Tradesmen- do they think no one else has a job?

[GeorgieTheGorgeousGoat]

I have a contacted a tradesman and asked his availability and ability to carry out a job I need doing. Yes he says, he’ll come Monday. Didn’t ask, just told me. That’s fine, I arrange to be home Monday and all good. Then this afternoon he texts and says he’s coming tomorrow instead. Argh. Does he think we all just wait around for them? I really need it done so will shift all my plans but it’s a hassle and I’m now not going to be able to make as much room for him as I’d planned because I was going to dismantle some furniture but I don’t have time now.

I should be grateful he’s coming I guess, the first tradesman was contracted last September and still keeps stalling me (different job though!)

I host people for visits for my job, if I mucked them about as much as tradesman do, I doubt anyone would sign up with me. It seems a given with them though.

Unfortunately you do get some who think they’re doing you a favour for them to turn up so you can pay them.

Would you not just say ‘sorry, tomorrow doesn’t work for me, can we stick to Monday please’?

Because he needed to swap the job he was doing tomorrow to Monday.

Oh god we have exactly this with a family member who is supposed to be doing our garden at the moment. After numerous calls he finally came to measure (from his house round the corner) 2 weeks ago.
He told us he’d get back to us the next day with quotes for the materials. Despite chasing we still haven’t got a quote never mind materials ordered.
We’re paying him market rates, he’s not doing us a favour or anything, why is it so difficult?! DP even asked if he knew anyone he could recommend if he wasn’t keen on doing the job but he insisted he wants to do it! Never again

This is so infuriating. And those ones that you contact and who then never get back to you?

INFURIATING!!

That’s why I can’t say no! They know they have you over a barrel!

Gardening bloke was coming late this afternoon today to price up job so I worked from home. Midday he texts, I'm rained off so can't come today, I'll come one day next week instead if that's ok?? ! FFS.

I thought about starting a thread earlier on today. I need an electrician so managed to find one yesterday and said any day was ok to come round to do a quote except today because I am in work calls nearly all day.

I worked until 1pm, did some exercise and then had a quick shower before another work call at 3pm. At 2.50 my son bangs on the bathroom door and says the electrician is there. My husband is on a work call.

AAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGHHHHHHH!

Why won't they listen to you?

I am afraid that I wasn't very friendly, although I did apologise afterwards. Just managed to fit him in before my work call. But why do that when I specifically said not Wednesday?

How annoying but customers can be just as bad....my partner is a landscaper...customers send him fb messages at 10pm at night...on sundays and 6am weekday mornings....he spends all day working...goes home has a quick coffee then out again to look at future jobs....gets home prices up the job....types out quote and drops it off in the next couple of days...he has people message the next day asking if hes done the quote....he probably gets sat down around 9pm at night....

@myusernamewastakenbyme

How annoying but customers can be just as bad....my partner is a landscaper...customers send him fb messages at 10pm at night...on sundays and 6am weekday mornings....he spends all day working...goes home has a quick coffee then out again to look at future jobs....gets home prices up the job....types out quote and drops it off in the next couple of days...he has people message the next day asking if hes done the quote....he probably gets sat down around 9pm at night....

Well yes anyone running their own business (including me) accepts that as part of the job. Sending a message when they get a chance to sit down in the evening, you don’t have to reply immediately. You can always say no I don’t have any availability to a customer and allow them to move on It’s just a bit flaky to say yes but insist you chop and change and muck people around. I don’t really know any other industry that does that.

This lanscaper sounds like he has an easy life,sorry if IABU .
But when i ran my own biz i would often stay up all night doing stuff,but all i got in return is " wellthanks for that info,but i will sell it on ebay "
Otherwise also detest tradesmen these days,a few years ago i was ill from salmonella but my washing machine was broken - so i dragged myself to a local repair shop and they booked an app.for a week monday,only on the day no one turned up - i phoned and got fobbed of with he's on his way,he's out to lunch,he's doing the ordering.
Then next day i pop round and ask wtf and get told oh -ha ha - he has not checked his app.diary for a few weeks and always finishes work at 1pm anyway . What kind of service biz runs like this - not bothering to look in their app.book ,only working for 3 hours per day mon-thursday,not telling other staff what job he's going to ?

Weirdly enough it actually bugs me when I get an answer from a company in the evening. I work all day so will make contact after work but I genuinely don't expect them to answer me until 'Office hours'.

Urgh I had this with a decorator. He came to check what I wanted and put me in the diary. I specifically said the week of October half term was to be avoided as I had annual leave with the DC and we'd all be at home. He was going to be doing a lot of internal work so I didn't want us all to be there.

He texted me a couple of days before the half term and said he was coming on the Monday to start the job. Erm, no, that's not what we agreed. He came to do the outside work only as I didn't want to lose my slot amongst his other booked jobs, even though it was the week we'd not agreed .

Still no time given so I’ll just sit in and wait all day. Such a waste of time. Even a rough guess would be fine!

I feel your pain. I'm on day 3 of waiting for a parcel that was supposed to be delivered on Tuesday.

The tracking information for Tuesday says something about 'we can't deliver due to circumstances outside our control' - fair enough, they may be short of drivers.

Yesterday it spent all day 'out for delivery, due before the end of the day' which turned into 'returned to depot' at about 7 pm.

It's again 'out for delivery', so fingers crossed, third time lucky etc etc. If it turns up today, I predict it will be between 10 and 11 am because I will be on a work call during those times.

Despite being one of the more expensive, big name couriers it's on an 'all day' time slot so I can't even go out to the shop or for a walk and every time I go to the loo, I sit there expecting the knock on the door. Even Yodel, MyHermes and DPD can narrow down their time slots to an hour or four and give you some clue that allows you to plan your day FFS.

Just to play Devil's Advocate DH is a tradesman, on Tuesday he had 2 jobs planned, he agreed AM with the clients. The first one didn't answer the door but when he rang them they said they were tired and can he come back at 5!!
The 2nd job didn't answer the door but it later transpired that she had gone for a walk as she thought he wouldn't arrive yet, so he wasted a day backwards and forwards keeping clients happy.

Still waiting....