Wow, I feel bad whoever works with you in industry. You sound like a pretentious asshole.
Anyways, I figured it out - I had to use
if(buf[0] == '1'){digitalWrite(3, HIGH);}
On the receiver instead of
if(buf[i] == '1'){digitalWrite(3, HIGH);}
So thanks for the GREAT constructive criticism! (That was sarcasm incase you couldn't pick up on that)