I wish I could always give my business to women

[bitesthedust]

I’m doing some works in my house - getting quotes.

Contractor 1 - male - came in, took photos and measurements, said job would be done in 2 weeks and never sent me a quote

Contractor 2 - male, came in, same as above, sent me an extortionate quote I nearly had a heart attack and gave up on the project

Contractor 3 - male - after appt and address confirmed, instead of coming himself, he sent two mates, who had a look around, discussed with each other in a foreign language and then gave me a quote 6k cheaper than contractor 2 and two weeks to get the job done

Contractor 4 - male, came in, took measurements, explained everything, job would take 2.5 weeks and sent quote £200 cheaper than contractor 3 but can only start in one week’s time

At this point I nearly cave in but still had my very last contractor to check

Contractor 5 - female - came in, took pictures, took notes, advised me on colour, gave me ideas, showed me pictures - can start straight away, job will get done in 5 days AND is £700 cheaper than contractor 4.

OMG
Were the males taking the f* piss? Overcharging because I have no man at home talking to them and clearly not very savvy on all this?

Anyone ever experienced anything similar?

I like supporting female businesses as well, but your post isn’t really an argument for the female contractor being better.

being able to start immediately just means she doesn’t have a current job.

doing the job in 5 days instead of 2 weeks may be because that is all that is required. It might also be because she is going to rush through the work and someone else would have completed the job to a higher standard

also, did you ask questions about work crews? How well are they trained? Do the contractors have regular staff or do they use day laborer? Is everyone being paid on the books? This can have a huge impact on the price of the work.

I asked all of them the same questions and gave them the same requirements

They are all self employed

The two guys did everything on whatsapp but the others sent me proper quotes in headed paper etc

I checked all their work online and they were all recomended

I guess it is luck that she is available asap but I don’t believe she is rushing as she gave me the breakdown of the time - I think the others overestimated time perhaps to charge more down the line (but I’m cynical)

A skilled and experienced contractor is unlikely to be available immediately. I hope all goes well with your female contractor, but that is a red flag - being able to start right away. Unless she’s had a big cancellation.

I just did this. I had 25K saved for a new car, called a local dealer to see if they had a female sales woman (they did), and bought a car from her the next day. Bonus - she was a lesbian!

It isn't a red flag for a woman to be able to start work immediately. What you are doing here is applying mens bad behaviour and lack of time management to women and judging her for not behaving the same way.

Being able to start straight away would worry me. The best contractors are usually booked out for months in advance.

Not necessarily. If you take on jobs and manage them badly maybe. Or lie and keep people hanging on. Or take on jobs and chop and change and muck loads of people about.

Only taking in smaller jobs that you can manage yourself and planning things properly is a good thing.

Yes, and if she's getting the work done twice as fast then obviously she can take on more work sooner!

I'm loathe to tar everyone with the same brush but I am so, so, SO fed up with tradesmen lately. It wouldn't surprise me one bit if they long out the job to their benefit.

That's not to say this woman will be any better, she's just one individual. But there is a huge gap in the market because women generally approach business differently. They just do. They understand the importance of being customer-centric for one thing. That means turning up on time, engaging with the client and their needs, being prompt with quotes/comms. Something that is sorely lacking with every single male tradesman I've dealt with recently.

As a woman who worked in construction on the roads, you have to be so much better than the guys to get anywhere. And we are constantly being negged for being prompt, efficient, and honest.

She might well have just taken the summer hols to spend with the kids, and deliberately not booked anything in next week.

And i spent one half of my career getting women into construction in the first place. Please stop trying to diminish the strides we took to get women into these roles.

Be great to have schemes to encourage more women into the trades and construction. Not only is it a good career choice, but there would be huge demand for women constructors.

Being able to start sooner isn't a good thing, they're unpopular probably. I like female contractors too but crap argument here

I'm a bit baffled at the idea that being able to start immediately is a reflection on the quality of her work.

