To ask gardener not to look at his phone

[JumpRope]

He is here for 4 hours per fortnight. We have a large garden which is a wilderness - in 2 years we are landscaping etc when we so work on the house, so I just need maintenance and for it to look tidy in the meantime.

I keep,seeing him texting - he's self employed,so clearly needs to catch up. But aibu to ask him if he could keep it for afterwards, or maybe once when he's here?

Tricky. I'd be tempted to walk with him and decide what he can realistically do in four hours, then be pretty visible and give a cheery 'how are you getting on?' whenever he pulls put the phone.

If he persists, I'd ask politely if there's a problem and does he need to rearrange his time with you if he's got something crucial going on.

If those don't get him focused, is be tempted to ask around for recommendations and find someone capable of delivering the service they're being paid for and with the basic tenets of customer service.

Downton???

You can't clear a 'wilderness' even working like a 'bastard' (charming turn of phrase) for four hours a fortnight. If you want the job done, then you need to pay someone to do it properly. A few workers full time for a few days is going to show more progress (and be easier to maintain) than sporadic work.

Can't believe people think that you shouldn't expect someone to work hard for £20 per hour

My DH charges £12 per hour for gardening and works like a trojan

I think you have too high of expectations for your gardener. It's not his garden. He gets paid whether he 'work(s) like a bastard' or not

What an odd attitude to work.

Experienced gardener here. Four hours a fortnight will barely scratch the surface of a wilderness! You need a couple of days solid to make any significant progress.

Depends on the planting/grass are, four hours a fortnight in a large garden would barely maintain it even once it's cleared.

You need to rethink, and be prepared to spend more on an initial blitz.

• planting/grass area

IME a gardener without leadership cannot sort out your garden in four hours. He shouldn't be texting but this isn't a good plan.

£20 per hour is a lot of money, and it think it's fair for you to expect him to work hard and not be looking at his phone on time you are paying him for.

I doubt that asking him not to use his phone will have a good effect though, it's likely to just piss him off instead of increasing his work rate. Find someone else.

Bit presumptious for some posters to tell the OP to get her garden cleared 'properly' in one go. Maybe that doesn't suit her.

I might be tempted to be around for the four hours, the next time he comes, to guage whether or not his he is making reasonable progress and whether or not his phone is a distraction. Using his phone during breaks might be more productive than as and when he feels the need. It wouldn't be ok for e.g. an office worker to use their phone whenever they felt like it.

Don't make a bonfire, make a great big compost heap - that way when you come to do your landscaping in a few years time you'll have oodles of wonderful topsoil for your new beds, plus in the interim he can make as much "waste" as he likes and it just goes on the pile.

The point about "clearing it in one go" isn't presmptuous!

Fact is that 4 hours a fortnight is barely enough time to maintain a garden as it is during the growing season.

If you are paying per hour, it doesn't matter whether he is self employed or on a payroll, it is reasonable to expect him too be working fairly consistently for those hours.

Its one thing if he's to be paid to complete a specific brief - when I had my garden done there were a list of things to be done, mainly landscaping stuff, so if they wanted to sit down and have a cup of tea and a chat (which they did several times a day) that was great, because they were managing their time, they knew when they wanted to hand over the job, get payment, and move onto the next job.

Someone on an hourly rate however, may be taking the piss, if they are stopping to text and do stuff on their phone every few minutes (if that is the frequency)

I have cleaners who are paid for 3 man-hours (so they send 3 and are here for an hour). If they were on their phone a fair bit of that time, they wouldn't get the job done and I would be seriously miffed.

If I just paid them to clean my house from top to bottom, however, rather than "3 hours", then they could spend as much time texting as they like, if they want to be here for 8 hours that's their problem (though actually it would be mine a bit too, however, they don't so its not an issue).

If you are paying someone by the hour, I think its fair that you get 55 minutes work per hour (which works out as having a 15 minute break every 4 hours which is in line with what people would be entitled to if they had an office job). Anything less and they are unfortunately taking the piss a bit.

We have a similar set up - a wilderness and a gardener who can only do 4 hours a fortnight at the moment.

However, I'm not asking him to do maintenance, I'm asking him to do clearing, and I do the maintenance of the bits he's cleared (which is another few hours a week at least).

We agreed he would be 'nibbling away at the edges' but tbh he's been taking decent sized bites - I'm very pleased with what he's achieved and tbh he does 'work like a bastard'.

I think you need to define reasonable tasks for him to do in the time and if he reads the odd text during that, fine as long as he's basically working. It's hard physical work and it's entirely reasonable to stop for breath from time to time.

I think the problem really is you can't maintain a wilderness and make it look tidy, so your gardener is a bit lost.

Surfsup - compost/clearing a garden doesn't quite work like that IME, as the majority of what you clear is either too woody to compost or perennial weeds like nettles that you will risk spreading round the garden if you add them to a home compost heap.
You can compost a proportion of it but it doesn't solve the problem of what to do with the rest.

The woody bits could be put through a mulcher unless they are pretty big, and nettles are wonderful in a compost heap! If you use a proper hot composting technique you'll have no issues with spreading weeds and you get free soil! Nettles break down fantastically and are very rich in nutrients.

I do agree with surfs up - if he has a chipper to use of course.

The thick branches, can be piled up and offered on freecycle - someone with a wood burner will take them away.

I think you're expecting too much. We have a very large garden and like you have wanted to get on top of it having let it do its own thing for quite some time. For the past five weeks we've had the gardeners here every week. Two of them are here all day every monday. The garden is now looking better but it took a couple of weeks before you could even see any difference. Gardens grow so quickly that four hours a fortnight is going to do little more than maintain the current level of overgrownness.

YANBU re:phone thing. YABU re:certain turns of phrase.
People should not use personal phones at work, whether self-employed or not.

Have you given him specific instructions? If not, and it's a large garden, of course he's a 'bit lost'. Tell him exactly what you like him to deal with each time. My father has had the same gardener for donkey's years, but still doesn't expect him to be a mind reader. There's no way he's going to be able to do everything, even if it is just maintenance, so when he first arrives, discuss what you want done. Then, if he hasn't done it, deal with it then. No one works well if they're given an open ended task with no direction.

I actually think you are on a wind up... but, just assuming (for one unlikely second) you aren't then YABU he is self employed he can do whatever he likes (as long as it's legal) and you have the choice whether to continue paying for his services or not. End up.

I don't get these replies.

If you work in an office, your boss would rightly be pissed off if you sat there texting when you were meant to be working.

If it's fine for him to text, how about if he decides to make a half hour phone call? Take a nap?

If he's paid for four hours he should work for four hours. Not bugger about on his phone!

Surely if you are paying him then you effectively are his employer therefore you are his boss!!

Surfsup - in that case, do you know of an affordable mulcher that will work fast enough to make it feasible? (Genuine question!) I've tried in the past but it took far too long to make it a viable proposition and we have a ginormous heap of prunings in my new garden.
Sorry for hijack, OP.