Contractors: Please Call Me Back
Here's a note to contractors: PLEASE CALL ME BACK. You can call me back in a day, or 2, or in a week if you're on vacation. But I think you could at least take the time to send me a message like the following:
Dear Pauli,
I got your message, and I'm responding to let you know that I do not want to do any work for you. Please call a competitor of mine.
If you must know why I don't want your job, there are multiple reasons. For starters, I hate you. I hate your wife and brat kids also. I hate your cars and your house and the color you picked for the living room. I would hate your dog if you had one, and I hate everybody in your family.
Sincerely,
Loser Contractor
This would be so refreshing that I'd probably send you flowers and thank you for the timely response. I would also recommend your services to my friends, at least the ones who aren't allergic to intense hatred, and just remind them to not mention who referred you to them.
But you haven't responded to over four calls. Maybe you're on a bender, or have the standard combination of lethargy and apathy common to tradesmen. But you've been putting up Tweets on your inane Twitter page this whole time to your 32 followers, so I don't know why you can't briefly call me to officially decline my work.
Oh, yeah, I was meaning to ask you—did you find it as amusing as I did when I called you using *67 and you accidentally picked up? I heard the irritation in your voice when you realized it was me and hastily said "I'll call you back." I'll bet you could fool a lie detector easily; you lie effortlessly. But you learned your lesson and have once again realized the indispensability of Caller ID. How did slackers survive before that wondrous technology? Oh, yeah, secretaries. I forgot.
At this point I have no other choice but to give you a bad grade on Angie's List. My guess is that you don't care about that, but I suppose I'll never know since you won't call me.
the contractors around here are busy too. But it makes sense -- all those inflationary dollars have to go somewhere. they all have office-building jobs and are rejecting the residential jobs. It's a mystery as to who's opening all these offices. Mexican drug cartels? green energy companies? Mexican drug cartels going into the green energy business (federal subsidies are great for money laundering)?
ReplyDeleteYou make an excellent point, Kathleen. This should prepare us for the doctor shortages waiting around the corner.
ReplyDeleteThat said, I think this guy is more of a loser than anything else. He was recommended to me by a friend who doesn't own commercial property.
ReplyDeleteActually there are several other instances of people not getting back to me that can't be explained this way either. I think it's really a lack of courage here. If you don't want to do the work, tell me. "Thanks, but I don't want to do the work." After that you can say whatever you want, e.g., "I'm too busy, I don't do type of work this anymore, I'm having a nervous breakdown, etc." OR -- don't give a reason. Blowing me off is equal to cowardice.
For awhile I was calling this guy every day multiple times. So I imagine that his cell phone would ring while he was working. Maybe he turned it off. But either way you'd think it would get to him after awhile. Obviously he'd know who it was, and you'd THINK he'd just call me up to get rid of me.
The next time this happens I'm going to stick with it longer and I'm going to blog about my "progress" every day. Will it be a waste of my time? Probably, but it will be funny. And perhaps I'll take a page out of Kathleen's book & ask him how the cartels are doing.
I feel your pain. I have tried repeatedly to get work done around my house and contractors around here act like they aren't interested. Previously, I called 2 people for estimates when I needed rain gutters....no show/no phone call. I need work on my driveway. I called one guy and he said he would come out. No call so I called him back and he informed me he had to go out of town for an emergency. My point is...when you return, why not call? So, I call another guy and he tells me he has to be out of town a couple of days. A week later and nothing. I call him and he tells me, "Oh, you're the one who lives on such and such road". YA!!! I called him this morning and he was supposed to be here shortly after noon. It's almost 6pm and nothing. Very frustrating. I guess the economy isn't as bad as they say in the news because people can just blow off jobs!
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