When someone says they’ll turn up “about 10”…

Most people - 10-10.30.
Tradesmen / services - any time from 9am to 5pm. One of them I recently had kept booking in for 9am and arriving at 2pm. I’d never work with him again.

The only trades people I’ve ever had are my dad and brothers so it’s kind of different but I always just assume they’re going to be around half an hour late for anything.

@SadlyNotATroll
i would think it means between 9.45 and 10.30 after which i would expect a “we re delayed i ll be another 20mins, hour. …” or an apology one.
i would def text and ask if they were still planning on coming and if so when.
then i ll go about my day

So how do you handle it when someone doing a job for you walks out part way through because they are going to be late for their next fixed appointment?

It’s fairly standard to offer rough times for this kind of work as any job can take more or less time than the average. What is not standard is to let it run 90 minutes past the estimated arrival time without calling.

Car broken down 🙄 yeah right. Why didn’t he let you know then.

Ask for your deposit back.

He forgot and had made up the broken down car excuse. Personally I would have messaged at 10:30 to check if he was still coming, so at least you don’t waste your morning

Just message saying "thanks for letting me know" and ask him to return your £20 back to your account.

Unfortunately Facebook and the like are full of fake reviews, word of mouth is always better.

Did he give you your £20 back?

Oh and the windowo for someone coming "around 10" is 9:55 to 10:20. After that, go out.

Well, you've been done, I'd say. Fake reviews probably. If he had broken down he'd have contacted you straight away, wouldn't he? Facebook seems to be full of these chancers. Britain 2026.

Not to mention the mother, dog, gerbil, auntie, etc who suddenly died (several times usually), or that the "wholesalers" were unexpectedly closed (which they weren't), or an "emergency" - not sure how there can be an emergency oven clean. The reality is that they usually just had a night out and got up late or were lucky to benefit from a morning shag, or whatever.

If someone told me they were coming at 10 and didn't show up on time or call to tell me they were running late they wouldn’t be doing the job. I would have waited until 10.30 and then left a message telling them not to bother coming.

If your husband said they didn’t give a fixed time though then that’s a different story. In future I wouldn’t book anyone unless they could give a fixed time

Ah - the old ‘car broken down’ excuse. I can’t tell you how many times tradespeople have used that one on me. They honestly think we’re stupid.

Half an hour each way is the limit I'd put up with. If he's going to be earlier or later than that, he should have called you to agree it was OK or change the date/time.

I'm utterly fed up of tradesmen taking the piss and simply won't put up with it anymore, but then again, I've had 30 years of living in our own house having to deal with them, so my patience has long since run out.

But it's not just tradies. I've found others like estate agents, solicitors, GPs and dentists, etc to be just as unreliable with timings and won't put up with that either. Not so long ago, I was kept waiting at the opticians for over 30 minutes and just told the receptionist I was leaving, I've done it at the dentist too but that was more in response to one time when I was 5 minutes late due to the city being grid locked after a car accident (I did phone them to tell them!) and her refusing to see me - pay back time!

Even in my own small accountancy practice, if a client arrives more than half an hour late for a pre-arranged meeting, I will turn them away, or will just go out if it's close to lunch time or finishing time or I've somewhere else to go.

Being unreliable with time-keeping, appointments, etc is something I simply won't tolerate anymore. But that's me speaking as a grumpy 60 year old who's had a lifetime of being messed around by people who don't give a shit about others.

I hope you've asked for your deposit back

@SadlyNotATroll ask for the £20 to be returned

2 hours after 10? Yeah right.

That's a good point. I've never paid a deposit for anything like that. It's normal to pay after the job is done.

I hope the deposit wasn't too much.

Have you rung them yet to rearrange or get the deposit back?

Between 09:45 and 10:15

You've obviously had much better experience with trades people than I have. In my experience, about 10 would mean anytime between now and the second coming but will absolutely not be anywhere about 10 on the stated day.

That said, I did have a plasterer once who not only turned up when he said he would but phoned me the one time he was running late and arrived 20 minutes after the original time.

However, I wouldn't consider someone coming to clean the over as a tradesperson. That would be more akin to the window cleaner. My window cleaner is reasonably punctual but really, it doesn't matter what time he comes as the windows are outside. For an oven cleaning, I would expect them to turn up within 30 minutes of the specified time.

OP - I would message him and say that you will be going out at such a time and that you will need to rearrange as he didn't turn up at the agreed time.

I’d probably ring about 10.30am

If you've paid a deposit, you should have got a firm appointment time. He's never coming now.

Send them a very strongly worded message mentioning reviews on social media, they ll get back to you in no time