I'm puzzled

[Night Elf]

In the past month, we've asked two companies for estimates for a large service project and neither company responded. We had someone fix our drywall in the garage and he said he'd email an estimate for repairing/replacing our deck and he never did. That would have been a decent sized project that he basically turned down. And now last week our air conditioner had to be replaced entirely and our regular maintenance company came out to do an estimate. He was supposed to call back with the actual estimate and he never called back. We had a different company do the work. So I guess the business in my area must be doing fairly well for us to encounter two separate companies turning down jobs. I just thought it was rude to say they'd call us and then not hear from them. We have a contract with the heating/AC people so I'm really not happy with them for not getting back to us.

[klmama]

I've seen that, too.  There are a lot of people who are great at their trades, but not very good with appointment details.  Why didn't you call the a/c company to ask about the estimate, since you already had a contract with them?   

[BlueTaelon]

Around here we'd call that "Elk hunting season".  Yes, the locals here actually consider that a valid reason to blow off people without notice. Its frustrating I know, my parents went through several people and finally had to hire a guy from out of state that doesn't hunt to build their stuff.

[Dandelion]

I remember another thread on this topic during the past year.  Based on the responses to that, it seems this is a very common problem in some areas.

 

We don't seem to have that problem here though.  We just had three different companies come out on Monday to give us estimates on some exterior painting.  My DH called them all on Friday or Saturday, they got back to him same day, and all showed up as promised on Monday. 

 

Hope you can find someone!

[Julie Smith]

I know my Mom use to complain that you needed to hire someone to hire someone to do jobs.

[Moxie]

Dave Ramsey says that if you bother to show up on time you're already better than 90% of the competition. Guess he's right.

[Scarlett]

My dh is back working full time in an office now--very glad because of his health.....but he has so much side work offered to him it is crazy. Everyone says It is so hard to find good / and help.

[Night Elf]

I've seen that, too.  There are a lot of people who are great at their trades, but not very good with appointment details.  Why didn't you call the a/c company to ask about the estimate, since you already had a contract with them?   

 

The other company we used was the person who did our heating/AC in our last house and we really liked him. We thought he gave a really good estimate. We felt it was up to the other company to respond since they said they would. When we didn't hear from them for two days, we went with the other guy. We never did get a call from our regular people. They were the ones to tell us our broken AC needed to be replaced in the first place. They had been doing patch jobs for the past two years and the system just finally went kaput.

[Catwoman]

My dh is back working full time in an office now--very glad because of his health.....but he has so much side work offered to him it is crazy. Everyone says It is so hard to find good / and help.

I'm glad he's back in an office, Scarlett -- it's probably much easier for him.

 

I'm not surprised that people want to hire him for side jobs, though. From everything you've posted about him, he sounds like a very nice guy who is also a very hard worker.

[Murphy101]

Yes. It's common and drives me nuts. Sometimes you literally cannot pay people to work. They just won't bother to even show up.

 

One of my boys recently got a job at a local grocery store. 200 applicants were in the room with him and he said most didn't even look like they bothered to shave or put on clean clothes. Of the 30 hired that day, TWO showed up for the first day of work. TWO. It's a good job that actually pays above minimum wage after the first 3 months. Has benefits, tho he won't be getting them. And they have been very happy to work with his school schedule and even some volunteering stuff he does. Heck. Thy gave him this weekend off work. This is a great job for many people I would think.

 

Another son does temp gigs for extra money around his too busy for a regular job school schedule. Several businesses around town have his name and number in their phones to call up when they need a job done. For example a local used bookstore had a huge two week tent sale clearance of books they needed temp staff to handle. They hired 12 people for it and my son and one other were the only ones to ever show up. Yay extra shifts for him.:) The owner was teasing me about giving him a hard time about being shy and trying to act normal when they all know he is home schooled. :) He is a good kid and nice and works hard and reliably.

 

I wanted my carpets shampooed several weeks back. It took me many weeks to find someone who actually showed up to do the job. What the heck. I'd call for a phone quote, schedule a day and they'd never show up. No call. Nada. Just not show up. Ugh!

