Why do British workmen always approach a job by highlighting a problem

[Libertybear80]

It annoys me. It's like saying 'I'm about to do a shit job but it won't be my fault'! Bring back the European workmen that just get on with it!

Usually accompanied by sucking their teeth in a very dramatic way.

Hahaha, so true! Just do it or don’t FFS.

I don’t think it’s unique to British workmen

I spent 4 years renovating my house, using a series of workmen who were nearly all Eastern european

they all started with a variation of ‘which cowboy did this..? This is going to be a problem…”

The lovely German plumber who does my boiler service every year spends most of it moaning about how bad UK building regs are to allow my boiler to be where it is. Every year.

True.

My Polish plumber usually stars the conversation with Curva! and then we take it from there.

builders are builders, doesn’t matter where they come from.

Yep, please just come and do the job I've asked you to do and then go away.

The last builders I had in the house made my menopausal anxiety considerably worse by being over dramatic about every little thing. It's an old house not a new build, what do they expect.

When getting quotes for an extension, one builder did the teeth sucking thing, and said we'll have to dig a hole over there for the soakaway, I asked him if he did not anticipate digging a much bigger hole for foundations; he was a little flummoxed and blustered an 'er yes'!

The electrician we had recently to rewire the house complained about everything, from the fuse to all the regular fuse boxes, literally every electric installation that was there previously. He isn’t British or European so I think it’s a work man thing.

Almost every job by a plumber or electrician or decorator in my house starts with telling me that whoever put it in/last fixed it/designed this did it wrong and they can’t work out why anyone would have done it like that. Once or twice it’s even been a job they did that they’re now criticising. It’s what they do and so long as they actually do the job if I have to listen to some moaning and make sympathetic noises occasionally then so be it. It’s not just a British tradesman thing, it’s been all of them bar one very very chirpy Brazilian!

Frankly, people need to know the worse case scenario, that's why things are brought to your attention.

Problems also take longer than a straightforward job so they are basically letting you know as people always want a job done yesterday.

They want to tell you just how difficult the job is going to be so that when they manage to do it they'll get a gold star. It's a man thing.

I've just had roofers in for two weeks, replacing complete roof and they couldn't have been more cheerful or positive. All British too so maybe I was just lucky but they did a really good job.

New roof is a thing of beauty. 🙂

@MintJulia same here maybe roofers are happier as a rule?
I hate to be a plumber 💩🤣

Be careful what you wish for. Here in NZ we had 20 years of builders saying No Problem, Easy, Let's Get on With It. Now we have thousands of leaky, uninhabitable houses and some rich lawyers.

I'm dreading this with my new kitchen. We are still at the design stage and at the moment everything is upbeat and positive. But the existing one was put in as part of an extension, the workmanship of someof which I know is suspect even though it passed building regs. I'm dreading what they will find when they start removing it...

@SW1amp Please say what dreadful position your boiler is in, so I can do that inward whistle as well.

Our extension was clearly done as cheaply as possible and all sorts of corners have been cut in our house as standard, so I want to be there when builders are examining the disaster area. I shall lose all faith in humanity if there isn't teeth sucking, head shaking, grave expressions and faces...

@TheNoodlesIncident

It’s in the basement, next to the hot water tank

I can’t even remember what his moan is (other than he has to go where the cobwebs live, which is legit…)

But obviously it is a terrible place for it, would never be allowed in Germany, he doesn’t know why all the houses around here have them there

clue: If all houses around here have them there, and there are no actual issues from them being there, it’s probably not that awful…

YES!

I can't bear the immediate whinging about the work done before...."why did they do it that way? It makes no sense". We had a guy who every single time he came into our house to do anything, would spend time complaining to DH about the way the floors in our bedroom were laid. It drove us crazy.

Agree re the complaints about how difficult it will be. I know it's difficult. That's why I hired you - I can't do it. But I'm very h happy to pay for a professional to do it and I fully appreciate that working around the rather odd kitchen layout is going to add at least a day to the job.... that's fine.

Argh.

Hilariously though, we had someone do built in cupboards for us. Our builder went to examine it, clearly expecting to whinge that we hadn't used the person he wanted us to use - he liked it so much he asked DH for the guy's details in case he had time to do additional freelance work for our builder!

It's all part of the mansplaining agenda

Can men mansplain to other men? Because this irritates DH even more than it irritates me! Possibly because he's the one who deals with most workmen in our house!

Also, does it count as mansplaining if the person isn't actually saying anything that's true!?

We had a plumber to fit a new boiler, convert the system from a tank to a combi, and replace a radiator. EVERY little thing was wrong, he complained constantly for 3 solid days, even starting singing the mission impossible theme tune. He was a sodding nightmare pain in the neck.

Funny thing was that he cocked it all all up, the boiler didn't work, there were two leaks from his pipework, so the firm had to send someone else to fix it all (we refused to let the original guy back in), and they said they'd cancelled the first guys' other jobs (he was a contractor) due to the shoddy work and having to spend a day rectifying it!

And that was a registered "Gas Safe" plumber, so it clearly doesn't stand for much!

Yes agree it's not a british thing, I think it's just filler noise while they think about things, that and management of your expectations that it's going to cost X much more and take Y amount of time longer than you were hoping, which I'm sure is a constant issue for tradesmen - the thing about the time often not because it's actually a long job in itself but more that they're trying to juggle 10 other jobs at the same time, it always used to be 'ooh dear love I'll need to get a special Flimilflangle part for that, that'll take a week to come in that will' but it doesn't work on me now I've got a big builder's/plumber's warehouse at the end of the road and internet access that tells me they have all varieties and sizes of Flimilflangles in stock for immediate pick up' so now they just make grumbling noises about poor quality previous work and how tragedy-strewn their personal lives are and how their van is currently broken and their labourers have all left cos of Brexit and you can't get apprentices any more, they're all useless workshy snowflakes and so on, so I know not to expect them back for a few days and we all agree to leave it at that! I do similar expectation management in my work with (sometimes) mythical apprval requirements for jobs or crucial people that are currently on annual leave or 'in meetings all day' when I know it's something that's going to take what will feel an unreasonable level of time to sort out but for complicated reasons I don't want to explain to the person, so I do sympathise, sometimes I do think wouldn't it be better if we were all just honest with one another but then I have tried that on occasion and usually find people prefer the white lies even where they clearly know it's a lie, nowt so queer as folk

I had the same from workmen in Australia. I think it's a trade thing, not a British thing tbh.

Yep. Always always a problem, or the last person who did the jobs fault.

I had a bathroom fitter come round and tell me I couldn't have the layout I wanted because of this that and the other, LOADS of issues identified and made out everything I asked for a was an unreasonable request. He then didn't even show up to the job and I got someone else in last minute, who did everything I asked for and said the last guy was full of shit!

You're lucky if you can get a trades person in to quote. I spent 3 consecutive days waiting in for a plasterer to come and look at my ceiling; I was prepared for all the teeth sucking etc, but he never actually showed up. I don't know how they earn money as everyone, but everyone I have spoken to has had the same issue with all trades, no matter what the job.

That's the thing, sometimes you cannot win