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July's theme:Meet my unreasonable demands before I refuse to pay!

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  • July's theme:Meet my unreasonable demands before I refuse to pay!

    We started a job June 2. June 4th the customer asked to put us off for 'a few days' because he had to get a few other things done before we finished our work. No problem. The salesman kept calling and asking if he was ready for us to come back until finally, Thursday July 10th he said yes, he was ready, could we come back. Dispatch shuffled some things, pulled some strings and got me and another guy there the 11th. The customer showed up while we were taking break, berated us for 'taking so long', complained that we hadn't showed up the day before (like we were all sitting at the shop waiting for the call so we could go there at 1 in the afternoon), complained that there was only two of us, and accused us of holding him up. We worked our asses off all day, skipped lunch and our other break, and stayed later than we should have. Only two of us were free to go back Monday, again we skipped all our breaks and lunch, and worked our butts off. Tuesday dispatch had been able to arrange things better, and I got seven guys for the day. I worked them like rented mules, most of them skipped there breaks, and we managed to finish. I was so proud of the guys, we cut about 25 hours off the projected labour costs for the job, I thought the customer would be happy that we'd finished so fast.

    He called today, he won't pay the bill until we reduce it by $1600 because 'we held him up, we were so slow'. Bite me.


    Another customer called today, complaining about the job we did for him last week. He has had complaints before, but this one was the worst. Before I left the house I asked him to come look everything over, knowing what he's like, and he said he was happy. When we are finished the job we stick a warranty card, we asked the customer where he wanted it, suggested it be somewhere fairly permanent. The customer asked us to put it on the hot water tank. Now he wants to backcharge us a new hot water tank, because the sticker didn't come all the way off when he tried to peel it, and the homeowner could see the sticky. I get to go back tomorrow and try to clean sticky of the hot water tank, we found out that none of the homeowners have gotten their warranty cards in his houses because he peels them off of things, and even with the stupidity and extra trip he still wants to pay us less. (He's also fired as a customer but he won't find that out until he tries to book us for his next house, we want the check for this one first).


    The last customer was being extremely paranoid about us going through what I can only assume was his grow-room from the amount of times he told us we MUST NOT go in there. We did almost everything on the quote, it took us twice as long as it should have because we had to keep going around the outside of the house to the other side, because we couldn't access the room in between the ones we were working in, it cost us in materials, and we couldn't finish the last tiny bit because we couldn't access that room. They just invoiced him 95% of the quote, to get some money for what we did. He sent a check for 50% of the invoice, complained that he shouldn't pay us at all, that we didn't finish, and we didn't 'respect his space'. WTF.

    By 5:30 today I officially flinch every time the phone rings and I see it's the boss calling, I'm so worried about who is complaining about me now, and why. I've had more complaints in the last 2 weeks than I've had in the last two years, and I'm not happy about it. Fortunately the boss is still on my side, he just says I've had a run of assholes and not to worry about it, it happens.
    Pain and suffering are inevitable...misery is optional.

  • #2
    Sounds like you have a pretty great boss!
    "Ignorance is no excuse for a law."
    .................................................. ..................- Alfred E. Newman

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    • #3
      To remove the warranty card, use Citrus Magic air freshener spray. Dissolves the sticky and leave a nice, fresh orange scent. The bookstore that The Wife use to work at used it to remove labels from books. Caution: It will melt plastic.
      Life is too short to not eat popcorn.
      Save the Ales!
      Toys for Tots at Rooster's Cafe

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      • #4
        Did I read that right? Customer thinks he's entitled to a new hot water tank because he couldn't peel a sticker off??? WTF?
        When you start at zero, everything's progress.

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        • #5
          Quoth MoonCat View Post
          Did I read that right? Customer thinks he's entitled to a new hot water tank because he couldn't peel a sticker off??? WTF?
          Not only that, but unless I'm misunderstanding, the sticker isn't there for his benefit, it's for the homeowner's benefit. Makes you wonder why he doesn't want the homeowners to see it.

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          • #6
            "Poor planning on your part does not equate to a cost-reduction on mine..."

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            • #7
              What a bunch of cheap losers! Hope your boss gets his money, then permabans all these cretins!

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              • #8
                Yes the customer wants a new hot water tank because of a sticker he can't get off all the way, and yes the sticker is supposed to be there for the homeowners benefit (our customer is the contractor, his customer is the homeowner). We've done a couple dozen houses for him and we just found out that none of his homeowners have gotten their warranty information. I don't know why he doesn't want them to have it either.

                My boss is pretty cool, he treats us like family. As in he can yell and scream and have a tantrum at us all he wants, but nobody else can say a bad word about us, he'll back us all the way. Like a bit of a dysfunctional family, but still, like family.
                Pain and suffering are inevitable...misery is optional.

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                • #9
                  Quoth NecessaryCatharsis View Post
                  We've done a couple dozen houses for him and we just found out that none of his homeowners have gotten their warranty information. I don't know why he doesn't want them to have it either.
                  maybe he's claiming "other company" did the work, or that he himself did it(pathological liar)?
                  Honestly.... the image of that in my head made me go "AWESOME!"..... and then I remembered I am terribly strange.-Red dazes

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                  • #10
                    a possible reason

                    Quoth NecessaryCatharsis View Post
                    Yes the customer wants a new hot water tank because of a sticker he can't get off all the way, and yes the sticker is supposed to be there for the homeowners benefit (our customer is the contractor, his customer is the homeowner). We've done a couple dozen houses for him and we just found out that none of his homeowners have gotten their warranty information. I don't know why he doesn't want them to have it either.
                    Assuming the warranty card contains contact info for the installers, he maybe lying to the homeowners about how much the water-heaters (costs/warranty terms) to bump up his price when he sells.

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                    • #11
                      Wow, they sound like complete and utter arseholes! And OMG a sticker on the hot water tank? OH NOES!!!! THE END IS NIGH! THE END IS NIGH!!!

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                      • #12
                        The irony about the whole sticker on the hot water heater is that that is exactly where Asshole Contractor told the workers to put the damn sticker.

                        I can only assume he's hiding the warranty information from the homeowners so that, if something goes wrong, he can charge them for something that is actually supposed to be under warranty, thus padding his pocket.

                        Slimy little shit, this one.

                        "The Customer Is Always Right...But The Bartender Decides Who Is
                        Still A Customer."

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                        • #13
                          That first story, about the delays... I hate that. ! I worked in the office of a roofing company for a few years, and we had a contractor who would do this. They'd demand we start on a certain day, then put us off because the siders had to finish, or whoever. Then they'd call and say, oh, start tomorrow, and we'd tell them we started another job and they acted like the whole delay was our fault. We now ask that they sign "delay orders" and if they pull the it's your fault card, we email all the signed copies to them. Very useful to have in writing, as this has dragged out for months before.

                          Having a boss that backs you makes all the difference, at least you have that.
                          Replace anger management with stupidity management.

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                          • #14
                            Or, he tells them that the house has X non-visible feature, when it really doesn't? Warranty card might state differently and he's getting rid of the evidence.

                            Actually, I'm going with he's telling them his company did the job from top to bottom, so the home owners can't contact the real company if they want more work done!
                            If I make no sense, I apologize. I'm constantly interrupted by an actual toddler.

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                            • #15
                              I think your company should send new warranty cards to all of the homeowners of the houses you worked on. ��

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