 

I've been looking for a dog trainer since April. I have no idea how these places stay in business. They can't seem to get a schedule going to save their life. I'd ask when the next class starts and they couldn't tell me? Wth? How can you run a business and not know what your session schedule is NEXT month? And of course they'd never return emails or calls if people they said they would call with that info when they got it. Well actually that's not true. 2 of them did. Nearly two months later! We were doing okay without them, but I wanted my son and his dog to get more training from someone other than me bc my plate was full. But I ended up just having a fuller plate. Oh well. Saved us about $250-$400.

 

It's getting to the point that just showing up literally pays. Which I guess helps once someone makes it through the mob of applicants, but geez that's a pathetic statement about American initiative. And knowing it is like that is very frustrating for the applicants that are going to show up and work.

[Scarlett]

I'm glad he's back in an office, Scarlett -- it's probably much easier for him.

 

I'm not surprised that people want to hire him for side jobs, though. From everything you've posted about him, he sounds like a very nice guy who is also a very hard worker.

Yes he is awesome. He stayed up fixing my car until 2:00 a.m. Then got up at 6:00 to get to the office. He had plans with one of his brothers and 2 other friends to do some work ( the free kind) for his parents and he didn't want to leave me home without a car all weekend.

 

Our heat isn't working...I picked up the part yesterday and this morning he was out there before he left for work taking things apart.

[Moxie]

I used to be in HR for a huge factory. The factory workers had very nice pay, like 20 vacation days/year and lots of ways to miss days in case of emergency. It was a really sweet deal. But, there were always people who would use all their "emergency" days (always on a Friday) and then get fired when their car broke down and they had no emergency days left.

 

I figure being smart or talented is no longer required. Be willing to work and you'll be fine.

[Scarlett]

I used to be in HR for a huge factory. The factory workers had very nice pay, like 20 vacation days/year and lots of ways to miss days in case of emergency. It was a really sweet deal. But, there were always people who would use all their "emergency" days (always on a Friday) and then get fired when their car broke down and they had no emergency days left.

 

I figure being smart or talented is no longer required. Be willing to work and you'll be fine.

I know! It is crazy. I know of a guy who had a sweet work at home job who just got fired because he just wouldn't work. Seems he could only get about 20 hours a week in......

[Scarlett]

Yes. It's common and drives me nuts. Sometimes you literally cannot pay people to work. They just won't bother to even show up.

 

One of my boys recently got a job at a local grocery store. 200 applicants were in the room with him and he said most didn't even look like they bothered to shave or put on clean clothes. Of the 30 hired that day, TWO showed up for the first day of work. TWO. It's a good job that actually pays above minimum wage after the first 3 months. Has benefits, tho he won't be getting them. And they have been very happy to work with his school schedule and even some volunteering stuff he does. Heck. Thy gave him this weekend off work. This is a great job for many people I would think.

 

Another son does temp gigs for extra money around his too busy for a regular job school schedule. Several businesses around town have his name and number in their phones to call up when they need a job done. For example a local used bookstore had a huge two week tent sale clearance of books they needed temp staff to handle. They hired 12 people for it and my son and one other were the only ones to ever show up. Yay extra shifts for him.:) The owner was teasing me about giving him a hard time about being shy and trying to act normal when they all know he is home schooled. :) He is a good kid and nice and works hard and reliably.

 

I wanted my carpets shampooed several weeks back. It took me many weeks to find someone who actually showed up to do the job. What the heck. I'd call for a phone quote, schedule a day and they'd never show up. No call. Nada. Just not show up. Ugh!

 

I've been looking for a dog trainer since April. I have no idea how these places stay in business. They can't seem to get a schedule going to save their life. I'd ask when the next class starts and they couldn't tell me? Wth? How can you run a business and not know what your session schedule is NEXT month? And of course they'd never return emails or calls if people they said they would call with that info when they got it. Well actually that's not true. 2 of them did. Nearly two months later! We were doing okay without them, but I wanted my son and his dog to get more training from someone other than me bc my plate was full. But I ended up just having a fuller plate. Oh well. Saved us about $250-$400.

