Yeah I hear you, but I've been burned by forgetting the block weight before. On a tight radius near the chart limit, an extra 800 pounds from a heavy block can sneak up on you even if your sling angle is perfect. I'd rather grab the right block and double check my math than gamble on setup being good enough.

Something nobody has brought up yet is the tax side of this. If you're a freelancer and they pay you 45 days late in a different tax year than when you did the work, that can mess up your bookkeeping and you might end up paying taxes on money you haven't even seen yet. Had a buddy who did a big project in December, got paid in February, and had to guess on his estimated taxes. Ended up overpaying by a lot. For a $500 invoice, the review threat is just noise. Small claims court costs like 50 bucks to file and you wouldn't even need a lawyer. Most of these startups fold before they actually leave bad reviews anyway, so I'd just send a polite final notice letting them know you're willing to eat the late payment this once but any future work requires payment up front.

J-hooks on the ceiling... that's interesting but how do you actually get the ladder up there without it smacking into something? I tried the whole horizontal mount thing in my garage a while back and the 24-footer was a total pain to wrestle into position by myself. Seems like you need at least two people to not bash drywall or knock over stuff. Did you anchor into studs or just use drywall anchors with those J-hooks?

Did Dave ever have to deal with the actual fallout when you can't just "hop over" everything though? I've tried shifting stuff around before and sometimes you just end up with a bigger mess later because you moved the wrong thing.

Ngl that's genius. Simple stuff always beats the overpriced junk.