People not turning up

I think we here suffer from living in an area where there are a lot of holiday lets. Decorators in particular get a lot of work from them on a regular basis and ignore those of us who live here all year round. If they do turn up, I have found that most don’t bother to quote if it’s a sizeable job which won’t fit around doing up the holiday lets - you just hear nothing more from them. So we have gone a little further afield than the popular coastal area to find someone who turns up, quotes, and does the job when he says he will. Manners cost nothing do they?

It is terribly frustrating. But sometimes balanced out by acts of kindness. I had to find a roofer quickly as my 94 year old dad found water coming through the dining room ceiling; from 100 miles away I thought it sounded like a leak near the chimney. Asked on dad’s local fb page and contacted one of the recommendations. He turned up the next day - early - confirmed to dad that the flashing had slipped and knocked it back into place. And wouldn’t take a penny. All he asked was that I gave him a good review. Which I did (tho not mentioning the no charge bit otherwise I suspect he’d be inundated!)

Nellietheelephant

This may be part of the lifestyle of "the young" nowadays. My daughter (40something!) constantly makes arrangements to meet up with her friends and one or the other of them nearly always texts to say they will be late. No-one seems to mind or take offence. I suppose the ease of modern communication is the reason, really.

Ease of communication is definitely part of the problem. As a teenager I used to make arrangements with friends at school and if things changed I couldn't let them know as we didn't have a house phone and it was long before mobiles, so I couldn't change plans or I'd have had no friends. I used to say that to my DD when she was calling a friend to say she was running late... - a common occurrence. I was never let down either back then.

Last week someone came for an appointment and was one minute late, but apologised! Mind you I'd been let down the previous week by his colleague who's car had broken down, but he did let me know.

K WEST, you and DH sound lovely. I’d love you to live near me. I too am sick of traders letting me down. Trouble is if you go on the local Nextdoor site the recommendations are very often from their mates rather than someone who has used them and been impressed

My husband, a builder, carpenter and joiner still does not feel ready to retire at 76. He is very fit and healthy and loves working and meeting clients. We used to run a fairly large business and over the years we realised that he was much happier and calmer with just the two of us involved. I deal with admin etc. What we did discover was that many people were saying that you cannot get anyone to do small jobs these days. That gave us the idea of advertising a service where those small irritating jobs that nobody wants to do could actually now be done by my husband. It is something he is enjoying and working steadily. Many of his clients are elderly. He does turn up when he says he will, if he is delayed he will always contact his client to let them know. There are still excellent tradesmen out there.

We were meeting some friends for a drink one evening and had been sitting in the pub for 10 minutes when we got a text saying they were just leaving - they were watching something on TV and wanted to see the end! I texted back saying we had just left as we thought they weren't coming and we stayed and had a nice meal instead. They were very put out that we hadn't waited another 30 minutes for them to arrive.

i think you have to accept that work people ,some of them at least will not show up.As for people you know ,firstly it is rude and also very controlling.I knew someone for 20 years who was always late,in the end i got fed up with it and ended the friendship,i don't miss them.If i meet people and get to know them and they start the 'late game' which it is ,then off they go.It is something i find really rude .am i ever late? rarely and if i am, i offer my apologises, do unto others..........

Nellietheelephant

This may be part of the lifestyle of "the young" nowadays. My daughter (40something!) constantly makes arrangements to meet up with her friends and one or the other of them nearly always texts to say they will be late. No-one seems to mind or take offence. I suppose the ease of modern communication is the reason, really.

I definitely think this is true socially. The ability to text at the last minute makes for a very different situation from when we couldn't get in touch if we were (unavoidably) unable to stick to arrangements and knew that the person we were meeting would be hanging about until they gave up and went home.

I don't like last minute cancellations, as they take no account of the fact that people spend time getting ready, may have organised other commitments around the meeting and so on. I used to meet a friend for lunch and would skip breakfast on the day of our meeting, but she would often cancel half an hour before, so I was hungry and had nothing prepared as I thought I was eating out. Sometimes I had no plans for dinner either, as I was expecting to have had a big meal at lunchtime. Infuriating. I stopped the arrangement in the end as it happened so often.

