratch.

He had a few personal issues that came up during the week including 

• him claiming that he had an injury to a finger when he lost balance and collided with a wall during his mudding and taping. 
• he claimed that his work truck had issues starting in the cold morning
• he decided to change the way that he would apply the ceiling texture from roll-on to spray, and we approved his change as we didn't care either way, and the specialty spray ran out of materials at the local hardware store, so a generic hopper spray needed to be used instead in two rooms. Note that I had no issue with how the ceiling spray was applied.
• I had worked almost 12 hrs a day for the 3 days prior to him arriving to get the last of the drywall hung. A few pieces were not hung and I had a number of tools left out when he arrived to begin work on Monday, but as he planned on only working in two rooms on day 1 (and both were clear and complete), he said that this did not affect his pace at all and would not affect the fee, labor, or quality of his work.

I would not hire him again, and I would not let him on my property to "fix" his work based on how much charismatic gaslighting that I got as he worked. I wish he watched the following as this is a decent training video on how to mud and tape a basement, and it uses the same tools that he had in his work: Beginner's Guide To Drywall Taping | A to Z

ADHD techniques for brain development

Context for this post's purpose: 

I have several friends who have various "prefrontal cortex" development issues that have the general label of ADHD, and they have different approaches to managing this: 

• some are diagnosed and use a combination of prescription drugs, and 
• some are not diagnosed and use a combination of coping skills.

In addition, I recently read the following:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2894421/ Note that it is published in 2009, so this has been known for almost 15 years as of the date of this blog post. I have looked for similar articles that have been published more recently, but they were behind a paywall (https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40474-019-00182-w), so I kept to the 2009 version.

In addition, I skimmed the following https://www.nature.com/articles/s41386-021-01132-0 as it describes everything we know so far about the PFC.

Tl;dr : read only the parts highlighted yellow.

This post's purpose:

I wanted to make a regimen of activities that are specifically designed to strengthen and develop the areas that are underdeveloped/atrophied in ADHD individuals as it would directly be able to help if they didn't have access to meds or coping skills were not working.

Exhibited Behaviors of ADHD

• Inattention: Difficulty sustaining attention, easily distracted, appearing not to listen.
• Impulsivity: Acting without thinking, difficulty waiting for turns, interrupting others.
• Hyperactivity: Excessive fidgeting, squirming, running around, inability to sit still.

Underlying Brain Structure

• Prefrontal Cortex (PFC):
  • Involved in attention regulation, behavior control, and emotion management.
  • enables organization, planning, and inhibition of responses to distractions to achieve a goal.
  • Right hemisphere is crucial for behavioral inhibition.
  • Underactive PFC observed in ADHD patients.
  • Smaller PFC size and weaker connectivity reported in ADHD individuals.
  • Slower PFC maturation in some ADHD cases
  • often comorbid with aggression and oppositionality
• Parietal and Temporal Cortices:
  • Involved in "bottom-up" attention, processing stimuli based on salience.
  • determines "what" something is
  • determines "where" things are and if moving
  • determines "orientation"
  • right side determines "visual space"
  • left side determines "time"
  • Potential role in some ADHD cases, especially those without hyperactivity or impulsivity.
• Basal Ganglia and Cerebellum:
  • Connected to PFC and involved in behavioral control.
  • Some studies report smaller size in ADHD patients.
• Catecholamine System:
• Norepinephrine (NE) and dopamine (DA) essential for optimal PFC function.
• Genetic variations affecting catecholamine transmission common in ADHD.
• Imaging studies suggest reduced NE and DA levels in ADHD brains.

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Understanding of the Prefrontal Cortex (PFC)

There are at least 4 models that try to explain and predict the PFC functions. The Predicted Response Outcome model has the most versatility and is suggested to capture the most important functions of the entire PFC. Duncan and colleagues’ MD framework incorporates goal-maintenance/biasing.

PFC development that comes before any higher thinking (childhood development):

- accurate representation of task goals (spatial and time) to be able to discern what task-irrelevant information/stimuli can be inhibited

- ability to monitor the environment (internal i.e. body and external) to be able to signal when the goal is no longer relevant

Note that if those two childhood development of PFC are not developed, then goal oriented cognition will result in frustration as the effort will be often on "inactive or ineffective" goals. There is some evidence that people who have compulsions/addictions are from a general impairment in goal-directed behavior (habitual tendencies and exacerbated by a loss of top-down control i.e. fixation on a "loud" goal). Related disorders are internalizing (depression and anxiety), externalizing (antisocial behavior and substance abuse), and thought disorders (schizophrenia, bipolar, OCD), but they are only correlated (not causal).

