The grumpy thread

[chaseracer]

32 minutes ago, doug said:

Recent Skoda and Hyundai adverts are boiling ma pish.

Quite.  NOW they want the name pronounced differently?  Just build my feckin Octavia...! 😁

[adw1977]

1 hour ago, Zelandeth said:

Ugh, just had to send a fairly sternly worded email to the company who had been doing our roofing work.

Having basically vanished into the aether in mid November, they just emailed me the invoice for the completed job (all £31.6K of it).  However there are a whole bunch of things they've not finished yet.  

Maybe they'll be apologietic and just crack on and sort it...I'm not going to hold my breath though.  While I'm prepared to be pleasantly surprised, I'm *expecting* this to turn into a complete farce.

Well they have 31,600 incentives to get it done, so I would say you're in a pretty strong position. 

[richardmorris]

27 minutes ago, adw1977 said:

Well they have 31,600 incentives to get it done, so I would say you're in a pretty strong position. 

I wouldn’t hold my breath. 

[HarmonicCheeseburger]

2 hours ago, Zelandeth said:

Ugh, just had to send a fairly sternly worded email to the company who had been doing our roofing work.

Having basically vanished into the aether in mid November, they just emailed me the invoice for the completed job (all £31.6K of it).  However there are a whole bunch of things they've not finished yet.  

Maybe they'll be apologietic and just crack on and sort it...I'm not going to hold my breath though.  While I'm prepared to be pleasantly surprised, I'm *expecting* this to turn into a complete farce.

Pay them using Zimbabwe dollars they can take and convert. Sure may have to hire a few 18wheelers to deliver payment but worth for the flair.

Hoping you get it sorted though.

[New POD]

11 hours ago, Zelandeth said:

Ugh, just had to send a fairly sternly worded email to the company who had been doing our roofing work.

Having basically vanished into the aether in mid November, they just emailed me the invoice for the completed job (all £31.6K of it).  However there are a whole bunch of things they've not finished yet.  

Maybe they'll be apologietic and just crack on and sort it...I'm not going to hold my breath though.  While I'm prepared to be pleasantly surprised, I'm *expecting* this to turn into a complete farce.

That would be a short email*

Please don't invoice for work not done, otherwise we will assume you are attempting to commit fraud and contact the police. 

If however, this is a genuine mistake, and you wish to discuss actually finishing the job, please send me your plan of action with dates. 

I am happy to provide a list of what hasn't been completed, should you wish to inconvience me further. (You should know what's not been completed, and should be telling he when you are going to complete it) 

 

* I'm sure other people will have different ways of approaching things, and happy to learn from others, but this is my work persona when contractors and suppliers don't do what they quoted. 

[fairkens]

When people you contract with as part of your job don't finish a job to your satisfaction you threaten to call the police? 

Okaaaaaay then

 

 

 

[sierraman]

I think you’ve just highlighted why many trades just prefer contract work than dealing with the public. 

[chadders]

We've had a load of work done over the years on our existing house. Invariably more work was needed than originally envisaged as hidden problems arose once bits were removed.

A face to face discussion or a phone call always worked when we had a query. That way you can find out if there's been any misunderstanding on your behalf, after all no one is perfect. 

I suppose your approach depends on how much you want to piss them off versus having the work completed. Mine was the latter. 

Having run a number of finance departments if I'd received an email like the one NewPod quotes I'd assume that the office junior had had a massive caffeine overdose and was trying to impress one of the female clerks.

 

 

[Zelandeth]

Apparently they want to have a telephone conversation to "explain everything to me."

That doesn't sound at all ominous.

[cobblers]

make sure you have 999 dialled ready on the other phone

[Zelandeth]

8 minutes ago, cobblers said:

make sure you have 999 dialled ready on the other phone

Well the first time we had work done I did literally have five of them turn up at the front door and threaten to kick my head in and burn the house down if I didn't pay up immediately...

So that's how low the bar is for things to be an improvement.

[cobblers]

jaysus!

[NorthernMonkey]

And you continued to use them?! 😳

[sierraman]

2 hours ago, chadders said:

We've had a load of work done over the years on our existing house. Invariably more work was needed than originally envisaged as hidden problems arose once bits were removed.

A face to face discussion or a phone call always worked when we had a query. That way you can find out if there's been any misunderstanding on your behalf, after all no one is perfect. 

I suppose your approach depends on how much you want to piss them off versus having the work completed. Mine was the latter. 

Having run a number of finance departments if I'd received an email like the one NewPod quotes I'd assume that the office junior had had a massive caffeine overdose and was trying to impress one of the female clerks.

 

 

I’m quite an easy person to work for, I’m not going to piss you around with quotes for the laugh or trying to save £5 on a something by trying source shit myself. Assuming it’s all done right I’ll keep the fuck out the way, not be quizzing you if you go at 3:30 and I won’t ask silly questions like if I can pay you with a credit card. 

[chadders]

3 minutes ago, sierraman said:

I’m quite an easy person to work for, I’m not going to piss you around with quotes for the laugh or trying to save £5 on a something by trying source shit myself. Assuming it’s all done right I’ll keep the fuck out the way, not be quizzing you if you go at 3:30 and I won’t ask silly questions like if I can pay you with a credit card. 

Precisely. Word gets around that you're OK to work for, which is quite helpful when it's difficult to get hold of tradesmen. 

On our last major job, extending the top floor, my missus made the guys bacon sandwiches every morning.

[sierraman]

6 minutes ago, chadders said:

Precisely. Word gets around that you're OK to work for, which is quite helpful when it's difficult to get hold of tradesmen. 

On our last major job, extending the top floor, my missus made the guys bacon sandwiches every morning.

