Have you ever fired someone?

Well I have now!  This was a very interesting situation, a year ago we gutted our master bathroom and we were going to slowly put it back together as we had the funds to do.  Well two weeks after gutting it we got the initial referral of the sibling set that we unfortunately had to turn down. Since we decided to stay on the sibling list we decided to put off the bathroom and sock more funds away.

Well since the adoption is over and we started having the funds again, we decided to finish the bathroom.  Normally we are DIYers, we don't want to pay people to do what we can do.  But with Randy's schedule, is just wasn't possible.  So we hired a handy man who is a jack of all trades to put the bathroom back together, the plumbing, the electrical, everything.  We are going from a 3 piece bath to a 4 piece bath.  So there was quite a bit of work to do.  We settled on a price and we gave him a deadline, of Friday the 23rd.  I was to be the one supervising because I am home.  So day 1 he came on time, but after 5 hours had an excuse that he had to leave because of family.  So he left but promised to be back at 8:30 the next morning.  The next day, 8:30 comes and goes, I call and he claims that his son missed the school bus, and would be there asap, but didn't show up until 11:30.  After 4 hours stated that he had to leave again, and then mention that his kid didn't even go to school that day, my wheels start turning then.  Promised to be here at 8:30 in the morning again.  Next day again late, I call and he was in a "car wreck".  Didn't show until 11:30 again!  But did work a full day and actually got some work done.  Promised to be here at 8:30 again the next day.  Again didn't show until 11:30.  When I left at 2 to go get Camden from school he called me and said that he was done for the day and would be leaving.  By now I am fuming, and I told him that he needed to stay and finish and that we were paying him good money, and he said, no you are paying me fair money. 

Now I am really angry!  I told him to meet me at the house in 10 minutes and we would discuss this situation.  When I got home he told me that he didn't appreciate me telling him what to do, and that since I was a stay at home mom it wasn't a big deal when he arrived because all I did was stay home.  Now it had been raining for 4 days straight during this whole ordeal and the kids had been stuck in the house for 4 days straight and they were going NUTS!  I was already upset and this really got my goat.  I have made a vow about a year ago to keep my temper under control no matter what, because as a redhead the temper can come!  Then he proceeded to tell me that he makes his service calls in the morning and then he does his bigger jobs after that, so I caught him in a lie, so I asked him if his kid really missed the bus, and he admitted that he had lied to me.  So after making a stupid comment about me being a stay-at-home mom, lying to me, and saying that our money is only fair, I told him that he needed to get his things and leave. 

He then had the gall to ask me for the full contract wages for the whole job, I told him he was crazy, we paid him half, and he didn't even do half the work.  He packed up and left.  I then called Randy at work and told him that I fired the guy, and he was very proud of me!  Unfortunately now we have to finish the bathroom ourselves, but the guy did get done what Randy couldn't do, the plumbing and the electrical.  So my parents came up this weekend and we got the painting done on the new drywall, the first layer of the new shower base, and we laid the in-floor radiant heat so I can toasty toes in the winter! 

We would of gotten further, but the guest bathroom that we had been using, busted a drain pipe this morning so we had to fix that this morning before my parents left and Randy had to work today.  That was a mess.  The joy of copper plumbing!  It will eventually burst.  I will post before and after pictures when we are done, it will be a few weeks though now, oh well!  We went a year, what is a few more weeks!

But now I have the weird experience of firing someone, hopefully that never happens again!