I thought I saw a reliable contractor once. Turns out he was hammered. My point is this: Ever notice how most contractors are a little flaky? Doesn’t matter whether it’s the guy installing a new furnace or the dude replacing your deck or your brother-in-law’s nephew repairing your washing machine. They all seem to have the same concept of customer relations: they’re slackers. They fail to call you back, they arrive two hours late – if they keep the appointment at all –and then they leave after just 30 minutes on the job because the one critical tool is back at the shop.
Why is this? Why are most contractors so unreliable? I did some research on the dark web and stumbled across a Deep Dark Secret – That’s what it’s called: A Deep Dark Secret – the course all contractors are required to take – and are sworn never to reveal to their clients, the homeowners.
It is an intensive seven-week seminar on how to deal with difficult customers – by which they mean, well, anyone who hires them and expects the job to be done on time on price. Of course, getting the job done RIGHT will cost you extra. Every Joe plumber, electrician, and roofer must pass the course to get their license. I went undercover to expose this scam. Unfortunately, no one bought my act as Fred the Welder. Go figure. Eventually, though, I was able to obtain an exclusive copy of the course syllabus from a disgruntled former HVAC guy.
Program Overview
Don’t take crap from just anyone. Take it from us! In Customer Relations with Annoying People – or CRAP, for short, you’ll learn everything you need to deal with pushy homeowners. You know the type: the ones who expect you to do the job WHEN and AS promised. Never again let a trivial contract keep you from blowing off that roof job and going fishing instead. Follow the key principles in this seven-week program and before long, you won’t be taking CRAP from any customer [Disclaimer: Because you may no longer have any].
Week One: The Initial Visit: Setting the Trap
Arriving on time at the initial appointment is critical to landing the gig. But don’t worry – that’s the last time you need to show up on time. You will role-play a scene from our patented “First Impressions” in which you inspire unwarranted confidence in your workmanship with vague references to previous quasi-relevant experience to create the false impression you’ve actually done this kind of work before.
Week Two: The Estimate: Tightening the Screws
This module teaches you to turn a 15-minute job tightening a screw with a Phillips into a major demolition project requiring an excavator and a cement mixer (hiding the bodies is an upper-level course). Experience the thrill of duping customers into believing that a minor leak (which you will secretly make worse) requires taking the main level down to the studs for fear their house will collapse into a giant sinkhole. Instilling fear is key.
A panel of experts discusses how to use obscure terminology to make any everyday project sound far more laborious and costly than it should be, with phrases like, “Hmmm, I see that your Angular Discharge Tube is not feeding properly into your Compression Valve. That’s a serious a problem…”
Week Three: Over-Promise and Under-Deliver
Master the technique of promising to complete the job in three weeks under budget, then actually delivering it in three months at double the original estimate. This session explains how to set up customer expectations, then slowly chip away at their false hope by routinely arriving late, leaving early and complaining about vital parts being on back order. Participants break into “Plausibility Groups” to compile a list of credible-sounding excuses. Want to spend the day drinking? Learn to say, “My truck wouldn’t start” with a straight face using our patented mirrors for instant feedback. Masters candidates learn how to get the client to pay for a new engine for your truck.
Week Four: Taking on Another Project That Pays Better
A key skill for all contractors is blowing off a current customer when a better-paying gig pops up halfway through the project. Learn how to rationalize that this isn’t unprofessional. Let’s face it, you’ve got the first customer in a bind, so they can’t really drop you this far into it. Is it possible to juggle six projects at once without pissing off everyone and ruining your reputation? Of course, not, but this session teaches you how that’s really not your problem.
Week Five: Avoiding Customer Calls
Otherwise known as “PTSD: Practical Tips and Strategies for Deadbeats” – The How-To guide for avoiding customer contact when they begin to wonder if you’ve fallen off the face of the earth. Popular ploys include deleting messages without listening to them and turning off the phone for days at a time. It is crucial to avoid engaging with pesky clients asking why the kitchen light switch now sparks every time they flip the switch.
