In a past blog, I went on a short rant about some of the pitfalls of dealing with customers when you work in the trades. It's usually the standard stuff, like telling us how to do our job, or asking for free work. Every once in a while, though, a very special kind of terrible customer will rear their ugly head. The kind that are so entitled or clueless, that you might only encounter 1 or 2 throughout your whole career. For instance, I once was scheduled to work in a house so dirty, and the carpet so worn out, that the people living there had spread straw on the living room floor. There was also a small colony of cockroaches living in their kitchen. Needless to say, I cancelled the job, and immediately went home and showered. Which reminds me of another customer who waited until we showed up at her house to start work, to tell us that she was dealing with an active bed bug infestation. Then got an attitude with me when I refused to enter her house, or let my crew enter (full disclosure: my crew is one other guy, I'm not a big deal 😆).
Then there's the type, that are still rare, but you might run into them once or twice a year, instead of once or twice in a career. This is the type that will wait until we are done, or almost done with a job, to tell us that they don't like their floor. We actually just had one of those a couple weeks ago. There's nothing we can do at that point, but it makes the remainder of the time spent in the house super awkward. This week, we had a situation that I'm sure will fall into the "once in a lifetime" category. I live in Northeast Ohio, and Sunday night into Monday, we got around 2 feet of snow, with drifts much deeper. Everything was shut down on Monday, all jobs cancelled, because no-one could get anywhere. I personally spent 5+ hours digging out myself and my neighbors. I was still stuck come Tuesday morning, and after sliding into my house with my work van twice, I had to have my boss come to pull me out. Then, we were on our way to the customer's house. When we got there, we couldn't get into their driveway!
They hadn't cleared the end of it, and the snow plows had only made it worse. So I ended up getting the van stuck, again. Luckily, I had 3 other guys with me, and we were able to finally dig/push the van free. But when I knocked on the customer's door and told them we couldn't get in the drive, they had the balls to hand me 2 snow shovels and go back inside, without saying a word. They expected me and my guys to shovel their fucking driveway for them. Again, I called the manager of the company we subcontract for, and cancelled the job on the spot. I just can't believe the sense of entitlement some people have nowadays. Sorry for another work rant, I envisioned myself posting light-hearted, funny blogs on this site, for anyone who cares to read them, but it's been a tough start to the year 🤷♂️.
