Tradesman just made me cry

[Fluffyelephant]

I know it’s probably silly to be so upset but I’m really shaken up.

Having a nightmare with our house renovation. People cancelling, not showing up.

Finally had a guy in today (recommended by another tradesman). Long story short I was in the room next to where he was working and could hear him getting angrier and angrier in there: ‘FFS!’ every few minutes and slamming things more and more aggressively.

Eventually heard him say to himself ‘that’s it I’m finished’ and he started moving his tools. I went in, job was about 60% done and he was so angry. Like “I’m finished. Not doing anymore. People effing changing the job. Changing the date. Wasting my time. This b&q stuff you’ve got is shit.” It was so horrible. Then he stormed out. I told my partner what had happened and started crying so my DP ran out to the van outside and I was shouting ‘Don’t! Dont!’ The guy threatens him and then drives away.

Agh. Absolutely horrible. Really shaken up. Just feel like I’m cursed with this renovation. Feel like it was my fault for not making the details of the job clearer.

Not sure what the point of this post is. Just wondering if anyone else has ever experienced similar. And if so how do you keep it together?!

We had an extension done- was meant to take 3 months. It took a year and we went through 5 different builders.

All of them highly recommended - all of them started well then started leaving early, not turning up, promising they'd be doing work during the day- CCTV said otherwise. It was awful and I genuinely dont think I will ever do it again.

What on earth has @kimchiketch been posting to get so many repeated posts deleted?? 😂

Of course you’ve got a gang of mentals suggesting this was your fault 🙄

I am getting so sick of posters who tie themselves in knots to find a million reasons why issues like this must be all the OP's fault. And to those of you who would be quite happy to put up with a sweary, angry man banging around in your personal space, maybe you need to raise your standards? This sort of behaviour is completely unacceptable. You wouldn't accept this from a colleague at work, so why would anyone put up with this in their own home??
OP - sorry you had such an unpleasant experience. I would have felt very intimidated by this and unfortunately I can relate, as I have had similar experiences with tradesmen. E.g. a local electrician (came highly recommended) who mounted an extractor fan considerably lower than the correct height from the worktop, and then got angrier and angrier as I pointed out that this would void the warranty as it was not correctly installed. Not sure why he hadn't bothered to read the installation guide, but hey ho. I had to actually phone the manufacturer in his presence before he sulkily agreed to move it. Some people are just nasty, incompetent bullies and don't like their inadequacies being exposed. I also suspect your AT (angry tradesman) wouldn't have behaved like that in your husband's presence, but that is a whole other thread...

I was wondering the same. So many posts.

I can't believe people are giving @Fluffyelephant a hard time! We all find our jobs stressful and difficult at times. Do we start huffing and puffing and swearing in front of clients? No, we do not because we are fully grown women. Some (I repeat SOME) men who work in the trades are overgrown children who need to get a grip.

If a tradesman came into your home and threatened you? Of course they would. 😂 police spend most their time dealing with non events like this rather than catching real
criminals.

First and foremost, you are not responsible for the aggression of another person. Particularly, one you have given work to and a chance to earn some money. I'd make that clear to the person who recommended him. Tell him how dissappointed you are about that. Make sure you post accurate assessment of his work with photos on all the right review sites including Facebook and community groups and of course trust pilot. Let people, including the council who often have a list of approved tradesmen on their intranet know about his aggression. That's just dangerous. It's clear to me he just wanted out of that job. I hope you haven't paid him. If you have, then speak to your bank and stop the payment. I was once subject to an aggressive outburst by a tradesman and it did make me feel really tearful, that's just adrenalin and tension relief which is cardio protective. I'm sorry this thing happened to you, but you must understand its not you fault. Its never your fault, just calmly go through the steps to deal with it.

I'm wondering the same. Were all her posts really that bad?

The events were aggressive, unprofessional and extremely uncomfortable but I wouldn’t say they were criminal.

Dog was unsettled I think because he’d picked up on the raised voices, me crying, atmosphere etc.

I couldn’t hear exactly what was said between DP and the guy as it was outside but DP says he was really angry at that point and it was along the lines of ‘don’t you bleeping start. I didn’t fully kick off with her because she’s a woman but I will with you.’ And then DP let him drive off. Deeply unpleasant but I wouldn’t say that’s enough of a specific threat to warrant getting the police involved.

Not a nice experience OP, I would be shaken too. FWIW our experience of b&q stuff is it is a bit shit, probably best to get them to bring their own stuff next time.

