My big plan this month was a series of articles showing the development of improvements being undertaken in our bedroom and master bath. What is it about plans that they seldom work out they way you want? Perhaps, if we had hired professionals for some of the work, then we wouldn’t be sitting here now with all of our clothes in our dining room, our dressers in our living room and a ladder in our bathroom.
I’m all in favor of do it yourself projects. However, a person needs to know when to hire a professional. What’s more important, a person needs to know when to hire a REAL pro and not some friend of a friend or some guy from the neighborhood or some local handy man
The reason we all want to hire the friend of a friend or the “I know a guy who in his spare time” sort of person is because we’re all trying to save a buck. While these situations sometimes work out well, they just as often explode in your face. With a professional you may pay more, but you get guarantees.
Consider these scenarios: let’s say the Friendly Worker gets injured on the job. Who pays for his care? Possibly you. However, if the Pro gets injured he should have insurance just for these types of problems. It is in the line of his employment after all while friendly guy was an invitee into your home.
Also, what if Friendly Worker does a bad job? What are you going to do about it? But if the Pro makes an error he more than likely will be willing to try and fix it. The Pro doesn’t want you trashing his name to his friends while Friendly Worker doesn’t do this for a living, so he doesn’t much care.
What if Friendly Worker just plain doesn’t show up? What if you’ve done everything you’re supposed to do in preparation, and he just doesn’t come to do the job? The Pro will at least call to reschedule.
You might get into a bad position with your friend if you use the friend of that friend to do your work. Maybe Friendly Worker trashes you behind your back and tells your friend that you’re being unreasonable. This might make your friend mad at you. So here you are, trying to give work to your friend’s friend, and instead you turn into the bad guy. Great. Just great. And on top of that you’re not getting the work done to your satisfaction.
By now we should have had our bedroom hardwoods redone and everything back in place. Instead, our life is on hold until this weekend when my husband is going to try and do it himself since Friendly Worker decided not to show up. What a fun way to spend the 4th of July weekend.
Learn from our mistakes. Either do it yourself from the get-go or hire a real professional. Stay away from Friendly Worker. He’s not really all that nice.
