I hired a contractor (a couple of weeks ago) to paint my other house and do kitchen remodeling. We had set the date for him to start on Monday 16th Oct @ 9 am.

Monday 9 am: Went over to my other house to wait for contractor

9.30 am: Waiting

10.00 am: Still waiting

10.35 am: (fuming) I called the contractor. He says, “didn’t you get my email I sent a half hour ago?…”

me: No, I have been waiting in this house since 9 am as planned and as you know there is no computer, telephone hookup etc.. You knew that, you should have called me on my cell phone AND much earlier too!

contractor: oh… (long pause) … well, my email said that I’ll be delayed a few days because of another job.

It is not the fact that the job is delayed that irritates me – it is that he waited all this time to tell me that the job is going to be delayed… an hour and a half AFTER he was scheduled to do the job. He didn’t even have the courtesy to call me before or during the weekend. I have now wasted setting aside a whole day for nothing and yet another day has to be set aside to wait for him. Thinking back now, I don’t think he even apologized.

This is the first time I have had any experience with this contractor. I am crossing my fingers that all goes well and it won’t turn out to be a nightmare. If it does make me feel a little better, he did come with good references.