Rant Alert: Hooray for the half-assed!

Thought I had found just about the perfect person to clear the snow from my driveway and walk. He used a snow throw instead of a truck with a plow, so I didn't have to worry about Linda's carefully-tended yard getting chewed up. He was older-sounding (I never met the man), so assumed he was less likely to flake out (if you'll pardon the expression in this context). And since he did this for a lot of people on a neighboring street (at least that's what he said), I figured he did okay work.

Well, today was his first chance to strut his stuff, and alas, he didn't strut--he stumbled. In fact, he did the sort of half-assed job I'd expect out of a distracted teenager, and that may be an insult to distracted teenagers everywhere. (Sorry, kids.)

Worse, he was offended when I told him what I thought of his work when he called to arrange payment. Somehow, the onus was on me to let him know sooner that he didn't do a proper job.

That sort of thinking makes me crazy. I've come across it before. There are an unfortunate number of people who seem to do as little work as they think they can get away with (he told me he was in a hurry, after all), then leave it to the customer to call them on it if they're not happy. No call, no problem--they bank on people being too busy and/or timid to follow up--and the result is full pay for a job sloppily done.

Hooray for the half-assed!

It certainly didn't help that he huffed ("Well, if only you had called me, I would have come back") and he puffed ("I'd say the job was 99.9% done") and he blew me off, as though I had the problem ("If this is how you're going to be, I'm taking you off my list").

Sigh. Alas, I feel like such a relic when I run up against a member of the Half-Assed Club (HAC). I don't think I'm particularly difficult, but I do have this thing called a work ethic. I would have been embarrassed to have presented the job he did as "done."

Bottom line: If a person has to shovel for 20-30 minutes after you leave, you didn't 99.9% finish, for pity's sake.

Sorry, I just had to get that off my chest, such as it is.

The good news is I have one less HAC to contend with, but now I don't have someone to remove snow. This is not a big deal now, but it will be when I go on vacation for two weeks, and can't do it so the house/pet sitter can tend Shwea.

So, friends, if you or anybody you know could use some extra money (I was going to pay the HAC member $35 per visit), have them get in touch with me.

Here's to being HAC-free for the foreseeable, A