Week Six: Ignoring Complaints
If you’re a contractor, customer complaints are a given. Learn how to feign concern by promising to fix the issue without committing to any time frame. Skill-building exercises include blaming the customer for any misunderstanding and how you’d be happy to finish those previously promised repairs for an additional $1,000. We will briefly explore the ethical question, “Who says the customer is always right?”
Week Seven: Over-Billing
This session equips you with a glossary of indecipherable construction-sounding terms to assist in padding your final bill. Easily transform a $50 service charge for shutting a valve into a $795 invoice for Pressure-Balancing the Discharge Flow to repair the Hydronic Shutoff Receptor. For an additional $49.95, you’ll go home with a three-ring binder filled with dozens of highly technical flow charts and electrical grid diagrams which have nothing to do with your actual project, easily attachable to your invoice to confuse your customer.
After you have completed this seven-week program, you’ll be prepared to respond to any customer issue that could possibly arise – whenever you feel like getting around to it – which according to my calendar is not for another three weeks months.
That’s the view from the bleachers. Perhaps I’m off base.
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I have something to confess. It’s hard for me to talk about. It may even shock you. The fact is, I have a drinking problem. It’s been a struggle, but I’ve been clean and sober for the past six months. Before you congratulate me, I have another confession. I have also been clean and sober for the past 62 years and ten months. You see, technically, I don’t actually have a drinking problem. I have a not-drinking problem.
I simply don’t drink. Never have. And that’s created many an awkward social situation my entire adult life. A lot of people have difficulty accepting this aberration – starting with my young adult daughters. In their college years, they attended many a party and chugged many a beer. “It’s what you do at college” they claim. Thus, they refuse to believe that spirits never pass over my lips. Nobody could be that much of a boring, uptight nerd, they argue, convinced I must be keeping from them deep dark secrets about my past.
I attended a university where so many students regularly drank themselves into oblivion, that I started to wonder if it was a pre-requisite for graduation. The entry requirement at most fraternity parties was to chug a pitcher of beer upon arrival. Apparently, it was a violation of the Greek code of ethics to be on frat premises without consuming large quantities of alcohol. The only permissible exception was if you’d already passed out in the hall closet.
Even now, when I go to a gathering, people just assume I’ll be drinking, like everyone else. The beverage selections typically are two red wines, a Zinfandel, three types of beer, vodka, bourbon, and club soda. Invariably, when I mention that I don’t drink, people assume the worst: I’m an alcoholic trying to stay on the wagon. When I clarify that it’s not that, they assume the even worster: I’m a holier-than thou Prohibitionist who looks down my nose at these sinners whose weak moral failings have led them the bottle. Excellent guesses, everybody, but no, that’s not why I don’t drink (although, yeah, drunken, two-timing Charlie over there making out with the fern is probably headed south when his number is up).
Unless you’re in a coma – or your name is Baron Trump – you’ve no doubt heard about Michael Wolff’s bombshell tell-all book, FIRE AND FURY – INSIDE THE TRUMP WHITE HOUSE. On its release day, F&F sold out in less time than it takes Donald to tweet “CNN is Fake News.”
What you may not know is that I, too, have been hard at work writing a Trump exposé. Mine is called FIRE AND FURY – INSIDE THE TRUMP EARLY YEARS. If the title sounds vaguely familiar, that’s because Wolff copied me.
My book describes a rich, entitled, angry, unstable, vindictive, erratic, undisciplined, lazy young child who hated to read. Thankfully for America’s sake, he eventually grew out of these ugly, infantile behaviors to become a normal, high-functioning adult.
I interviewed dozens of childhood acquaintances, including teachers, classmates, and even his high school baseball coach. They paint a shocking picture of a deeply insecure child with a penchant for bullying, telling lies and bragging about his pee-pee size – and that’s all while he was still in the womb.
