Tradesman asking for a sandwich

[AtleastitsnotMonday]

I’ve had a tradesman working on the outside of my property today. Got here about 11.30, job was about a couple of hours worth of work. About 1200 I went out and asked if I could get him a tea or coffee. He answered “Tea, white with two please, would you be able to knock me up a cheese sandwich while your there?”
Now, admittedly I’m rubbish at saying no at the best of times and I wasn’t expecting this so obliged, even returning to check if he would like pickle/tomato etc with it.”
Dp thinks I’ve lost the plot and he was being grabby and to be honest I’ve only ever made drinks with the odd biscuit before, the only exception being when we had an extension built which was a much longer project and I outdone make them bacon sandwiches on a Friday morning if I wasn’t working.
Would you have made a sandwich?

@gamerchick

Yes. I don't know anyones personal circumstances and even if they're working they might still be struggling. If someone doing a job in my house asked me for something to eat then I'd feed them.

Yes. Why not have compassion instead of taking umbrage??

Reminds me of when our son had a private tutor at home one night a week.
Bearing in mind she was here for an hour, I always made her a coffee. However, each week she started helping herself to a piece of fruit from the fruit bowl on the way out! I started hiding the fruit bowl!

@Shmithecat2

I've never been asked, but maybe that's because I always offer 🤷🏻‍♀️

You offer to make a tradesman a sandwich after he's been there 30minutes? Sure you do.

On the basis of these comments, I will tell my DH who goes out to visit clients in their offices and if often working 12 hour days, to make him lunch. He leaves at 5.30 in the morning, doesn’t leave the building all day and is certainly hungry. It would be awful of them to be surprised at his request or to refuse wouldn’t it.

No, it wouldn’t. The expectation is that he is an adult worker who is contracted to do a job and sort out his own meals, because he’s a an adult. That could mean bringing a packed lunch or finding time to nip out for a sandwich.

These workmen seem to like to present the image that they are incapable of providing their own food. Is it an image of men not being able to or getting involved in the domestic work of preparing food? Is it playing on women customers to take on the caring role and look after poor man who can’t feed himself? This is where the history of all this lies. And lots of women are indeed proud to be able to say they supply drinks every hour and also all kinds of other things and food...as if this reflects on them and makes them great hosts and careers. But these men are not there as your friends and guests, they are there to do a job. Access to water and a toilet seems totally reasonable, but really they should expect everything else to be up to them. And British Gas or other big companies sending workmen out have grasped this and make it very clear to their workers.

@corythatwas

I haven't posted this on my door, but when I do take food to the foodbank

But this is not a foodbank/someone hungry on the streets situation. He is a tradesman who probably charges a hefty rate for his services already.

I'd have said no because we don't keep sandwich food in the house. We don't really eat bread so never buy it - I have soup for lunch and hubby eats at work. I'd have been able to offer him biscuits but that is about it.

So, I have a cleaning lady who comes in fortnightly and her start time is 1pm. Which is of course the lunch time. Should I have lunch ready for her as we are doing ours then? She’s here for 2 hours and doing manual labour too you know. She could be a modern slave but as she has a thick estuary accent and drives a nice Fiat 500 Abarth, I doubt it.

Laughing at all the people saying they would knock up homemade cakes and sausage rolls for workmen......

I work in the NHS in the community. Maybe I'll start asking patients to feed me. I can see how that would go down!

@1forAll74

Yes. I would make the man a couple of sandwiches, he might have been feeling a bit weak in the cold. You can usually tell if someone is a real scrounging type.

If a man asked you to give him money git a sandwich, would you comply as well?

After all, the poor man might be hungry, and unable to go to a shop to buy one.

Think of all the people out there who might feel weak as well, you might as well go around your neighbourhood with a tray of sandwiches to save them all from this terrible fate.

He might have just been teasing you and didn’t actually expect you to make him a sandwich. Bit like when your colleagues hilariously respond with ‘get me the till’ when you ask them do they want something from the shop.

I'm Canadian, and it's been said earlier, but I still really need to remind myself that it's the done thing here to even offer tradespeople tea or coffee. Maybe a glass of water on a hot day, but certainly no food.

@GingerNorthernLass

I grew up on a farm. It was just the done thing if we have trademes out to do work unrelated to everyday running, they still got fed just like everyone else who was sitting down to lunch or they got something made if we werent doing a big lunch for ourselves.
I've just continued on that way. You can take the girl out of the farm...

It isnt something to laugh at.

Oh, and when my midwife or health visitor was coming over, I put out cakes or finger sandwiches depending on the time so you'd have been fed at mine.

I used to be a DN in a rural area. I was forever fending off offers of tea and snacks

Yes, it is a deeply sexist 'serve me, little housewife' thing but also, part of a weird, British, self-infantilisation of the working class male, thing. 'Lad culture' of sorts.

