Wednesday was the day I had scheduled to have the ceiling in the dinning room
fixed. It has a hole in it from where the plumber went in to fix the bath tub
drain that I so nicely put a hole in.
It took me a long time to get around to doing it. I’m not exactly sure why. Part of it was they only had 8-12 or 12-4 windows for when the guy would show up. I didn’t want to take the day off to have the work done. So I had to figure out what the best time would be to have someone come. I decided that the early slot would only work if you could guarantee the person would show up early. The job isn’t all that big but it would probably take a couple of hours to do. It includes painting as well. If the guy showed up at noon, best case scenario is I'm leaving my house around 2 and getting to work around 3. Not the best alternative
I took the later time. I figured I could get into work really really early and leave around 10:30 or so. That way I’d work for half a day and actually get some things done. I ended up arriving at work at 6:20 am. It is a good thing I did come in that early because there was a major melt down on the Metro yesterday morning. In fact I had to stand for a large part of the way home on the Metro. At 10:30 in the morning trains should be pretty empty that was not the case.
I got home around 11:30. So now all I had to do was wait for them to show up. I never know exactly what to do while I’m waiting. I never know if they will call me on my cell or home number (turns out they called me on my cell). I don’t feel real comfortable doing something in the basement or doing something loud like say vacuuming or cleaning the bath tub because I’m afraid I’ll miss the call telling me when they’ll be arriving. I assume they would try more than once or leave a message but you never know.
I ended up doing a little cleaning around the house. Going through some newspapers and old mail. Also doing a little clean up on my computer hard drive. Played around with they guys some. They were surprised to see me home. Linus was visibly startled one of the times he came downstairs as if to say why are you here. I had a light lunch. Cleaned a little more. Then took a nap with Charlie and Linus joining me. Charlie on the sofa near me and Linus napping underneath the coffee table.
I woke up at 3:30. No call from Michael and Son. Then it occurred to me that maybe they tried to call me at work. I called in and found that I had no messages. It then crossed my mind that there was a good possibility that no one was going to show up at all.
At about 3:50 I got a call from Michael and Son. It wasn’t from the person who was going to do the repair. It was their main office. They said that the person who was supposed to be coming to my house was stuck on another job.They had another person in Baltimore but it would take an hour to get to my house. I thought in the best of circumstances it would take an hour to get from Baltimore to my house. During rush hour much longer.
It took me a long time to get around to doing it. I’m not exactly sure why. Part of it was they only had 8-12 or 12-4 windows for when the guy would show up. I didn’t want to take the day off to have the work done. So I had to figure out what the best time would be to have someone come. I decided that the early slot would only work if you could guarantee the person would show up early. The job isn’t all that big but it would probably take a couple of hours to do. It includes painting as well. If the guy showed up at noon, best case scenario is I'm leaving my house around 2 and getting to work around 3. Not the best alternative
I took the later time. I figured I could get into work really really early and leave around 10:30 or so. That way I’d work for half a day and actually get some things done. I ended up arriving at work at 6:20 am. It is a good thing I did come in that early because there was a major melt down on the Metro yesterday morning. In fact I had to stand for a large part of the way home on the Metro. At 10:30 in the morning trains should be pretty empty that was not the case.
I got home around 11:30. So now all I had to do was wait for them to show up. I never know exactly what to do while I’m waiting. I never know if they will call me on my cell or home number (turns out they called me on my cell). I don’t feel real comfortable doing something in the basement or doing something loud like say vacuuming or cleaning the bath tub because I’m afraid I’ll miss the call telling me when they’ll be arriving. I assume they would try more than once or leave a message but you never know.
I ended up doing a little cleaning around the house. Going through some newspapers and old mail. Also doing a little clean up on my computer hard drive. Played around with they guys some. They were surprised to see me home. Linus was visibly startled one of the times he came downstairs as if to say why are you here. I had a light lunch. Cleaned a little more. Then took a nap with Charlie and Linus joining me. Charlie on the sofa near me and Linus napping underneath the coffee table.
I woke up at 3:30. No call from Michael and Son. Then it occurred to me that maybe they tried to call me at work. I called in and found that I had no messages. It then crossed my mind that there was a good possibility that no one was going to show up at all.
At about 3:50 I got a call from Michael and Son. It wasn’t from the person who was going to do the repair. It was their main office. They said that the person who was supposed to be coming to my house was stuck on another job.They had another person in Baltimore but it would take an hour to get to my house. I thought in the best of circumstances it would take an hour to get from Baltimore to my house. During rush hour much longer.
I was to say the least not pleased. Yes, I was angry that the hole was not going to get fixed. But what I was really angry about was the fact I was being informed of this at ten minutes to four at the very edge of the time window when someone was supposed to show up.
I realize jobs can run long. Something that looked simply and easy turns out to neither of those. We have all run into that as one time or another. But if that was the case then I should have been told much earlier. Surely by 3 it must have become obvious that the contractor was not going to get to my house by 4. He should have called the office and said that. Then the office should have called me and said he's running late and he might not make it in time. We'll be back in touch before 4 to let you know how things are going. I would have been disappointed that he wasn't coming but would understand it. But getting the call that late well there is no excuse for that.
I was told that, although they don't usually work on Saturday, they could send someone out this Saturday. I said I couldn't do that because I had appointments (I'm taking my car to have the air conditioning fixed good thing to since this weekend could be the two hottest days of the year).
The bottom line is they will be coming next Saturday. They should be there first thing in the 8-12 window. And they better be on time too. It's not like the hole is going anywhere or causing any problems if it was I would have been really mad. But, once again, I have to arrange my schedule around someone coming out to fix it. I was also promised some sort of a discount and I thought damn right but I didn't ask how much it would be.
And that's what happens when the contractor doesn't show. Sigh.
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