My plumber had a job recently where the wife’s husband insisted on watching them fit the boiler by a Skype connection which was a bit weird... I don’t know if this was to check if the boiler was done right or if he thought they’d be banging his wife. Either way it’s fucking odd. 

[chadders]

I bet that he won't go back there unless he's desperate for work.

[sierraman]

9 minutes ago, chadders said:

I bet that he won't go back there unless he's desperate for work.

He’s not desperate, a desperate plumber is a crap one in my opinion. A good plumber/sparky/bricky etc should be pulled out, turning crap jobs down. 

[GrumpiusMaximus]

Bini is making a tapping noise under revs (2009 Diesel).  I'd love to go and check the oil level in case it's got a bit low without me noticing but now the fucking bonnet catch has seized, as they are prone to do.  I'd be less miffed if I hadn't pointed this out a while ago and when the catch was supposedly 'fixed' last year.  I'm not going to massacre it, so farming it out and for them to check the noise.

Ironically car was booked in for a service next Saturday (I can't get under it to do the oil filter on my drive safely)...

[Zelandeth]

1 hour ago, NorthernMonkey said:

And you continued to use them?! 😳

Hell no!  This is a completely separate company.  One allegedly with a good reputation.  So we'll see after the phone call.

[hairnet]

henry cole is a colossal bellend

is that murdo on some of the find it fix it any better?

[hairnet]

so wanted to do usa trip cos the last three times since this time last year things have got in the way

because things in the way was looking at a euro trip for a week in case they call me in or similar (did cods a holiday i was on last feb)

mid feb tunnel to garlic land 230 quid return

6 nights at 50-60 quid = lots

pez for 2000 kms (ish) 200 quid? food (few bob (burp )

flight to usa 400 car 75 bucks place to stay 100 quid (its not been cheap for a while)

gas 10 bucks

i think the usa trip might happen

tunnel tho - its not the fucking summer (the boats arent far off but the tunnel saves time and ftw runs at fuck all in the morning)

[Talbot]

Was really REALLY hoping I could get away without doing any major repairs on the Merc-o-barge for this MOT with the promise* that I would complete any and all welding needed this coming summer, and then MOT it again so that the anniversary comes around in decent weather each year.

Just poked a 40mm hole in the front of one of the sills.  Which means it's probably rotten for the first 500mm back from the front wheel.

Bollocks.

[Zelandeth]

Well on an update to the roofing saga it sounds like things might be okay, maybe.  We'll see.

They've reiterated many times over that while the invoice has been submitted they're not in any way demanding payment at this point, and will be visiting on Wednesday to have a look at the issues I've raised and hopefully we can get the snagging list moving.  It's been a big old project which unearthed a bunch of extra work and some of it was done in a race against the weather so there was bound to be a few things that needed sorted.

So long as they're not going to quibble over sorting them we'll call it a win.  We have had an apology over the lack of communication though which is something.

[High Jetter]

Keep the dialogue open, sounds like you might get a result. He who holds back funds has the last laugh...

[New POD]

20 hours ago, fairkens said:

When people you contract with as part of your job don't finish a job to your satisfaction you threaten to call the police? 

Okaaaaaay then

 

 

 

When they invoice you, knowing that they haven't done the job, isn't that attempted theft ?  I've never threatened any contractor with the police, but I have suggested that we (as in the massive corporate conglomerate I happened to be a small broken cog in) took that sort of thing seriously. 

Current place I work has been too cosy with a couple of companies  and have been really poor at defining the requirements, and I'm having to mop up the mess, so this approach doesn't work because what we were getting for £20k was a bit fucking vague.  I've been having to suggest that they think seriously about the spirit of the order.  Doesn't help that the guy that ordered the stuff, has gone to work for one of them. Wanker. 

[timolloyd]

For lots of small businesses approaching their year-end, it’s helpful to have invoices raised, even when they have no intention of demanding payment. 
 

It helps to show what amounts will be due at a later date.

[New POD]

8 hours ago, High Jetter said:

Keep the dialogue open, sounds like you might get a result. He who holds back funds has the last laugh...

When I worked in the Automotive industry, we'd have stage payments for bespoke equipment that had 20% upfront, 10% on design acceptance, 20% with completion of build, 20% on Acceptance on our site, and 30% 90 days after job one.  I suspect JLR occassionally do 10% on Design Acceptance, 10% on Acceptance on site and 80% 90 days after job one, but with 3 month delay on processing invoices, but that may be just a rumour. 

[New POD]

3 hours ago, timolloyd said:

For lots of small businesses approaching their year-end, it’s helpful to have invoices raised, even when they have no intention of demanding payment. 
 

It helps to show what amounts will be due at a later date.

This is also true. At Honeywell engine boosting I had to ask Bosch Automation to invoice us for work not yet completed before year end so that we didn't loose the money from the budget allocated to it. 

[Talbot]

On 1/8/2023 at 6:00 AM, New POD said:

Please don't invoice for work not done, otherwise we will assume you are attempting to commit fraud and contact the police

"Tell me you have absolutely no idea about business transactions without telling me you have absolutely no idea about business transactions".

Seriously?

Also, staged payments for chunks of work in a larger contract are nothing special.  Almost all Engineering companies work like this, be in in sales to clients or Purchase orders to subcontractors.  It covers everyone and makes sure that larger companies get what the want without putting all the risk on a smaller one.

And no.  Invoicing for something as yet incomplete isn't attempted theft.  Or fraud.  It's business.  It's up to the person placing the purchase order to check that the work has been done before approving the invoice.  That's just project management, I do it all bloody day long.  And if I had a quid for every time I had an invoice to approve for work as yet not fully complete or parts that hadn't arrived yet, I wouldn't be sat at this poxy desk at 09:00 on a Monday morning.