I’m tired of dealing with people

[MickintheHam]

Is it me? I hope not. I repeatedly call my window washer. I had one call back which I missed and no more returned calls. I called my plumber to get them to come clean out the roots in the sewer pipe. 2 days and no call back. I'm using this guy because the plumber I’ve used for over a decade wouldn’t call back after repeated calls. Sound bar on tv will not turn on. Called the guy who sold it and installed it for suggestions on activating it. 3 days and waiting. Contractor I’ve been working with called me last Thursday to apologize for not getting back with me on a cost estimate. He blamed delay on sub. Promised a number to be delivered over a week ago. No response. There are two more service providers who wont return a call.

I have done business with all of these people in the past and they have delivered very satisfactory service. I realize with the pandemic some of these people are doing more business than ever. But why won’t they show the courtesy to respond to a call or email? Are others experiencing this situation? To say it is driving me crazy is an under statement.

[dan_bgblue]

Having had a career that required excellent service or failure would ensue, I can not understand your predicament even if they all are swamped with new business a 5 minute phone call costs them little, and potentially provides them a lot in both the short and the long run.

[Darrell KSR]

Mick, the pandemic isn't an excuse for them not to just tell you that they have a larger workload than usual, but that they can do your requested work on (whatever date).

To paraphrase an old saying, adverse conditions don't create bad character, they reveal them. Or maybe it's not adverse conditions for them, but great conditions and busy. Either way...

And no, you are not the only one. I have a small question to my banker that has gone ignored since Wednesday. Maybe he's out, but it literally would take 2 minutes to return my message. It's literally about a random $10 charge on an account that is probably valid, but I just want an answer. Even a bad answer.

[CitizenBBN]

I guess I'll defend them, since I are one. lol.

And I have an HVAC guy I'm done with for the same reason, missed multiple appointments for work, never returned calls, etc., and we've worked with him for years, but it was too much.

But.....

First, contractors are spread as thin as they can be this year. even good ones are not keeping up, and frankly they are contractors in part b/c they don't want to punch a clock on an assembly line, and that's just part of the gig. they get tired too. If they just spent the day up in an attic putting in a HVAC system I get why they don't get home and start making calls. They're tired, hungry, dirty. They want a shower and some downtime. When they're out on a job they don't take much time to check emails.

Second, I get the not calling back thing b/c at any point in time I have about 20-30 call backs and emails on my desk. I do try, but to tell the truth I rarely get any actual work done during office hours due to having to answer all of those "2 minute" calls that are really more like 10-20 minutes by the time I look it up, get the proper information in front of me, make the call, have the conversation.

When you get nothing but constant interruption with those things it's hard to get to them all, and if you do that and never get to the critical work it's also not necessarily what you should be doing. When I finally get the staff out the door at 6 or so, it's hard to go "OK, let's get on the phone for 2 hours!!!". It's more like "let's clean up the mess left by the day and try to concentrate for a while on this appraisal that is due."

And I'm bad about it. I need to be better. I couldn't agree more. but here I am at my gallery at 8 pm, having been here on my only "day off", for half of the day trying to catch up. I'm betting those guys are putting in a lot of longer hours too.

And yes Covid has caused us issues with scheduling and staffing, as it has with everyone, and my office manager retired this year and left most of her pile of work back on my desk and with Covid going on no I haven't hired anyone else for the job. I need to delegate more, and I do some, for me that's a key, but I am short staffed.

But these contractors for sure don't have that kind of staffing, so I'm a lot more like them right now, with more on my list than I can get to all day.

There are limits, like I said I'm done with my HVAC guy b/c of multiple instances of leaving me and my crew hanging after scheduling a time to do work.

And you aren't alone, people get frustrated with me for that same reason I don't want it to be that way, but the way I look at it is if the person in question is working hard, and works hard for you when they are working for you, then they're a good person, and they need a break.

I share the frustration, but color me as also pretty understanding. My glass house would break if I started throwing rocks, and I have more help than most of those guys. Not enough, but more than they have.

Sometimes you work really hard and just can't keep up, and you're doing your best and it never seems like it's enough.

When you're looking in from outside those quick little calls seem easy, but when you're looking up from the hole feeling like someone is shoveling the dirt in on you, it's not as easy as it looks to add all those, albeit smallish, interruptions to your day.

[kingcat]

Is it me? I hope not. I repeatedly call my window washer. I had one call back which I missed and no more returned calls. I called my plumber to get them to come clean out the roots in the sewer pipe. 2 days and no call back. I'm using this guy because the plumber I’ve used for over a decade wouldn’t call back after repeated calls. Sound bar on tv will not turn on. Called the guy who sold it and installed it for suggestions on activating it. 3 days and waiting. Contractor I’ve been working with called me last Thursday to apologize for not getting back with me on a cost estimate. He blamed delay on sub. Promised a number to be delivered over a week ago. No response. There are two more service providers who wont return a call.

I have done business with all of these people in the past and they have delivered very satisfactory service. I realize with the pandemic some of these people are doing more business than ever. But why won’t they show the courtesy to respond to a call or email? Are others experiencing this situation? To say it is driving me crazy is an under statement.

