In which case, please can you come and talk to me about managing builders? We are having an extension done: we've never done anything like this before, it's the most money we've spent on anything other than the house itself. The builders we found are lovely chaps: considerate, hard-working and the quality of the work so far has been very good. The trouble is that they are taking forever. When they are here, they work like Trojans and and absolutely fab. But they disappear for hours at a time to go and get stuff. We had to pause for a whole month because they couldn't get bricks because of Brexit/Covid stuff so we're really behind anyway. DH works on big projects (not building) and is tearing his hair out about the way they seem to not be able to anticipate what they will need one day to the next. I have no understanding of what they are doing but the boss has a bad habit of saying "we'll definitely be finished with X by Y" and when "Y" comes, it isn't mentioned as there was never a chance of him making his own self-imposed deadline.
So, what I'm saying is that they are good at the actual building but crap at organisation/time management and the boss tends to say what he thinks I want to hear. I'm planning to have a conversation with them on Monday to try to get them a little bit more on it. What should I say? Or is this normal? Or is this absolutely awful and we shouldn't put up with it? I don't want to fall out with them but also I want to give them a gentle kick up the arse.