When it comes to tradespeople there is no excuse either. It gives such a bad impression when they can't turn up on time, or even message to say they will be late. I appreciate that a plumber can't leave a customer with a gushing leak in order to price up a job elsewhere, but it takes 30 seconds to ring or text to say they will be late, and there is no excuse for not turning up at all.

A certain energy company have just had their contract with us cancelled after a series of no-shows to fix our not-at-all-smart-meters. We've managed to get them to pay us £60 in apology too.

Cabbie21

Very rude, very frustrating.
Another issue is if they turn up to quote, but don’t quote on the spot, and fail to send an email or message.
If they don't want the job, why don’t they say so?

That’s something that I’ve never understood, either.

This may be part of the lifestyle of "the young" nowadays. My daughter (40something!) constantly makes arrangements to meet up with her friends and one or the other of them nearly always texts to say they will be late. No-one seems to mind or take offence. I suppose the ease of modern communication is the reason, really.

Recently I had a tradesman arranged to call in for a quote on his way home from work between 4 - 6pm. Guess what he never turned up. The following morning at 8.30am he text to say see you tonight after work.

I told him I was going out. If he is this unreliable before he gets the job I dread to think what he would be like after! Now I am back to square one.

Our plumber has a habit of answering a 'phone message or emails - by just turning up at a time that suits him. Which has on a couple of occasions been totally inconvenient for us.

We always ask him to give us a 'window' - but he never ever does - just pops in to look at the job.

I'd find someone else, but he's very good and pretty damned cheap as plumbers go. And, there's no guarantee anyone else would be reliable anyway.

That happens to my husband on a regular basis.
Drives me bluddy mad,sheer ignorance imo.

Around here, we still have trouble in finding trades people - full stop. Often you end up almost apologizing to them for their non-appearance, and then have to fall over backwards when they finally deign to show up!

Very rude, very frustrating.
Another issue is if they turn up to quote, but don’t quote on the spot, and fail to send an email or message.
If they don't want the job, why don’t they say so?

I am afraid that some GNs are also guilty of not turning up. Perhaps they think so many will turn up for the coffee morning that their presence will not be noticed- actually no. I class it as downright rude.

It does seem to happen more often now - and it's downright rude to not even let you know. I have a relative that drives me mad, too, by saying (last minute) 'I can't make it today, how about tomorrow?' Well, no - it'll have to be next week as I do have other things to do.

One daughter is known for running half an hour late - so we all tell her we're meeting/going earlier.

I can’t bear it either. I had a meeting on Friday. Arrived at 10.40 for 11.00 meeting. One party turned up on time. We phoned the other at 11.15 and she said she was delayed but would be with us. She arrived at 11.50 which meant the other party had less than 10 mins with her as she had another appt booked.

If I ask a tradesperson to come and quote and they don’t turn up, that’s me and them finished!

Yeah it’s annoying alright, bad enough when workmen let you down but I have a couple of friends who do it as well and if they do turn up, it’s hours later.

It's happened to me frequently. I usually message them the day before to remind them and that works.

Yes it is infuriating. As Doodledog says they obviously think your time is less important than theirs. My almost DDiL is a terrible one for not sticking to arranged times as well which doesn’t sit well with me but she gets annoyed if I remind her of arrangements I can bet she’ll be late for.

My DH used to be in despair at his then business partner. He never liked to let people down so made constant promises that could never be delivered. DH was the one who then had to deal with the aggrieved customers who'd been let down. Was very frustrating all round. The business partner thought he was being nice!

Have you tried asking on Nextdoor (or whatever it calls itself now?) Or local Facebook? Ive seen "side hustle" people looking for cleaning/handyperson jobs who would probably be grateful for a small DIY task. I got my gardener and my handyperson from local recommendations.

I have a leaking velux window and have contacted 4 contractors who have said they will come and look at the problem.
One said it wouldn't be until the end of next week, that was 3 weeks ago. Two others just didn't show up and the fourth is supposed to come next Thursday (fingers crossed).
A friend has been let down by 3 different gardeners.
Why can't they just be honest and say they are too busy for what (hopefully) is a small job.
I have seen several signs on business premises saying 'We're Hiring' . I've never known such a shortage of labour/