For The Love of Lawn

Yesterday GGME finished the job ... and when I say finished I mean he finished gardening and he also took the time to YELL at me over the phone, and then ask me for more work.

Bwahahahaha. Is he serious? Anyway the yelling was because I commented that I was glad he did not need to hire extra equipment (to get rid of a concrete block... in the end his helper bashed it with a sledgehammer and carted it away.) I meant it as a sincere comment, that I was glad he didn't need to go to a lot of trouble for that extra item. He lost the plot at me - shouting that I still had to pay the extra because it was "his equipment and time" that got used to do the job, and that I shouldn't "be trying to get a deal" and so on.

I interrupted to tell him I had NO intention of asking for a deal, that I was happy to pay for a job which was well done, and that I didn't understand why he was so angry at me. At which time he just repeated the argument about "but it's MY equipment that got used" etc etc. Eventually he calmed down enough to ask for more work building our fallen-over fence (not in a month of Sundays, sunshine!). So since he was feeling more amicable, I casually mentioned that I'm sorry (NOT) that he did not seem to enjoy working on our home. (Comment in my head: YOU'RE A GRUMPY BASTARD!)

To which he replied,

"Yeah, well, it's hard yakka." (Translation for the Americans: yakka = work)

Um, excuse me? You're a freaking GARDEN GUY and a BUILDER and your excuse for being a rude shmuck is to tell me it's HARD WORK? Surely this time you're kidding, right?

...and today I get a quote from Garden Guy #1, who was my initial preference. However when I called him to see where my quote was (2 weeks after our initial meeting), he told me he was too busy and didn't think he'd get around to the quote, and didn't care what I did with the tools he left behind when he did the initial site visit. He literally said he had no idea when he would be able to get me a quote.

I got it - 2 MONTHS later, and guess what? It was only a bit higher than GGME's quote, AND it included all the plants and an irrigation system. *sigh* So as a result of this debacle, great garden guy will miss out on a big job, and GGME will never darken my door (or my friends) again. BOTH of them will lose out.

And this, dear readers, brings me to golden rule of small business numero uno: It's all about the customer service. ALWAYS. Even when it's hard work.