"So you are paying someone who insults you?
I would not use him again."
^ This.
I was supposed to be having a new shed erected on Monday, with the old one being demolished (please note the "supposed to"!). Someone was hired to do so and my elderly parents offered to come up and give me a hand in emptying the old shed/carting the rubbish we've accumulated in it to the local tip. All well and good. Except, when the bloke arrived, I was outside, in the old shed and up to my neck in years worth of hanging basket frames (seriously: do they breed?! We seem to have an entire colony of them - and I'm not a hanging basket person...) and so my DM let him into the house.
He assumed that she was the house owner.
I'd popped into the house to remind my DD that she needed to get her arse into gear otherwise she'd miss the bus to uni, and was on my way back out just as the bloke was wandering back into it (no back gate, which meant he'd have to wander through the house) and my DM was saying to him: "Just to let you know, there are indoor cats, so the door needs to be kept shut, please...". Bloke nodded his head, closed the door behind him (in my DM's face, but she's an adult and could have dealt with that herself if she chose to) and, as though completely oblivious to the fact that I was standing to one side so that he could get past, said - to the rocking chair, actually, he completely ignored me - "I know there are fucking cats... I can smell them you stupid bitch!"
I may have exploded somewhat.
Quietly and with the use of a lot of long words that I'm not entirely sure he actually understood. My DM said afterwards that she and my dad watched through the window of the door as I turned to him and my mouth opened. They couldn't hear what I was hissing at him, apparently, but knew that I was furious. And I was. I still am, and it's two days later! He was told in no uncertain terms to get the fuck out of my house and to not even think about being paid for the entire 15 minutes he'd been on my property. His excuse? "I didn't know you were the house-holder!". Doesn't matter. I could have been the cleaner (oh, how I'd love a cleaner...), or the au pair for all that it mattered. People with manners do not insult the person employing them, or their home. They can think what they like inside the sanctuary of their own heads... but it's best not to voice it. Because if someone takes offence at what they say, or do, then it's going to lose them employment/money, at the end of the day.
And yes; we have an elderly, slightly incontinent cat - but the over-riding odour in the house is the stuff we use to clean up after him (I'm more than slightly paranoid about the stench of cat urine, to be honest, so I go out of my way to make sure that it's eradicated, but as my 18 year old cat has feline dementia, he forgets where his litter trays are every now and then. Other than euthanising an otherwise healthy and very happy cat, there's not a lot I can do about that!). And to call my DM, who had been nothing but polite to him, a stupid bitch?! Whilst I - the person who was going to pay him for a day's work - am standing right there?! No way, no how. Not happening.
Afterwards, I realised that my DD had sent me a text when he'd arrived saying: "Bloke's here. Good luck. He looks like a real Git." And my DD is usually the worst judge of character going, so for her to call it as she watched him swagger on up to the house (her words, not mine)... well.
So, OP, you were right to lose your temper. Maybe the contractor and his assistant will think twice next time they have a job on, about the client's requests. Particularly if they know there's a very young child in the house who needs their rest and/or easily spooked animals who need to be gathered for their own safety.
But as Doreen says... don't employ them again!