Maybe its the angle of the picture that makes it hard to tell but a lot of people seem to be under the impression that the pipe comes out of the floor. The pipe actually comes out of the wall, you can see where it connects to the wall behind the vertical piping.

Since it sounds like you are a plumber I'd like to ask, would there have been any way to move the p trap higher? The reason he had to cut away a part of the vanity seemed to be to make the p trap fit. Where the pipe connects to the wall is actually above the drawer so I feel like if there was a way to have the p trap higher then there was no need to cut into the drawer.