[Our contractor] of suburban Chicago is unprofessional, unreliable, and uninterested in keeping up his end of a deal.
We also have it under good authority--a very reliable source--that Mr. [Contractor] is a homophobe. We believe that this is the primary motivating factor (or is that un-motivating factor?) for his lack of completion of our contracted work with him. I will not give up my source, but reports are that when Mr. [Contractor] was talking to someone close to me and close to our construction project, he referred to Incontesta and me as those "queens." It seems that Mr. [Contractor] thinks it's okay to call his customers names and then to refuse to do the work he's promised to do.
In my ranting previous post about this job, I was fairly explicit about how unhappy I was with his work, but he made me believe that he was a conscientious person by coming by the house and doing some finishing work to appease my ire. Most of what he did was purely cosmetic, as there wasn't much he could do about the incorrect dimensions of the patio short of tearing it out and having it repoured. I was not interested in that, to be sure! But there remained one last major bit to do: remove what was left in our driveway of the dirt he dug out of our yard and under the old patio, which included a significant amount of smaller pieces of broken concrete that was the old patio. In addition, he was to spread out the remainder of the gravel--the gravel that made up the base for the patio--on our and our neighbors' driveways. That was all that was left to do. So, I, like a big schmuck, paid the guy the balance of what I owed him. And proving even more the level of my schmuckdom, I didn't even ask him to take a hit on my cost of having the air conditioner moved (again, refer to my previous post), which he originally offered to do should he not be able to complete the job otherwise.
He agreed to come over again yesterday at noon to finish up what was left undone after I called him and gave him (again) a piece of my mind. When I returned home after church on Sunday, he had been there and left, according to my neighbor, and my driveway was not done! I called him to see what was happening, and he told me he was done, thanked me, and said, "Have a nice day." When my voice began to rise in pitch and volume as I inquired about his professional integrity, he just repeated his thanks and wishes for me to have a nice day.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
After this, there was steam shooting from my ears! I couldn't believe that I was being dismissed this way...totally and unequivocally disregarded. I said, "Thanks for nothing, [Contractor]." And he said, "Bye." Then he hung up.
I stood there...on the patio...mobile phone in hand...and melted down.
After the mushroom cloud dissipated, my source found me and told me the story revealing Mr. [Contractor]'s bigotry and homophobia. And while this post was intended to help me feel vented, I still feel like there are toxins flowing through my veins.