I bet he said it as a joke - and then was bemused when you actually made him one. In fact I think I heard him laughing about this with his mates down the pub... oh. Well I would have if they had been open...

*JamieLeeCurtains

HoppingPavlova
I would make him the sandwich and then when he hands over the bill, look him straight in the eye and say ‘minus the fiver for the sandwich’. Then have the argument if need be but hopefully it will get it through to him that it’s inappropriate.
Why not just say no, then?*

Because it’s a more effective way of getting the message across.

Apart from the manners and etiquette here- no - there’s a pandemic on- unless you are going to leave the cup outside for a bit or ensure you wash your hands/ it purposely the fewer contacts the better disease wise

Snugglepuff, I think I get the gist but what does "a cheese sandwich never reared me" mean? Does it mean you owe it nothing? Oh it's not your parents so you don't care about giving it away. ?

Well you know it's a wise woman who knows her father, buttered or not.

Probably means someone asking for a cheese sandwich wouldn't get her riled up.

Lottie, yes, I agree it’s the infantilising of the male working class....perpetuated by them but also encouraged by all these women in particular, who encourage it by supporting g the idea they can’t possibly organise and feed themselves, but need the women to do it for them.

You’d never hear of professional workers who visit homes, such as financial advisers, or architects or lawyers asking for lunch or expecting it to be provided. And as several people have said, it is peculiarly British to even consider offering hot drinks and snacks to those visiting homes....in other countries people just don’t do it. There’s clearly a strong historic sense in the UK about offering hospitality in some form to those who come to the house, and it seems to be historically a class based thing....trades in some sense seem to be seen as less capable and able to fend for themselves in terms of providing their own drinks and sustenance, so need the women (who traditionally would have been more affluent to be hiring workers) to look out for them in some kind of hierarchical way (‘After you’ve finished, just nip round to the kitchens where Cook will sort you out with a plate of something’)

Lots of women on here are literally feeding into all that with the absurdly frequent offers of drinks, but the tradesmen often play on it too ,suggesting incompetence in a range of areas, that the paying customer is supposed to just put up with....so incompetence in terms of reliability of arrival times, dealing with paperwork, communication, arranging food for the day ahead etc etc.

It’s really interesting that this group of workers are hanging onto the behaviours if the past and customers are supporting it, when in most other industries we have moved on and workers look after themselves and this sense of needing to look after the worker by those hiring them. Goodness, people will be offering accommodation in the attic next or a Christmas meal with beer and a rousing speech from his Lordship.

Ha WombatChocolate, I, was going to say bet a lot of people would love to have a whole gang of tradesmen holed up in their attic but that is treading on delicate ground.

@londonscalling

Reminds me of when our son had a private tutor at home one night a week. Bearing in mind she was here for an hour, I always made her a coffee. However, each week she started helping herself to a piece of fruit from the fruit bowl on the way out! I started hiding the fruit bowl!

I wouldn't have. I reckon she might have really needed that.

I absolutely would have made him the sandwich. What a sad state the world is in where we would deny someone a simple sandwich if we could afford to share.

Lottie, yes, I agree it’s the infantilising of the male working class....perpetuated by them but also encouraged by all these women in particular, who encourage it by supporting g the idea they can’t possibly organise and feed themselves, but need the women to do it for them.

Agree with this.

You’d never hear of professional workers who visit homes, such as financial advisers, or architects or lawyers asking for lunch or expecting it to be provided.

And certainly with this. Yes, I would (and have) offered drinks to this kind of professional but what wouldn't happen is that casual "could you just rustle me up..." That shows that you think of women as the people who look after you.

And as several people have said, it is peculiarly British to even consider offering hot drinks and snacks to those visiting homes....in other countries people just don’t do it.

Really don't believe this one. Ime you can't get many steps into a Swedish home before the coffee machine is on. The main difference is that the older generation there would be embarrassed if they only have shop-bought biscuits to offer: my mother will start baking days in advance if she knows there is repair work to be done. However, I have never heard a workman over there speak to a woman in that casual expecting-to-be-served manner.

There’s clearly a strong historic sense in the UK about offering hospitality in some form to those who come to the house, and it seems to be historically a class based thing

Don't know about the UK but working class hospitality is very much a thing in other countries- and it's also something George Orwell mentions in his books, so presumably not unknown here.

I don't think it's the hospitality that is the thing here- it is the spectacle of a man casually giving orders to the person who is paying him. There can't be any other reason for that than her gender: men expecting women to look after their material needs.

"Sorry. I'm a coeliac. We don't have bread in this house."

Edges in front of the recycling bin, smiling, trying to distract him from the Hovis wrapper.

If he's got the nerve to ask, he's got the nerve to expect this to be a daily thing. I wouldn't offer him anything else. CFery.