I hired a contractor and he managed to alienate my wife and irritate me. I have never been a fan of the man but he seems to be trusted and liked by some people I respect so I put aside my feelings and gave the man a chance. After enduring his behavior for the better part of a week I felt justified in my feelings toward him. He told me and my wife that the job would only take three days but it took 5 and even with that I have to finish up the loose ends myself. He insisted that he told us it was a five day job, even after my pastor told him he heard him promise us it would only take three days.
The church I attend contracted this man to do some work at the church today. Notwithstanding the fact he was an hour and a half late to start the job, the people that he had scheduled to pour the concrete at 10 am was still a no show at 2:30 and had no idea when they would be able to show up. He chewed out one of his employees in front of everyone for what was a very minor offense that was as much his fault as the employees. To me that showed a real lack of class. But there was something that occurred a few minutes earlier that was the final nail in the coffin as far as having a warm relationship with this man.
Now keep in mind that I am a senior citizen even though people think I am much younger than I really am. In fact the older worker, the one with little hair and that, including his beard, were gray, made a comment to me "well when you get to be my age....". Well it turned out we were born in the same year. Be that as it may, I have never suffered from allergies before but it has been so bad I actually took a breathing test. Fortunately everything was normal and after taking some allergy medication I did much better. I also take medication that cautions that using it can cause breathing problems and another medication that tells me to avoid sunlight.
During the course of this day I picked up and carried off all the scrap lumber from a weeks worth of work from building two porches and a handicap ramp, stacked a pallet of wood about 30 feet away from where it was stored, weed eated a half acre of property (every inch of it), and mowed another half acre of land with a walk behind mower. I realized at the time this man made his comment to me I was engaged in some light work but it was nearing 2:00 or maybe a little after and I had walked over eleven miles (I wear a pedometer) and took over 25,000 steps. For some reason the man felt compelled to taunt me with the following comment; "Why are you breathing hard Dale?". He had a smirk on his face while uttering those words.
Maybe he thought he knew me well enough that he could be a smart mouth and get away with it but he doesn't. If he had spoken the words with the slighted hint of caring or concern then the comment would have been appreciated but he didn't.
I have had a few encounters with the man over the last few years and my impression of him is the person he cares most about is himself and the thing he cares about most is making money and the thing he wants most for others to know about him is that he is more important than you are. In my opinion the man needs a couple of courses in sensitivity training. Until then maybe he should stay indoors away from the public.
He didn't even say thank you for the tools I lent to him so he could do the job he was hired to do.
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