Dean called last Tuesday to say he was on a deadline for another job and really couldn't get here until Friday. What is this 'deadline' he speaks of -- and where do we find the line to get one of our own?
Since October of 2006 we have heard about other peoples' deadlines... other peoples' wishes and demands... We couldn't get any work done on our kitchen for two weeks in November because another client wanted their kitchen completed in time for Thanksgiving -- as if we didn't. Apparently a lot of other people also wanted their homes finished before they celebrated Christmas as well. Some other family bumped us off the schedule for painting a couple of months ago when they asked that their bedroom be complete by a particular weekend cause they were ready to move in their furniture. Hmm.. We just moved our furniture into the unfinished room. Silly us.
I guess of all the excuses involving other people who are apparently less capable of living in an unfinished house than us - one in particular truly got under my skin. Maybe it was the frequency with which their name was repeated.. perhaps it was the tone... But, sadly enough through only the fault of various laborers who worked on their home while breaking promises to us -- I have almost begun to dislike these people I have never met.
It began with the usual excuses: A truck broke down. Someone smashed a thumb. They lost our phone number. But when the workforce did finally show up at our house, they arrived with stories of the grand house on the beach rather than stories of fixing a flat or spending the day in the emergency room. Then, as I bit my tongue over bits of sloppy or careless work and tried to be kind and forgiving, I'd be answered with things like "They would never let anybody get away with that on that house on the beach... That's a million dollar house down there." (Yes, Bubba.. And my house could be too if not for your bungling....)
Eventually, one of the guys even brought a magazine over with a photo shoot of the perfectly-finished house on the beach and boasted, "We did that." Yes... They did that... Two months after we hired them and while our house is still sitting incomplete. How uplifting.
One long afternoon while I was trying to remain composed despite what was being left to serve as a tub surround (this is before anyone even seemed receptive to the idea of actually finishing the edges of the surround) the tile guy's assistant decided to get chatty. After a good twenty minutes of yammering on about how very rich the people in the house on the beach must be he said, "That woman down there though... she'd sooner let her dogs sit on the furniture than us. They treat us like we're way beneath them."
So there it is. Maybe if I adopted such an attitude those particular guys would have begged and scraped and lied to please us too? And they would have started our fan club -- wasting countless hours prattling on about my gorgeous home and stylish improvement choices?
I'll never know for sure if it would work though. It's just not me. Besides -- I have no intention of ever hiring anyone from that crew for anything ever again. So I guess we'll never know.
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Having said all that -- it is important to note that today is Monday, April 23rd... And we have no cabinet doors.
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