Is there anything as frustrating as waiting for tradespeople to come to your house to do even the simplest of tasks like servicing the boiler or painting a door or cleaning down the gutters.
Now I know people will say why can’t you do these jobs yourself. The answer is very simple. When the good lord was scattering the DIY brain powder, I think I missed the magic dust. Now of course I have other talents, and wouldn’t it be a boring world if we were all gifted with the handy gene. Where would the nixers and the cash only jobs be then for the handy people of Ireland. No, it takes all sorts to keep the national economy going around.
Last March I contacted our boiler man in person, for yes, our boiler service person is a man. I informed him that we needed the boiler serviced this year and I was getting in on time giving him due notice. I have been in contact with him a few times since only to be told that he is very busy but that we are in the book, and he will be with us shortly. I think their definition of shortly varies slightly from the dictionary version. We live in hope.
I contacted our man for cleaning the roof and gutters last April asking him to get the gutters cleaned before the winter set in. My name was put in the book, and he would be in contact with me in due course. I waited patiently but in vain. We rang again in August, and I was assured in most confident terms that I was in the book, and he would be around with me in due course. Now I can’t find accurate definitions of “in due course “in dictionaries or on laptop, but I presume it must be in the same mould as there will be a long delay. Now last Friday he rang me to inform me that he would be along next week to do the job. We wait patiently. I will report to you in due course after a reasonable time lapse about progress.
When we were last away on a break in Kerry, I got a phone call at 3am from our alarm monitoring company that our alarm had been activated. He asked me if I could check it out. I gave him my location and told him that it was most unlikely that I would be attending to the matter myself but that I would try to get one of the family to attend to it which I did. On another occasion I was walking down Wicklow Street in Dublin I heard my phone companion being very noisy in ringing mode in my pocket. On answering it I was very politely told that our house alarm had been activated. We attended to it with senior management now thinking about the annoyance to the neighbours. We duly attended to the service when we got home, and we had three sensors replaced.
So, this year we are going for a break and the main item on the list is to get the alarm serviced in good time lest the neighbour’s nocturnal sleeping rhythm is disturbed. We rang the alarm company two months ago with a few reminders to them since, only to be told that they are down on staff with Covid and that they are very busy and restricted. The English language is running out of excuses. Its alarming but with days to go to our vacation we are still awaiting a service.
Now I wanted our external doors painted and I went to our painter. He told me that he is very busy now and that he would put my name in the book. I think this is the fourth time I have been booked but no red cards have been issued yet. Anyway, my painter told me that he was booked up for the next few months and it was not the best weather for outside painting and that he would give me two weeks’ notice of when he was coming. I liked his honesty and wished him well with his business.
We have some high `Leylandii trees at the back of the house which need annual pruning and we have the same reliable men do it every year, but the problem is to pin them down to a time. You ring up and are told very charmingly that you are on the list and that they will be in our territory in a few weeks’ time and that they will be in touch. And then you ring again, and they are out with Covid. Its amazing the number of people who have been on PUP payments and are out with Covid which is not such a good companion to be out with.
So once again it is a matter of phoning and cajoling and hoping for the best.
I must say I got a very rapid response to a buzzing problem we had this year. A full swarm of wasps decided to take up residence over our front door and by golly were they in jolly mood with their newly acquired abode. They were as busy as bees, sorry wasps, and creating quite a din as they flew in and out. As we peeped over the wall, we noted that our neighbour had what seemed like a bigger swarm which had taken up residence over her front door and she was afraid to go in or out. There was a crisis, but luckily another friendly neighbour knew the pest control man and he happened to be in the area. He arrived, got out of his van, donned his spaceman outfit, armed himself with gun and advanced on the offending stingers spraying as he went. The whole operation was finished in jig time, and we were wasp free. We happily paid up the ton requested and were able to open windows and doors again in safety.
Maybe I should train to be a pest controller and have a stinging time and then again maybe not. There would possibly be too much of a buzz in it for me at this stage of my life.
There seems to be a whole fringe service industry out there which is understaffed. It needs an injection of a lot more qualified people to be employed there. We need more apprentices for all trades to fill this huge void which we seem to have now, and we need them yesterday.
I wonder if it is too late in life for me to retrain and learn a new trade. Maybe it is because I’ve heard it’s always very hard to teach an old dog a new trick. I will bow wow out now and wait in line for my turn in the books of my maintenance people. Then and not till they decide will my household/gardening jobs be done. Patience, Lord give me patience