Excuses, Excuses...

There must be a book out there called "101 Excuses for Contractors" because they seem to be using the same excuses for when they don't show up to work.  We've been lucky to have met and worked with some very trustworthy, hard working and honest people.  Two so far, have not been very pleasant to work with.  In particular, the drain and concrete guy caused us a 3-week delay.  When he did show up to do the work, he did a very good job so we continue to put up with him.  These are some of the excuses that he gave us:

1. My truck broke down.
2. I hit my hand with a hammer.
3. A family member is in the hospital.
4. I've got some personal problems that I have to deal with.
5. My wife wants to leave me.

I wanted to tell him that we want to leave you too but we just want you to finish the job!  In the end, when Scott called him to tell him that we were firing him, he asked for another chance.  We had given him another chance when he gave us Excuse #2, 3, and 4 and it was time we put our foot down and cut him off.  We have not seen him since that day.  I'm beginning to think that he really did have real personal problems because he never came back to get his wheelbarrow and shovels.

The second contractor with excuses is the masonary.  He doesn't actually do the work but contracts it out so we have to deal with him.  Most of the time, these guys will take many jobs at the time but they don't have the manpower to handle the many jobs so they have to juggle them all.  We are on a time crunch so when his masonaries don't show up, we got our project manager to call to find out why whey were not there.  These are some of his excuses:

1. I thought it was going to rain so I told the guys to stay home.
2. The guys had to go for safety training.
3. One of my guys had a doctor's appointment and they can't work without him.
4. Someone stole their hammer.
5. They went out for lunch and didn't come back.

We know that's a lie because his workers never go out for lunch.  They always bring their lunch and they've even made themselves a makeshift kitchen in our hallway.  Take a look for yourself:

A table and three chairs:

Again, these guys do very good work when they are here at the site so we put up with them.  We figured that we only have to deal with them for a short time longer and will not have to see them again.  It is too bad because we would never refer them to anyone and that is the best form of advertisement that he has lost.