Dear pool man, about that text message…

When I first declared my love for my builder a million six months ago, there were a lot of people that told me that over time I would change my mind, that by the end of the renovation my tune would have changed and I would be cursing and muttering hate filled expletives under my breath when his name was mentioned.

It’s not true. Although a LOT of time has passed and a FORTUNE of work has been done I can still safely say that our builder was brilliant, fantastic, reliable and dedicated – a pleasure to deal with and if I ever lost my mind and decided to renovate or build again, we would use him without even thinking about it.

We’ve been pretty lucky in that way – over the last 6 months we have dealt with all manner of people from the builders to electricians, plumbers, air conditioning people, glaziers, painters, sanders, joiners and the best landscapers you could ever hope to meet. I’m not going to pretend that it was a walk in the part because I cried for about 4 months (I am crap at change) but that was just my shit not because of the people doing the building.

Until we started the pool.

The pool company were brilliant at getting our business, they wooed us and charmed us and turned up at meetings on time and went out of their way to get us to sign them up.

And then they  lost it.

Seriously by the time that the ink had dried on the contract we signed with them they seemed to lose nine tenths of their professionalism. They would arrange to come and work and then not arrive, they would tell us they were actually there when they weren’t and whenever we questioned them they would literally just make up stuff. It was a shambles.

Mr Pencil was so patient with them and, although he is a much accomplished man who has seen and negotiated his way through countless deals, I told him he was being a puppy dog and he should let me at them. And then I sharpened my aggressive South African righteous indignation and I called the man who told us every week for four weeks that they would finish the pool on Monday. It didn’t go well. He basically told me he didn’t care, he had lots of work on. I think he actually used the words “I couldn’t care less, I don’t have to do anything”. I freaked.

I phoned the office. The woman there was worse. SHE PUT THE PHONE DOWN ON ME.

This may delay diagnosis and furthermore the treatment cialis for cheap of penis related problems. As you can see, metabolism is a process that controls and viagra levitra regulates cell growth in organisms. When we free viagra online are in complete balance and not in bathroom. Minoxidil topical solutions are thought prescription viagra prices to irk most users with increased heartbeat, itchy scalp, nausea, and fainting. They hated me at that company and I hated them right back.

Finally, after weeks of the pool company assuring me there was a glass shortage in Australia, the fence was up by a fantastic man who positively guffawed with laughter when I told him that I had been informed there was a glass shortage. There was no shortage – the pool company had just had another one of their epic communication failures in which they fail to communicate anything other than invoices and the line “the job will be complete next week”.

A billion years 12 weeks later and all that remained to do was take away the temporary fencing, put up the bit of our fencing they had removed and do the hand over. My nemesis at the pool company assured me that the fence removal people would be there that day.

At 3pm I texted him to make sure they were coming, at 4pm I texted him again – same message. At 5pm I thought I would let him know that they were still not there. At 6pm I knew they weren’t coming that day but I still texted him.
“They will probably be there tomorrow” he said. “
“But handover is tomorrow and the job is not complete” I countered (by text)
“It is” he said (because he is very good with words).

And then my husband texted me to say that he had just landed back in Sydney after being away for a week. I was delighted. I had missed him and I wanted him to come home and fix up the pool issues relax. I took a screenshot of my conversation with nemesis pool man and sent it to my hubby with a rather er, unkind description of the pool man because by now my hatred for the pool man was legendary.

Except of course I sent the image and the nasty description to the pool man instead of my husband.

Ever had the sinking feeling that you had just called the man who was building your pool a dickhead to his face. In an unmistakable text? I have.

And they still haven’t finished the pool.