Accountability is a term that I have been complaining about fairly regularly amongst my friends. As a student in JROTC, I was taught that accountability is pretty much everything, yet I can't help but notice that this concept has all but vanished from our business industries today. There are many examples of people no longer being accountable for their actions that I can list, yet one that I recently came across surprised me. The building industry in general typically has such high standards, or codes, that when I read about Sandra Bullock going to court with a building contractor over her home, I was intrigued.
The contractor selected to perform the construction of Sandra's 6.5 million dollar home in Texas was being sued for faulty installation/construction of several items including the roof, chimney, and windows. To support her case were other clients of this contractor's that had similar complaints, yet prior to a movie star, none had been able to take him to court due to items such as "binding arbitration" clauses present in the contracts. Among the list of problems that a home owner in this situation could face, many are potentially life threatening such as fire risks, severe allergies, and mold exposure. Less dangerous items would be things such as termites from rotten wood and an increased energy bill.
As I was reading this I thought that there was no way for the contractor to get out of this, yet stood baffled at the next section. The contractor was within the guidelines of the minimum standards of building code for the state of Texas. Even on a 6.5 million dollar home, unless stated in the contract specifically, the contractor building the house was not required by law to go above and beyond these standards. I was puzzled because I thought that these codes were in place for our protection, yet allowing fire hazards to be built into place does not sound very safe to me. Sandra was fortunate enough to not have the binding arbitration clause in her contract as this allowed her to go to court over the matter.
Issues like the one above still shock me. It is one thing to see a lack of accountability at a minimum wage job, yet in an industry where peoples livelihood is at stake is unacceptable. While fire can happen in any number of situations, a good construction of the home can help prevent a great deal of mold. Otherwise, mold can grow for years undetected, then cost thousands in medical bills and mold cleanup. To me, if a job isn't going to be done correctly, I would rather it not get done.
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