Since we closed on our apartment on August 2007, we’ve had myriad problems with contractors—Bestwall Plastering’s shoddy plastering work (If These Walls Could Talk), Park Slope Kitchen Gallery’s cabinet order error (Delivery Day), a major mishap with the floor refinishing company (fodder for a future blog entry) and a failed kitchen countertop fabrication by Lifestyle Marble and Granite (Countertop Catastrophe). But the contractor who seemed to be the most frustrating in terns of getting the job done was the first contractor we hired–the electrician who handled the electrical upgrade of our apartment.
These challenges were particularly difficult for my husband. He shares the story of how he dealt with the dawdling electrician in the following entry:
I’d had enough. I was tired of all the contractors screwing us around. I was tired of work not getting done. I was tired and sick, which, as you know, is usually phrased in reverse.
So when my wife told me the electrician was finally coming to finish up the job, he bore the brunt of my tiredness. He had, in my opinion, been doing his best Stepin Fetchit when it came to putting the finishing touches on our house. The electricians started in August, and it was December—DECEMBER! And they still hadn’t finished. He would speak with my wife, say he was coming on a certain day, and then not show up. Or show up late. Or show up but not have the necessary tools, so he’d leave on an errand that should take 20 minutes, but not come back for two hours.
This time I wasn’t having it. But there was something else going on, too. I had grown
so tired of the unfinished state of the apartment that I wasn’t pulling my weight with the renovations either. I knew it. My wife knew it. I had joked with friends and family about it. I was tired of that, too! I needed a solution.Lately, at work, I had been dressing up. I did it to change how I felt about myself and how others would view me. Instead of my standard casual dress, I was all about sports coats and ties. It had worked. More and more, people were viewing me as someone in charge. So I decided to try something.
The day the electrician was to arrive, I put on my suit. I hadn’t planned to wear a suit that day. Heck, I wasn’t even going to work. But the electrician didn’t know that.
The electrician was supposed to arrive by 9 am. At 8:06, I called him.
“You are coming to my house today at what time?” I inquired.
“Maybe around 10,” he said.
“I need you here at 9,” I replied.
“OK,” he said.
“Not a moment later,” I said, and before he could respond, I hung up.At 9:02, he hadn’t arrived, so I called him again.
“Where are you?” I said, dispensing with all niceties.
“I’m on my way.”
“You were supposed to be here at 9. It’s 9:03. Where are you?”
He told me the street he was on. I asked him for the cross streets. He told me.
“So you should be here in five minutes,” I said.And he was.
Once he arrived, it was more of the same. But it had to be done. This was someone who had proved he viewed coddling and being nice and accommodating as a pathway to extending the job ad infinitum. Like I said at the start, however, I’d had enough of that. He was going to finish today.
I told the electrician his first task. I hovered over him as he worked. When he finished, I gave him his second job. Then his third. Then his fourth. And you know what? Within an hour or so, he had completed all the work. It was tiring for me to watch over him, but after four months. we at last had all our outlets covered, all extraneous wires snipped, etc. When he finally left, I took off my suit, and enjoyed the rest of the day knowing the job was done and I was back on the road to becoming an active contributor to our home renovation.
