AIBU: Called out my gardener on Facebook

[WilmaFlintstone38]

I've had a gardener several times over the past few years. I wanted some work doing and messaged him twice over the last couple of months giving him my holiday dates. No reply to either message so I just presumed he didn't want to do the work and started looking around for someone else.

He did message me when I got back from holiday to say he'd come round Saturday 6 July. This is just for a recce. I messaged him that morning to check what time he was planning to arrive as I'd got shopping and things to do. He came back with "I might have to rearrange". I gave him up as a bad job.

This morning I'm looking on the local Facebook forum and he's advertising for work. I replied saying that I was still waiting for a date. It was a woman managing the page who replied asking me to call her so she could "put you on our system". Cue a series of messages, ending with me stating that I'm a long standing customer, have been communicating with Fred and I'm already on the "system" but waiting for him to respond.

Less than 20 minutes later Fred comes back with a date over the upcoming weekend. So he wasn't too busy, and they're looking for work but pissing off loyal customers!

Have I made him look stupid?

I'd swerve this one and find another gardener. He sounds really flakey.

The thing is he's been really good when he's done work in the past. He is flaky about times and I wonder if it's because I've only got a small garden and not Downton Abbey. The garden's small but it's work I can't do myself.

Bless they just sound disorganised. I don’t think this is as deep as you think it is.

I agree with first poster, and you haven't made him look stupid, he's done it himself, by not responding to an established client. Look for someone who actually know's what they're doing OP.

Less than 20 minutes later Fred comes back with a date over the upcoming weekend. So he wasn't too busy, and they're looking for work but pissing off loyal customers!

You don't know whether he was already busy, but has messed around the other loyal customers with whom he had an arrangement, in order to fit you in, now he knows you're not happy and looking elsewhere!

A shocking number of tradespeople/businesses (big and small) see you primarily as a source of money and then view providing you with the service that you are actually paying them that money for as no big deal, that they can fit in (or maybe not) whenever they can be bothered. Until you become a squeaky wheel, they're never anywhere near with the oil.

I find this sort of thing happens frequently. I have had crap tradesmen, especially gardeners, who either don’t answer messages, the work done is awful, don’t turn up but all still posting on fb and when people ask for recommendations in our local fb group all the family and friends of said crap gardener pile in leading potential customers to think that person must be great with all these recommendations.
I now check the profiles of all those making recommendations (so many have no privacy settings) and see if they are fb friends before I believe anything is genuine.
I have once tried speaking up about my bad experiences in order to save other customers but got so abused for being honest by the tradesman's family and friends that I had to give it up. Buyer beware unfortunately.

It was only after the Facebook interaction that I realised I'd probably showed him up. It wasn't intentional.@Blackcats7 he's not crap, he's done fantastic work in the past on several occasions.

This.

Good at gardening. Bad at admin.

I suspect what you’ve come across is a tradesman who likes the gardening bit of his job but utterly fails at the running a business side. So his partner has got involved in that side to try and keep money flowing in a vaguely reliable manner - hence the facebook advertising and asking for your details to put you in her system rather than you just popping up on his phone messages.

None of this is your fault and the flakiness on his part is could well be just a part of his inability to organize rather than a deliberate attempt to maximise his presence for Downton Abbey owners. I think lots of people with ADHD and the like seem to go into trades they enjoy - good with focusing on the job in front of them as it catches their interest, but the executive function that makes for good time management and client relationships is lacking unless well supported.

I'm betting the woman does the organising usually as he's poor at it. Perhaps go through her in future. You could always delete your FB posts if you feel bad about it. It got her attention, and she probably badgered him to contact you to avoid more being publicly said.

If you’ve had as much rain in your area as here I would imagine gardeners are having a hard time fitting in work around the weather. Rain shouldn’t have stopped him going to your house for a reccie but maybe he is trying to keep on top of the work he gets from regular customers before adding one off jobs even if from previous customers.

Maybe, but I'm irritated at the lack of contact.

Great gardeners can be bad organisers.

People decide to be gardeners so they don't have to do boring office crap. But of course that doesn't work 🤣

There are many reasons for becoming 'self employed'.
One of the reasons is that the person, who may be brilliant at the job, has poor organisational skills that don't fit with a regular work schedule.
There are better reasons and worse reasons. If, as you say, he is good at the actual work, I think he is worth perservering with.
Better that than an organised person, who doesn't actually do the work paid for, or doesn't do it well.

Some gardeners have regular jobs on say a weekly basis and are unwilling to prioritise an occasional, say monthly job

That's fair enough so long as they communicate properly and don't ignore calls and messages.

I was a gardener before I retired and would say one thing, good established gardeners don't need to advertise for work....they're booked up and have a waiting list. If this guy, after years of working is asking for work on facebook then something's wrong. He sounds disorganised.

You asked if you'd made him look stupid. Did you want to?

@Churchview No, I only thought that after I'd posted.

Here are the messages

I think you've invested too much passion into this. Employ him or don't, but don't make a meal of a snack.

I think you're making more of it. I happened to see the post randomly and then responded, as it didn't add up that he's not responding to customers yet asking for more work. Then I thought oops I've made him look silly on Facebook and asked about it. I don't see how that's investing passion!!!

It's very true that a lot of sole traders can excel in one key area of their business but be hopeless at another - usually the organisation and admin.

I've found that a lot of people with trades are not great at English SPaG, as can be seen from their invoices - but as long as you know what they're referring to, it's no issue. I may get an invoice from a boiler installer that I would have made a much better job of myself; but if I had tried to fit the boiler myself, I would now be sitting in a huge pile of smoky rubble that used to be my house, so I'd much prefer it that way around!

However, when it comes to the basic organisation of timekeeping and appointments - and reliability - if they are hopeless at that, they need to employ somebody else who IS good at it. You can't run a business just by being good at a task, if your communication with customers is non-existent.

A business marketing themselves - who would have thought it? You also have to remember that some customers are prioritized; new work is often more lucrative than work for an established customer. It might just be that he doesn't want to work for you. If a business fails to respond promptly, that's your answer. Go away.

The gardener messaged me today to say he's able to start the work this month. They've been busy and he had one of his team leave. I wouldn't have minded if he'd kept me informed about that but he's not been in touch since July. I told him I'd got the work done by someone else.

If you have made him look stupid, it's because he is.