Contractor hell

A short post today, necessitated by a lack of time, time I put into dealing with a difficult contractor. In brief, we hired a fellow we've used before to lay a vinyl floor in our kitchen and entrance hall. And we hit the trifecta: the job was late, it was severely underestimated, and the quality ended up being far below any possible standard.

We had a rather contentious meeting with him today, one which ended with him storming out of the house like a petulant teenager, threatening to call an attorney.

Without going into the details of the job any further, here's my larger question: Is there really no attempt to please the customer any more? Companies sell computers that don't work, then they sell customer service to get their product functional...and they're doing you a big favor if they let you pay extra to talk to someone who speaks English.

With this guy, every time we brought something up, he'd put on this little dismissive laugh, as if things like poorly cut edges or a hole in the floor were humorous matters that had nothing to do with him. It's as if he was doing us a big favor for doing a job that, clearly, he didn't have the chops to perform. (Had he just said that, we would have gone in a different direction with no prejudice, because he has done some other things reasonably well in the past. He even admitted, but only today, that we really couldn't expect a professional job from him on this.)

So this post is a rare personal vent, I suppose. But that's about all I've got for you today - maybe you can read some of my older posts if you're looking for the usual sharp and incisive commentary.