 

It's getting to the point that just showing up literally pays. Which I guess helps once someone makes it through the mob of applicants, but geez that's a pathetic statement about American initiative. And knowing it is like that is very frustrating for the applicants that are going to show up and work.

Good to hear about your sons Martha....gives me hope for my up and coming teen.....although I think we need to live closer to the city....

[sbgrace]

We had this problem in our old town (three different companies, one didn't show up for a scheduled estimate, one never returned my calls, and one came/promised an estimate/and never actually completed one). In this new town, we hired lots of people for various jobs and never had any issues. I wonder if it varies by area.

[marbel]

I've had this problem for years.  Many times have been promised estimates and never got them.   Once I had work scheduled and the people just didn't show up.  I later learned that they left the state rather abruptly so I guess in the long run it was good we didn't do business with them.

 

I'm told that some guys are just not business-savvy though they are good contractors.  The business is too small to hire office help, so they put off the unpleasantness of returning estimates.  I've gotten to the point where I ask people "are you really going to send me an estimate or are you going to blow me off?"  They always say they will... and still don't.

 

Long personal anecdote:  when my electric range died, we decided we want to switch to gas.  I had a guy come out to give me an estimate of running the gas line through the wall between the furnace and the oven.  He did his best to talk me out of it, but still promised an estimate.  I was not surprised when one didn't come in.  Not much after that, my husband happened to talk to a guy who did that sort of work, and he promised to call me to set up an appointment.  Weeks went by, no call;  we decided we weren't meant to have a gas range, and bought a new electric.  A couple of months went by, and we happened to meet up with the 2nd guy socially.  He said "Oh, I need to call you about some work, don't I?"  I said no, we gave up the idea since no one seemed to want the work.  He was mystified by my response.   I think he just didn't realize how much time had passed.  

[fraidycat]

We had this happen a couple times in our house, too.

 

Once we wanted new insulation blown in to the attic and got a couple quotes - over the phone, just needed the dimensions of the very simple, straight lines, ranch- style house. I called one guy back to hire his company, but he had to have the actual insulation guy call me in the next day or two to set up the appointment for about two weeks out. After a month of not receiving a call back, I called the other company and they came within a week and did it. About 3 months later, I was out of town when DH answered the door one morning to the first insulation crew that I tried to hire. They never did call, just showed up 4 months late!

 

I also tried to get a quote on replacing our deck. We finally gave up and did the work ourselves, which prompted one of the guys to finally call back about giving us a quote. He must have driven by and saw that we were ripping the old one off ourselves, because he called the next day. I was not very nice in declining his offer of assistance.

[Serenade]

We've had this happen, too.   It's very frustrating.

[marbel]

Another note on this:  we've been most successful with large companies rather than small shops or guys on their own. It makes sense - big companies just have more people to do stuff and move paperwork along.   When we recently  needed some chimney work done we went with a large company and it was painless - no delays, no having to call and beg someone to give the estimate - it was all handled quickly and professionally.    (And they took a credit card which means points which means an Amazon gift card for me sooner. ;) ) 

 

So often we hear that "the little guy" can't make it because of the big companies.   But there is a good illustration of why that is.  It's true that the big companies can also advertise more and be more visible.  But word-of-mouth is powerful too.   I usually try to get a personal recommendation before looking online.  But if the personal recommendation simply doesn't show up, or doesn't follow up...  I'll go with the big company that does. 

[Carrie12345]

Yes, we've had this issue with several things; roof repair, siding replacement, chimney sweeping, even housekeeping. When we finally found an interested party to do our siding and front porch, we wound up with pretty poor quality and terrible communication. It was an awful experience.

 

We still have quite a bit of work to be done, and I absolutely dread it.

[goldberry]

We have a terrible time in this area (semi-rural Colorado).  Everybody is all "laid back, go home early" etc.  Sometimes we feel like we have to "entice" people to try to do a job for us!

 

We never had this problem back in the metropolitan Dallas/FW area.  I think maybe in a big city there is more competition so people know if they don't respond they won't have work.