Diving Into The Economy
I periodically get into a zone of complete annoyance and frustration. Like everyone else in this country I am up to my ears with how companies treat me when doing business with me.
From the producers who continued to raise prices even though their costs had stabilized to the contractors who just decide to charge whatever the hell they want to charge for a service. It has just gotten too much.
I am on the side of small businesses for sure because they truly are the backbone of this country but enough is enough. I don’t believe that a businessman’s inability to project and manage a company’s business is my responsibility.
By this I mean simply, I am not responsible for making your business profitable when you mess up. If you can’t manage inventories or personnel or taxes, why do you think you need to balance your books on my back?
Like everyone else, I have multiple stories of a company overcharging or cancelling at the last minute. Companies that look at your address and charge 15 to 25% more because of your zip code. Companies that charge you an exorbitant amount just to take a look at the problem and not using that fee if they win the job.
I understand that it costs money to send a technician to diagnose a problem in a home, but I go with you shouldn’t that service charge be applied to the work that is being done? Or at least some part of it? More and more companies are sending technicians and charging anywhere from 150 to 250 dollars and keeping the money. The service guy is not paid 150 to 250 and hour is he? No. It’s a profit center. It also isn’t being fair to the customer.
I like to get a few estimates to gauge who I like best and have a better understand of the costs and the complexities of what is being done. With that in mind I could pay upwards of 750 dollars before I even get the job started.
How is that fair? How is that in the consumer’s best interest? It’s not. The tendency is to just have one service tech come in and just give them the job.
This is why Angie has become so popular. The people that show up may charge a fee but the idea is that these contractors are vetted by other homeowners beforehand.
In principle thats a great idea. Like most homeowners, if a friend recommends success with a certain tradesman, you are likely to just call up that guy and hope for the best. Angies supposedly does that for you.
There are a couple of things about Angie’s that bothers me. One, it’s like Yelp, it can be played. I know they say that the customer comments are vetted as well but I highly doubt that. Look at the reviews. Not one says a “Never use them again, they suck” type of comment. Even great contractors mess up. Not on Angie’s. The second thing is that if you search for a contractor, you get hit with at least 4,340 emails from various contractors, Angie’s and God knows who else.
Again, I have gone off the rails here but my point is very clear, we are at the mercy of contractors good and bad. Getting things done at home is expensive and it is not getting cheaper. The service industries have homeowners(renters as well) by the proverbial short hairs.
Forget the fact that these guys will not return phone calls, will not give a reasonably close estimate of what time they will be there, on top of having less and less respect for your home and your money.
There has to be a median place where customers and providers can meet where the customer doesn’t feel abused and the provider can still make a profit and pay his people a fair wage.
I have taken over the landscaping at my house. My property is fairly large so it keeps me busy and I actually enjoy it. I wouldn’t be doing it if my landscaper and the landscaper before him and before him had actually listened to what I asked for. The use of 5 year old grass seed got me. Reseeding my lawn and never seeing new growth just put me over the edge. I know he had some difficulty getting guys to consistently work for him and he didn’t charge me a whole lot but at some point you have to just say no.
Same thing with my pool guys. Very nice people who have a bit of Bonnie and Clyde in them. They charged me 480 dollars to replace a $45 circuit breaker. Two electricians had to do it. WTF. So this summer, I am the pool boy and the landscaper and loving every second of it.