Well I'll tell you exactly what I'd do! ..but I am swamped right now.

I'll get back with you on that.

[MickintheHam]

Well I'll tell you exactly what I'd do! ..but I am swamped right now.

I'll get back with you on that.

jerk!

[kingcat]

jerk!

[bigsky]

Not sure where kingcat got that picture of me...


Also, there is a reason legal and illegal aliens get hired before 'murcans. In general, they have a "row well, and live" attitude. It's not a work ethic. That is for wealthy Presbyterians. It is the result of a life where if you don't work, you don't eat. I watched an interview, probably many of you did, with a man who grew up on a farm in eastern Iowa. He said, "we worked from sunrise to sundown because if we didn't, we couldn't survive." I learned that on the oil rigs where I earned about $400 a day in the early 1980s but the saying was, "Can't git 'er? Can't stay." Pick that up and carry it over there or your fired. This led to a lot of dangerous physical work on my part. Still to this day, "git 'er done" is in my vernacular.

[Darrell KSR]

This led to a lot of dangerous physical work on my part. Still to this day, "git 'er done" is in my vernacular.

As an 18-20 year old, I worked in a department store warehouse. Some of you may remember the old "Service Merchandise" stores. This was a knockoff of 3 chain stores in my area ("Geneva's, named after the owner's wife). The main area of the store was simply a showcase. Customers would select what they wanted, and a purchasing slip would be sent to the warehouse to retrieve the merchandise from stock and place it on a conveyor belt to be sent up front where they would check out.

During Christmas season, needless to say, it was extremely busy. We had one ladder in the warehouse that went to the top of 20-feet high large bins. The ladder (similar to the ones you may see in Home Depot or Lowe's these days) was on wheels.

We had no time to do a good job if we had to go from one end of the warehouse to the other to constantly retrieve the ladder so we could secure merchandise on the top shelf of a bin. Instead, we climbed the bin from the edge, grabbed the product, and then shimmied down one-armed with the merchandise in the other arm, 20-feet away from a concrete floor.

It is a miracle that nobody ever fell. If I told you I was "running" for each order, that would not do it justice.

But you didn't think about anything else. That was your job. You just did it.

I got the only Christmas bonus in the warehouse one year. They called me in to give it to me.

$25 check. Less, with taxes withheld, of course.

Have a lot of fun stories about that. They "promoted" me so that I drove the horse trailer between the main warehouse and the three stores. It was under lock and key. They determined that it was not good internal control to have the driver of the horse trailer have the key to the lock, so they took it away from me.

One day I was leaving the main warehouse in the old 3-on-the-column pickup truck with the horse trailer, and the owner stopped me. He was 80 if he was a day, but remained active. He decided he would weld the back of the horse trailer (with the merchandise in it). So he did, in the middle of the parking lot. He then sent me on my way.

Before I got out of the parking lot, flames were erupting inside the horse trailer. All of the merchandise was going up in flames. They came running to me asking me for the key, and I reminded them that they had taken it away from me the prior week, but the manager of the warehouse had it. By the time they got it from him, thousands of dollars of merchandise was ruined. They said, "internal control be damned, you're going to have a key on you from now on."

Apologies for the sideline of the topic...

[Catfan73]

Now that’s got me laughing! Hahahahah

[CitizenBBN]

Been trying to remember the "Service Merchandise" name for months. There was one here on New Circle, couldn't remember the name of it for my life. Remembered the conveyor belt,how they did things, but not the name.

[bigsky]

I liked their catalog. Really did have strong quality not available elsewhere. I think they were “Best Products”? Still have a thing or two I bought there.

[KSRBEvans]

I applied for a job with Service Merchandise in their legal department. I had a lot of friends in Nashville and it was just an hour from Bowling Green, where I was living at the time. I was very disappointed when I didn't get the job--got an offer in Louisville, instead. Took it but wasn't enthused about living in Louisville--at all. 25 years later, we're still here and really like it. And Service Merchandise filed for bankruptcy like 2 years later. So thank goodness for unanswered prayers.

Back to the topic: one of my pet peeves is wanting to give someone my good money and no one wants to take it. I go to a store and I'm ready to buy a big item, and no one offers to help. Or we call to get bids on a project, and instead of saying they're too busy it's like pushing a wet noodle up a wall to get them to come out and look at the job. Ugh.

[KentuckyWildcat]

Contractors are just horrible these days. I've called some I trust, some I don't, family, life long friends, and random people. None are dependable. I was talking to one that finally came out a while back. He said it is not intentional. It is just that they have more work than they can get done. Either because of demand or lack of getting good help.

[MickintheHam]

Update! I got a text message @10:45 pm Sunday night from the guy who did the TV work. He apologized and gave me his personal phone number to text and said he would walk me through what to do. I am happy. This guy did outstanding work when he set up the audio/video in my bar last Christmas. He even made a recommendation on a sound bar that has amazing clarity. I have recommended him to a bunch of people.

As I said, what had me most upset was that all these people had done very satisfactory work for me in the past and I was pleased.

And yeah I finally figured out the problem on my soundbar. It was a loose connection.