What would you do? Off topic vent!!

LemonMarmalade

Man am I frustrated!! My husband and I hired a local painter to paint our living room, hallway and dining room. He has done good work for us before, painting the outside of the house and a couple other rooms inside. They may not always right on time but within an hour of the agreed upon time. Anyway....He was supposed to show up Tuesday at 9 a.m. but my husband had to call him at 10:30 a.m. He said he would be here in 30 minutes. An hour and a half later he shows up. My husband reminds him we had set a time. He is not confrontational just "hey, when you say you will be here at a certain time please do it. My wife is unhappy with waiting for someone without a phone call." So he comes in does a little caulk and spackle, complains about his family and leaves saying he would be back the next day at 11 as my son had an appointment. Well he again, never showed and never bothered to call.

I am at the point where barring any serious incidents having occurred in the last 24 hours to him or his family, he is fired and I will do the painting myself or find someone else. My husband wants to talk to him again. I don't think it would do any good. (We aren't arguing about it by the way! I will do what he wants but the deal is HE deals with the guy if we go through with keeping him. Lol)

What would you do?

KarlaYP

My opinion is he has serious family issues, or he is on drugs. Fire him yesterday! There are other options of painters who will show up, and do the work!

Carnivorekat

It sounds like my ex husband ? he could be a heavy drinker or on drugs it definitely sounds like he is more interested in something else other than doing the job he is supposed to be doing - if it were me I would fire him and find someone more reliable

genmon00

I would definitely let him go. I have zero tolerance for professionals who do do not honor time commitments. Especially when it requires them to be in your personal home and take up your time! I agree he must have some very serious problems to neglect his bread and butter (work). My parents had a similar situation last year with a man they hired to tile their very small restroom, it took.him almost 2 weeks! And that was with my stepfather helping him! Come to find out he had SIX other houses he was working on and never bothered to let my parents know that it would take him a month to complete the restroom. He was just greedy. Smh!

tcunbeliever

Does it even matter if he had a serious family incident? He could still pick up the phone and let you know he will not be coming, that's just common courtesy.

I would not continue to hire him. If your husband insists on continuing to use him for this project, then I would definitely make him handle meeting with the guy, and I would encourage him to negotiate a price based on a completion date - so maybe a bonus if it's done by 5pm on Saturday, and a discount if it takes past 5pm on Monday or something of that nature.

The problem is if he's this unprofessional about even showing up for work, you can't really expect him to handle payment, etc in a professional manner, can you?

bametels

Having run into similar issues with workmen twice, my new motto is "one strike you're out"! Emergencies come up but if they do, it's up to the contractor to let you know there's a problem in meeting set appointments and/or completing the job by the agreed upon timeline. If you can come to a mutually agreeable change of timeline, great. However, if they don't come to you to discuss the issue or you can't come to an agreement on a new timeline, then it's time to find a new contractor.

canadjineh

Fire him. My husband runs a service oriented business as well, and it is a VERY COMMON thing in the construction trades for contractors to take on waaaay too many projects at once and spend just enough time at each of them to avoid being fired. Also it is common for many of them to have drug & alcohol issues or just bad work ethics. Lots of them think, "Meh, whatever.... I'll just get another job somewhere else."
A contractor should always call his client when there is an issue with his arrival on time or even having to leave a job early. Even in case of a serious family emergency ie. a vehicle accident or trip to hospital, he should call as soon as physically possible.