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?!

But what was the work he was supposed to be doing?

We’d had a dispute with a vile, entitled holiday property owning neighbour. We had to pay them thousands for a tiny bit of disputed land but we paid up. Came home to find they’d decided to be petty and get someone to build a tiny picket fence to show what was their land—- except he was building it in the wrong place, about 18 inches into the bit of land we’d had to pay them for. I pointed out very politely to the man he’d better stop as the fence was on our land, not the neighbours. He ripped the flimsy fence out, then picked up his workbench and hurled it across the lane. Luckily it landed in a hedge and didn’t hit anyone. Then he shouted a bit and stormed off. They never did got their shitty little fence.

You have my sympathy OP. Trades people are either great or shit, ime.

Oh and a few years later we sold the house. 3-4 weeks later new owners called us. Neighbour had told them he owned the land we’d paid him for so they’d have to buy it from him for £xxxx. Gave us great pleasure to send copies of all the paperwork to them to show the greedy bastard.

Op ignore @kimchiketch she hasn't read your OP properly and is inventing scenarios to defend indefensible behaviour. Maybe it's the tradesman wife 😂

Mind boggling on MN where people tell others to LTB over literally anything that so many people are defending aggressive, nasty behaviour from a so called professional in their own home.

All the people on here defending the tradesman?? WTF?????

Here's what happened. Tradesman agreed to do something thinking it would be straightforward job, within their skill set and doable within the time allotted. Instead what they got was a job they couldn't complete because it was outside of their skill set and/or the time alloted. Rather than admit defeat like a grown-up and saying look sorry I couldn't complete but I won't charge for the work done and leaving, they get angry and make it everyone else's fault that they couldn't do the job. It's a self-esteem preserving mechanism and it's known in psychology as fundamental attribution error (FAE).

The partner going out to confront the tradesmen is what we'd all do to defend our loved ones, no?

There was not a single part of me that thought my DP had aggressive intentions. I was worried about the reaction of the man who had just been swearing and slamming things about and left really angry. And I'm just really not used to any kind of confrontation.

Thank you. It really wasn't appropriate. If he'd said: Sorry but this job isn't what I thought I'm not going to be able to do it / don't want to do it.

I would have been frustrated but no problem at all. It was the anger which was upsetting.

My husband was a tradesman. He would deem the not finishing ‘rough’ and the behaviour cowboy. Just because you can’t do the job yourself and are in a way beholden to them does not make it acceptable.

So he got annoyed which upset you.

I still don’t get what your partner was trying to achieve by chasing after him. How random.

Are you going to explain what the works are and what the tradesman was doing?

No one ever imagines that they might be the nightmare customer tradesmen complain about.

• Did you change the job?
• Did you change the date?
• Was the stuff you bought shit from B&Q?

OP can you answer these?

In the nicest way OP, I’m from a family of tradies and have friends who are, B&Q materials are shite.

people want decorators to decorate with shit paint and wonder why it takes twice as long and the finish is crap, they want a quality cabinet maker to fit shit kitchen units to save a few quid, they want plumbers to come out at their convenience and replace taps and fittings with shitty fixtures from Amazon.

It’s really hard to get good tradesmen and they don’t need to do jobs that don’t pay.

my brother has even had customers wanting him to repair and decorate small areas (unpaid) to see if he is worthy of their business!

im sure there’s more to this.

Read the whole thread and still haven't understood why someone being grumpy in another room is a good reason to cry. It's not like she felt threatened by being alone in the house.

After answering those other questions, can OP tell us why either yourself or DP didn't go into that room earlier on and ask the tradesman what the problem was, and whether there was anything you could do to help smooth the situation along? Because that would be the first thing I would do.

Some more context, for the posters who seem adamant I deserved what happened.

I had originally arranged the job with another tradesman who came out and saw it in person. He then didn't have capacity and passed it on to this guy who had never been here before.

When I contacted him directly last week he seemed a bit confused about the job so I explained again. Offered to send photos which he declined. A detail of the job had changed since the original guy came out, which I said to this guy before he arranged to come out.. but it seems like he didn't really register it. I think he was relying on the other tradesperson for information rather than me..

We discussed the difference when he arrived (that's when I realised he hadn't registered it from my messages) and he said it was fine. It was only not fine when he started running into other difficulties.

I didn't change the date. When I first messaged he said he had availability from Monday this week. I had to sort something else in advance and when I got back in touch a couple of days later he said he didn't have Monday free anymore but could do Thursday. So there was no changing of the date.

I just bought what I bought. They had the chance to specify anything / ask anything about the product and they didn't.

Other things he was swearing about once he got angry were not being able to find the house and the traffic... I assume that's my fault too.

This is why having a husband who is handy like winning life's lottery. Not having to deal with these wankers.

Not sure why you’re getting such a hard time OP but that’s MN for you. Even if you had underestimated the job or got crappy materials, it’s on the tradie to access what needs doing and whether the materials are good enough and to talk to you about that before starting, oh and most grades buy the materials anyway. Most will come and look at a job beforehand.
do not pay him!

If it's that small a job, is it something you can tackle yourself ?(You Tube is very helpful)

So if she did all of these would the builders behaviour have somehow been justified?

Mine too! It very reasonable to try and talk to some who has sworn in your house, downed tools and left in a huff

This!

What a strange load of responses. Tradesman should have held his temper and got on with the job!

If he wasn’t happy with the date/job/products he could have walked away immediately before starting anything.

He may have been in a different room, but he almost certainly knew the OP was in earshot, the whole silly performance was for her benefit.

She doesn’t specify that he shouted, but she describes him as ‘so angry’ so I think we can infer that he did shout, or was at least aggressive in his demeanour.

I suspect the reason that he hasn’t asked for payment (yet?) for his hour of work is because he knows, deep down, that he is in the wrong here.

The trades person in question sounds unprofessional in the extreme!
I would want to leave a bad review but would be worried about revenge 😐

>Read the whole thread and still haven't understood why someone being grumpy in another room is a good reason to cry.

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

To have to fight and fight to get any tradesmen out to do jobs and then have one cursing and swearing and upping and leaving when you finally manage to get one could, I see, push you to the brink.

You have to have a degree in negotiation skills and bucketloads of patience to maintain and improve your home these days, it seems.

I can see how it would all be a bit too much.

Personally, I'd have gone and kicked the back door or smashed some plates, but everyone reacts differently to being tipped over the edge.

OP has also now updated and it seems she didn't do anything wrong either.

@Fluffyelephant yes I had this many years ago when we were having our flooring laid. It had been a lot of building works so we were all very stressed. The flooring wasn’t straight and as my husband is in kitchens he is very precise with how things should be. The upshot was the flooring guy threw a wobbler and walked off the job, I started crying because I’d had enough and my husband had the hump because the floor wasn’t straight. In the end the guy in charge came in and got the guy back to get it finished. I hate renovations, until you go through it, you don’t know how stressful it is. Hopefully you can find someone who can help. Sending you best wishes.