Here is a sneak peek at the unsettling world of America’s 45th president several decades before he single-handedly (with a little help from Putin) decided to Make America Great Again.
Donald John Trump was born in 1946 in Queens, New York City, the fourth of five children of Frederick and Mary MacLeod Trump. He came from humble beginnings, by which I mean his father was not yet a double-digit millionaire.
When Donald was barely six years old, he mastered his first bicycle without training wheels. He boldly proclaimed to his father that no child in the history of the world had ridden without training wheels earlier than him. His dad didn’t dare tell little Donnie that tricycles didn’t come with training wheels…
I will be the first person to tell you I’m far from perfect. Okay, maybe, the second person, Technically, my wife would be the first. In my six decades on this planet, I’ve said and done plenty of things that have annoyed people. In fact, my kids would argue this aspect of my personality is one of my defining character traits.
But I’m not a bad guy. That is, I didn’t think I was – until I was informed of this fact by literally thousands of people from all over the country – in the space of a single day.
Why is everybody so furious at me? I have no idea. Maybe it’s because I said Happy Holidays to someone instead of wishing them a Merry Christmas. Or maybe it’s because people are sick of me constantly posting videos of cute kittens doing stupid things on Facebook. (In my defense, kitten videos are simply irresistible.)
Or maybe it’s because I recently published a book called I am So Sick of White Guys, with a cover illustration of President Trump depicted as a puppet of Russian president Putin. Yeah, that just might be what stirred the hornet’s nest. I don’t get it. It’s just a humor book, specifically a coloring book, with satirical renderings of prominent white guys like Steve Bannon, Paul Ryan, and Roy Moore, with snarky commentary about how they are misusing their power to ruin this country for the rest of us. Interestingly, according to Google Analytics, a tool that analyzes data about this blog, I lost 15 blog subscribers after they read this paragraph.
Here’s what happened. I co-authored this book with a fellow humor writer, who I’ll call Sven Morgenstern, to protect him and his family from death threats. We wanted to highlight white male privilege in America, taking to task what we perceive to be corruption by President Trump and members of his administration. (Just checked Google Analytics again. Lost another nine subscribers with that previous sentence.)
[Washington, D.C. – December 5, 2017] Another day, another shocking conduct allegation – and this time, it targets one of the icons of American politics. Just minutes ago, the Washington Post reported that former Vice President Joe Biden has been accused of decent behavior in the presence of multiple women, and even several male colleagues in government.
On condition of anonymity, one woman, who described herself as a former staffer, shared her ordeal. “I was alone with the Vice President in his office and he kept staring at my briefs.” Further details have emerged to substantiate her claim that he was dazzled by her body of work and how well she had written her amicus curiae legal brief about the dangers of air pollution from strip mining.
Another female aide reportedly has a tape of Biden pushing her to expose her position – no matter how uncomfortable – on fracking without using protection.
Still another woman was more blunt in her claims, admitting that she’d engaged in a longstanding carnal relationship with Biden, even having sex in his official residence. She later came forward and reluctantly identified herself as Dr. Jill Biden, his wife of 40 years.
For decades, there have been whispers about Biden’s proclivity to engage in shocking acts of unsolicited civility towards attractive members of the opposite sex, as well as unattractive ones. Stories have long circulated about his tendency to avoid speaking in sexually graphic terms when around female subordinates, even in public.
Several complaints have surfaced from people who have seen Biden put his arms around women, in what appears to be a caring embrace, usually during military funerals honoring a fallen son, killed in action. (more…)
I thought I saw a reliable contractor once. Turns out he was hammered. My point is this: Ever notice how most contractors are a little flaky? Doesn’t matter whether it’s the guy installing a new furnace or the dude replacing your deck or your brother-in-law’s nephew repairing your washing machine. They all seem to have the same concept of customer relations: they’re slackers. They fail to call you back, they arrive two hours late – if they keep the appointment at all –and then they leave after just 30 minutes on the job because the one critical tool is back at the shop.
Week Six: Ignoring Complaints
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