The PFC generally does:

1) general cognitive control (CC)

2) mental set shifting 

       - task switching (ability to switch context when changing tasks)

       - multitasking (focus on one task and keep track of others)

3) working memory updating

       - goal maintenance

4) motivation ("cool" and "hot")

5) response inhibition

       - associated with spatial working memory

6) other tasks that are not the focus of scientific studies

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My conclusions from those articles and my experience:

Development of the Parietal and Temporal Cortices (see bullet above) are the prerequisite to development of the PFC. Individuals who have not developed parts of those, will have "weird" cascade effects on their approach toward problem solving (fluid intelligence). From my experience, these individuals can be well adapted generally, but often have a behavioral addiction/compulsion.

Note that the different approach toward "what is" as determined by the development in the temporal and parietal lobes means that these people could sit next to a neurotypical person, and they would have a completely different experience and therefore different takeaways. This means that the PFC takes a focusing lens to an entirely different perspective/assumptions on the world, and this is either "garbage in/ garbage out" or "value add diversity of perspective". 

During adolescence and onward into adulthood, this is probably developed when the intense infatuation hormones make "loud" thoughts regarding sex, pain, food, and emotion. Teenagers frequently use superlatives because they are feeling the "biggest" they have ever felt before, and they tend to make more impulsive decisions (impulsivity is a multi-dimensional construct like the PFC's interactions with the rest of the brain based on the inconsistent findings from research). These observations are possibly due to the default of "bottom up" attention that was predominant during early childhood as the PFC was not fully developed. 

From my experience, there will always be frequent "loud" thoughts after adolescence. With these "loud" thoughts, there becomes a choice, to choose attending to goals or to "loud" thoughts.

Note that ADHD can be managed with "coping skills" to "work with" it.

Note that ADHD can be managed with prescription drugs to get into a "sweet spot" of the various neurotransmitters.

Note that my friends have recently have had both prescription drugs and coping skills fail to meet the demands of their day jobs.

Exercises to ameliorate ADHD symptoms

Ways to improve cognition

1) meditation after determining your goals and noting that the "loud" thoughts are to be ignored and the "goal oriented" thoughts are to be engaged with.

2) journaling to reflect on how the day went and how you attended (attention) to either "loud" or "goal oriented" thoughts.

3) planning the day to think about space, time, goals, resources (mental and physical) before during and after any endeavor.

4) gratitude requires recall and reflection (like journaling), and acknowledgement of all context (like Planning), and it is an inherently linked with positive things so it is a driver of happiness.

5) perform chores. This involves practicing bias toward goals and/or goal maintenance that dynamically involves planning and prioritization of stimuli that are less "loud".

6) periodically "notice" thoughts and discern which are "loud" and which ones are "goal oriented" then make a choice.

7) perform daily maintenance. Shower, shave, brush teeth, eat, get into bed on time, plug in your phone.

8) For each of the above cognitive process practice sets, they will likely be very difficult with a ADHD PFC. As such, they should be considered a "workout" like going to the gym but for the mind. Additionally, the best way to keep track of completing a difficult task is to write it down. 

1. For meditation, write down the themes in the "goal oriented" thoughts that you noticed. Do the same for the "loud" thoughts that you noticed.
2. For reflecting on the day, write down the "what happened and when" then highlight the "loud" parts and the "goal oriented" parts aka ADHD PFC specific journaling.
3. For planning the day, write down the space, time, goals, resources and allocate ahead of time. Pull out this planning sheet when something goes awry and resiliently change plans.
1. Consider checking the weather forecast
2. Consider the traffic forecast
3. Consider the changing mental/physical state of those involved (2:30 sleepy at office, tired 2hrs before bedtime, dehydrated/sore from exercise, etc.
4. To aid in multitasking & task context switching, have a running "to do" list ranked by priority. While performing a task and needing to switch, journal where a task was at on this list before you put it down. Refer to this journal when resuming the original task/context.
4. For gratitude, write down the context, actions, and results of various "loud" and "goal oriented" parts of the day. Get to a place where you can say "thank you for this experience" for each one and write it down.
5. For chores, write down the ones that you intend to do across the next few days. Plan what materials you will need and the time you will need and write down how it will fit into your schedule.
6. For these "notice" sanity checks, make a tally on a piece of paper or your hand to note how often you are "loud" oriented or goal oriented.
7. Create a "balanced scorecard" that you put the daily maintenance goals on. Create a column that specifically says what "goal" you are working toward e.g. teeth brushing is "social power/confidence"

The primary theme in these ways to improve cognition is that it isn't "general intelligence". It is practicing biasing your attention from loud emotions and ideas to goal oriented ones.

