Forum Overview :: Pac-Man :: They are fucking terrible out here, Roop

[quote name="Ice Cream Jonsey"][quote name="Roop"]I always shut the fucking door! Actually, I'm the guy they call when they've <i>fucked up</i> the door and can't figure out how to close it. The only reason I even exist is because the cubicle workers cannot do something. Isn't it like that in all fields with independent contractors? I'm the professional one. I always saw myself as kind of like Harvey Keitel in Pulp Fiction only if he drove a Ford Focus. Anyway, I don't know where the hell you guys are finding your trade guys. I've not had those kind of problems over they years, but I'm friends with this building inspector who always know the right guy to call, then I'd name drop. He once even suggested I try this black market plumber, a guy not licensed not bonded not insured. But see a guy like that gets motivated to do superior work so he's never busted. Or just suck it up and hire union and pay out the ass.[/quote] So, I don't want to beleaguer your industry. I had an electrician ignore what side of a wall we wanted him to cut into. He cut into the one we just drywalled and painted. Then he wouldn't believe my wife when she told him we didn't have an attic and he drilled a hole in the roof. We had a different electrician who couldn't install a ceiling fan without it making that killyourself.mp3 rattling sound at night. (We asked him to install more power so I could run the games downstairs at the old house and he pulled the "bid low and ask for more money" trick.) We had a guy install a tiled floor in one bathroom unevenly, basically tiling the goddamn pool of radiance in terms of how much it dipper and then we had a different guy install the sink my wife liked in that room and he did it so it was <i>flush with the back of the wall</i> meaning the two front legs hovered over the ground like fucking Magneto. And that guy got angry when we told him it wasn't good enough and demanded he come back and fucking fix it. We had a team of people ask where to install the air conditioning unit then ignore us and drop it off outside wherever the fuck they wanted to on a cement block. (Keeping in mind - you either have to be home to chase them, god forbid both spouses go to work and they pull shit like that.) Had one set of contractors who were really sweet guys, who did amazing work... but took 2.5 years to do the kitchen. They finished the day before we listed the house*. Had some Russians steal a deck of cards(!!!) from me. I won't bother getting into when we tried to use maid services, every single one does a great job for the first 45 days and after that they start missing their appointments (awesome, animals love being cooped up for an extra day for no reason) doing a shittier job, cutting corners, hoping I feel bad for them (which I do) but my gal doesn't, then we get into an argument about how and when we should fire them or talk to them or what. I realize this one is kind of a first world problem, but whatever, that's the world I live in. Had a plumber install a new sprinkler control box, he went to get the credit card form while it was sitting there leaking and dripping and then walked back to correct it when I pointed it out, but wouldn't have otherwise done so. Had a door and window place lie to our faces about grabbing some stone to do whatever you call ledge work with brick, they ripped out some wood for the bottom door jam and refused to add any sort of tile or whatnot to go from where the old wood was to the location of the door. I guess they thought they'd give me an extra door for free, a trap door. I don't even remember all the shit they fucked up (Casey Windows and Doors in Denver, they were such shits they "<a href="https://www.yelp.com/biz/casey-windows-and-doors-denver">closed</a>" and re-opened with the same phone numbers with a different name though at one point they CCed us on an email where they were back-slapping each other over what a great sale they made and then still cheaped the fuck out and cut every corner they could. And you read and post here, you can draw conclusions about me from this place I hope; I have been the dummy bringing them Gatorade and buying them lunch if I am home and being flexible and trying to act as the go between from my type A wife and the sub-carny huckers doing shitass work for no real reason. My dad started a business and sold cars after he retired from Kodak, I remember asking him once what he thought about car salesmen getting a bad rap. He snorted and listed off a bunch of professions - lawyer, politician, CEO, insurance adjuster etc. - that were just as bad. He never saw that side of it because who was going to sell him a lemon? He was taking cars apart when he was 8 years old in the 50s. I think you're dead on that you know an industry, you don't get screwed. I know computers and the times where I've tried to hire people to do work I can see if they are bullshitters or going to be sloppy or what. Hell, I got Tdarcos to write an application for me in Pascal a few years ago to generate the skeletons of rooms in a text adventure language and because I know that line of work was able to give him good requirements and he knocked it out of the park. In fact. IN FACT - Tdarcos did a better job programming for me than any contractor has literally ever done doing contract work for me. Not some weird coincidence, it's just that I know one industry and not the other. If you're like me and just refuse to spend the time to know enough about this, you get screwed financially and with the quality of work. I have found that there's no reason to be "nice" or kind or to act in any other way than constantly irritated. I get marginally better service if I look like at any moment I may unreasonably explode. But I have to pretend to be my dad going in to talk to them. That makes me feel bad because it's taken me a long time to stop yelling at people online (even though this is real life) and I prefer who I am to who I've been. But I gotta hire an electrician this winter if I want to run all the games in the garage in the new place and I'll have to put on a mask again. * We were never planning on selling the house because it was downtown but the constant projects it needed and the constant stress dealing with the contracting industry made us say screw it and sell it. I wouldn't have any sympathy for people who were purely flippers, but then again flippers probably know how to do all this stuff.[/quote]