I understand what you’re saying but I didn’t challenge his behaviour in the slightest and he still escalated to that level.

It was his first job of the day. I think he thought he could get it done in an hour first thing and go onto something else.

i think the materials thing is just an excuse to be honest. My DP has successfully done the floor this weekend using the same materials and he didn’t even know what he was doing. It was fiddly because of several things about the space which we can’t control. If the tradesmen had looked at the job properly and considered those things and said: “look, even though its a small space it’s going to take longer and be trickier because of X, Y and Z so it’ll cost more.” that would have been absolutely fine. But they didn’t. They just assumed quick job and when it wasn’t he kicked off.

He opened not one but TWO boxes of the materials before he decided they were too rubbish and it couldn’t be done.

He was only at the house 60 minutes so not a lot of time to escalate. I don’t think any amount of ‘people management’ would have resolved this.

She was very argumentative and not very pleasant E.g. claiming I had something to hide and my DP was odd.

But I don’t think she said anything that would have automatically got the posts removed. I’m wondering if she got fed up of people challenging her on here and asked MN herself for all of her posts on the thread to be removed

Our builder couldn't find a decent, reliable, plumber to do some of the work on our kitchen! The first one left 25 minutes after he arrived (about 2.30pm) without telling anyone. Cabinet fitter said he just packed his stuff up and left without a word - after consuming the coffee and 2 Kitkats I gave him. No explanation.

In regards to buying stuff from b&q.

This job (which is part of bigger works) has been a complete nightmare and just getting the flooring done has now involved 7(!!) different tradesmen. 7 tradespeople to lay 2m of flooring… which my DP has now just had to do himself because we give up on the professional tradespeople!

That’s because of the first lot of tradesmen not picking up that a task needed to be done before just trying to fit the floor… so having to go to other people to sort that.. then tradespeople being booked in to do it and not showing up. Or coming to give a quote and advice but then ditching us for bigger jobs.

The stuff we bought from b&q was on the recommendation of tradesmen 1 and then tradesman 6. So yes unfortunately for tradesman 7 he was inheriting what other tradespeople had told us to buy. But ultimately he didn’t have an issue with that or specify he wanted us to buy a particular thing / from a particular place until he got stuck in.

This takes the, ahem, biscuit!
What a pair of twunts.

Jesus. I detest most tradesmen being in my home. When possible we have learnt to do most things ourselves.

So many people making excuses for the tradie 😵‍💫
It doesn’t matter how stressful the job, irritating the client or frustrating their previous experiences he was HUGELY unprofessional and is not fit to be working inside people’s homes, where they have every right to feel safe.
If he’s independent, leave him bad reviews wherever possible otherwise take it to his employer as soon as you can. If it’s an accredited trade, notify them too.
He's a twat and needs to be left in no doubt that his behaviour was unacceptable.
The people on MN who come out to play devils advocate on posts like these are ridiculous

He hasn’t charged you, so just get someone else to do the job. Why are you stating that he ‘made you cry’ and then painting your partner as some kind of rescuer? You’re not a child. You’re not happy with his service, so get someone else in to do it and get on with your life.

He hasn’t charged you, so just get someone else to do the job. Why are you stating that he ‘made you cry’ and then painting your partner as some kind of rescuer? You’re not a child. You’re not happy with his service, so get someone else in to do it and get on with your life.

Let me send arounda large, rough bloke to scream aggressively in your face in your own home and then see if you cry or not.

If you read my post it actually says if he surfaces asking for money. After his last performance then l doubt OP will have him in the house

I did cry. I’m sorry if you wouldn’t have in that situation but I did. I’m not particularly emotionally resilient at the moment due to a bereavement and renovation that is going wrong. Maybe I would have cried even without those things, I don’t know.

it’s not as simple as just getting someone else. He was tradesmen no.7 involved in doing this tiny floor. They each want different materials which you buy, or you wait weeks for the date they’ve given you to come out, then they don’t show or in this case storm out and damage / open all the materials which they then claim are no good so you can’t take them back and exchange them.

Him doing part of it is kind of worse than not starting tbh because they all like to do things their own way and won’t want to work with what he’s started.

Im just fed up!

To be fair you didn’t add the detail to your post, just that it’s a small job that would only take an hour and you’d be overpaying.

Are you always this passive if a stranger shouts aggressively at you? That's concerning if so.

Ugh. You sound cold.
Got your daily kick from being horrible to someone on Mumsnet I hope?!