Exercises to exacerbate ADHD symptoms

Generally symptoms of depression and anxiety exacerbate ADHD symptoms.

1) Frame your thoughts in a manner where "you have no control" is a common theme. Reduce efforts to think differently and contemplate anxiety and depression from the lack of emotional regulation.

2) Drink a depressant (like alcohol) or get sleep in a manner that doesn't fit your genetics and age (Sleep time, interruptions, and body condition e.g. hydration)

3) Use technology to make a "loud" beep for every thing that you should attend to. Stress and anxiety should build from this "bottom up patched with one off planning" attention approach.

      -note that you can obtain this same level of stress by working in a managerial position at a "fast paced" job environment

Is an auditor, who specialized in EBP, stuck in that field?

It has come to my attention that certain auditors with CPAs who specialize in EBP audits have felt "stuck" or have been described as "pigeonholed" during exploration of the job market (i.e. leaving means resetting their career to an assistant or staff). I think that that sentiment is underselling the daily duties of an EBP audit specialist looking for a change.

An auditor with an EBP specialty is uniquely able to handle multiple parts of a business:

• rolling account balances (direct expertise in census and 401(k) accounts)
• this is easily transferrable to PPE and construction in progress(CIP) and work in progress(WIP) inventory.)
• the analysis done on the PY to CY defined benefit (pension) census data to reduce sample selections is heavy hitting. After doing that, you can do exploratory analysis and exception testing in any account and have a familiarity with visualization software and principles of data analytics to make it so that you do not have "garbage in, garbage out" efforts.
• working with multiple departments at a company (direct expertise in HR department, accounting department, external actuaries, 3rd party benefit providers (e.g. Cigna or Fidelity), and 3rd party recordkeepers (those who manage most of the accounting), and the controller/CFO)
• These departments are usually unfamiliar with what you are asking, so clarity in communication is key and is a strong skill
• The entire entity is a collection of 3 or more entities (recordkeeper, plan sponsor(s), and custodian at the very least), so unless someone puts in the effort to understand the entity before you arrive, an EBP auditor does exploratory talks and documentation to gain a knowledge of the complete picture.
• development of "blue sky" accounting policies (direct experience reading legally binding plan documents to see what the rules are for contributions, payments, etc. for the plan(s))
• Most single employer entities have acquired other companies. Those companies have often acquired other companies or have had ongoing negotiations with unions. Unions and other companies often had some ... interesting ... ways to calculate benefits to be provided. This means that an EBP auditor is comfortable reading a legal document and figuring out 
• definitions
• steps to calculate
• relevant 3rd parties (e.g. actuaries) 

to make a typical audit of benefit payments work. This comfort while working with legal documents makes both legal consulting and accounting policy creation significantly easier.

• development of long term planning - (direct experience with multiple audits that are spread out across the year and most audit evidence is available piecemeal throughout the year, so there isn't a "rush to the finish" so much as "we should get the reconciliations in march so we can make selections, then support will be provided 2 months later...")
• most businesses have a monthly and quarterly rush, but the planning larger over-arching projects is key to successful integration of a new software or accounting policy. Every EBP auditor has had to handle the changes due to a third party vendor changing
• performance of reconciliations - (direct experience with most client support staff providing information are not used to produce reconciliations, so the staff give support raw, and it is up to the auditor to tie it out.)
• This is the capstone of EBP work as it requires 
• across departmental communication to get documents then 
• transformation of those documents into something that resembles accounting and finance inputs then 
• summarization into line items then comparing with "drivers" to predict and risk assess.
• All of which are handled timely and asked to the appropriate group in a clear way that only has to be asked once
• compliance with regulations - (direct experience - there is not a day where an EBP auditor does not think about compliance and the ways that the DOL wants this audited over standard auditor judgements under GAAS.) 
• Nuances in compliance are easy to navigate as, an EBP auditor has not only materiality, performance materiality, and the clearly trivial threshold (et. al. GAAS judgmental thresholds) to consider, but they also have the DOL thresholds of "1 dollar to 1 participant" is material in their eyes. As such, the nuance between compliance and auditor judgment is a bright line based on the daily activities of an EBP auditor.

In conclusion, between all these key duties of an auditor with an EBP focus, this kind of audit alum is extremely well suited to be a controller with minor training. They also have substantial experience to assist or become an analytics manager, finance manager, or CFO. 

P.S. As this experience may not be as directly applicable to certain job processes, consider behavioral questions about each area of expertise to see if that experience actually would be applicable.