A Perennial Problem With Builders

Those in the construction industry – builders, plasterers, painters and carpenters seem to suffer a similar collective malaise.    It consists of frequent tea, coffee, lunch, cell phone and chat breaks to the accompaniment of loud nineteen seventies style pop music,  interspersed with  sudden  trips across town for extra nails, plaster or pots of paint the exact requirement of which is only available from the Builders’ Mega Centre on the very edges of the city.

I have watched in fascination the ongoing antics of the three jolly labourers who have been working on the house directly opposite my bedroom window for at least three months.  They arrive bright and early at seven am on the dot every weekday morning whistling merry tunes, telling jokes and bursting with energy, ready for a day’s work, which is invariably remarkably slow to start.   After earnest consultation over a flask of tea by 7.30 one of them is dispatched in the direction of the Mega Store for the required quantity of urgently needed sandpaper or the missing screwdriver.    Very little can be done until he returns so the remaining pair retire to consider their cell phones until 9.00 when work at last gets under way.    However, it is rare for the three of them to be occupied with any industry at the same time and one of them can usually be seen relaxing outside with a cell phone.  

Several years ago I found myself in the happy position of employing a builder who also turned up reliably at seven each morning to have a brief chat with me before hurtling off to make urgent purchase of the materials needed for the day.   When I analysed his bills I was surprised to find that he actually charged me from the time he left home each morning.   He was more than a little irked when I asked for an explanation.  He was displeased that I should be brazen enough to query the practice and all I could gather was that it was some kind of `tradition’.   He made no comment when I pointed out that bank clerks, typists and shop assistants are not in the happy position of adopting this particular tradition and to my knowledge still got paid from the time they started work.   There was an explosion of displeasure when I added that I felt he should arrive each day with the materials he needed to complete the job rather than drive all over town at my expense to collect them.  

No matter how hard I tried to clarify it my builder was never able to quite see my point of view though I have to say that when I cut his final bill in half before making payment he did not take me to the Small Claims Court as he had threatened.   I can’t help wondering just how the bills are stacking up from the cheery trio across the road.