She may only quote for jobs when she's available. Contractors can and do have gaps in their diary. She may also pick and choose and not take on jobs unless she wants to. Or a job fell through. Or she's not long started in business.

Lots of reasons.

I've been very encouraged by two of my clients. I freelance as a technical artist for the construction/landscape industry. Both have told me they generally prefer hiring women where they can. The build crews are usually all men because availability but their entire admin staff, soft landscapers, maintenance crews and technical staff are vast majority women. I've worked in lots of yards and these two are lovely breaths of fresh air compared to some of the laddish, performative ones from my earlier career.

One owner literally pulled up lewd behaviour from one of his guys recently in front of me, the other has three grown up daughters and so recognises what the work place is like. Good guys are our there and some of us are being recognised.

On the other hand in a couple of places I was treated like dirt and every woman got hounded out unless they were where they belonged (admin). female design and tech staff like me didn't last long. One savvy designer who was awesome, clocked straightaway and left in the fi at week. There was constant low level sexism and sexual harassment.

"May"

Yes, obviously 'may'!

How the hell is her sexuality relevant to the purchase of a new car?

If it's a male dominated industry then I'm not necessarily surprised the woman is available for immediate start. I used to work as a technical advisor in a male dominated industry (within the last 10 years) and would regularly get "I want to speak to a specialist is John or Bob there?" If I told them I could help (because I had the same or more experience) they would say they'd call back later. Some people don't want to deal with a woman.

Yes this absolutely

there are still a lot of ppl who think women who are plumbers or painters or plasterers or whatever just can’t possibly be any good at it. Certainly not as good as a man. They just won’t hire them

We had a similar situation with a female builder. Ended up paying her something in the middle of what she quoted Vs what the 4x men had quoted as I sincerely believe she was undercharging. She did a fab blooming job and also offered us advice based on her experience both as a builder but also just in life. Have had several companies just say 'whatever you want' when I ask their professional opinion so this was very refreshing!

So automatically females are better than men and females do an actual better job then men 100% all the time?

The logic makes no sense

She might not be booked up because there are so many misogynist dickheads who don’t want to hire a female contractor, meaning she’s not booked up, so the ambivalent rather than hostile then think she’s not popular or any good.

There's an underlying point here. As ArabellaScott says, there are not enough women in trades and construction. All the talk about 'Women In Technology' is about the shiny-blinky-lights high tech, which is important of course, but at the level of established technologies like building, motor mechanics, plumbing etc, women are woefully under-represented.

I often hear men saying 'It's because girls don't like getting their hands dirty. they don't want to do jobs like plastering or fixing cars' - yeah, like looking after children or patients in hospital [= 'traditional female jobs'] never ever involves getting your hands dirty, right??

One of the reasons that I thrived as the only woman in a non-traditional job was because I had been given 'boys' toys' as well as dolls when I was little - the toy tool kits, the Meccano sets, the Airfix kits, so I developed confidence with tools, manual dexterity and the ability to read schematic plans as I grew up. It wasn't a big step up to applying those skills professionally.

But children's toys remain very stereotyped, even if the Argos catalogue has dropped the 'boys' toys'/ 'girls' toys' labels, it's obvious to children which are which from illustrations, packaging etc.

And MissingLesbianSpaces - I know exactly what you mean about the little buzz when you find yourself dealing with another lesbian -
sorry IDontHateRainbows, it's just a little recognition thing, don't take it too seriously!
It's like when I lived in London and the plumber who came to fix a dodgy tap turned out to be from the same village in the West of Ireland where my father grew up, just a little recognition buzz that makes you smile.
I assume it would be the same if the plumber was a lesbian but guess what? I never encountered a female plumber, ever.

Your strawman argument makes no sense, no.

I don't think the data is available to compare male and female contractors, so every contractor must be assessed on their merits. But I do think there's a bias against female contractors, which I'd like to counteract by choosing them, all else being equal. Also, having men working in my home is potentially unsafer, and definitely more irritating.