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.
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.
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