A Comedy of Errors
Over the course of about a week, we received over five inches of rain here at our house. Our drought-stricken land greedily sucked up as much water as it could, relishing in the cooler temperatures and the beautiful smell. Unfortunately, with that rain came sixty mile-per-hour winds that knocked down a section of our back fence. I say “knocked down,” though in reality it’s mostly just leaning into the neighbors’ yard; it’s still standing enough to keep the boys contained in the yard when I let them out to play. Scott, who has already replaced several fence posts in our yard, looked at the fence, looked at me, and said, “Hire someone.” Not knowing who in the world I should hire to do such a thing, I turned to Service Magic for referrals. Service Magic referred two companies and a handy man service in our area who had excellent reviews and were legitimate companies. I scheduled all three to come look at our fence and was impressed with both the quote and the eagerness for the job from one of the companies, Great Fences and Decks, as well as with their reviews, so I decided to go with them. They wanted a 75% deposit on the job (that translates into $700), which definitely sent up some red flags in my head. Despite my initial discomfort, we went ahead and paid the deposit and scheduled them to begin the following Tuesday (this was on a Friday).
On Tuesday morning at 7:30 AM, I received a phone call from one of the guys (Orlando) telling me that it was raining outside and they would not be able to start the fencing project that day. Orlando said that he would call me the following day. On Wednesday, again at 7:30 AM, Orlando called to tell me that they were waaaayy behind on their other jobs because of all of the rain and would not make it out to our house again that day, but that they’d be here on Thursday. I told Orlando how uncomfortable I was with having given him $700 and having nothing to show for it, and he assured me the job would get done and that I would be extremely pleased with the workmanship. On Thursday morning (at 7:30 AM, of course), Orlando called and said they’d be at our house by noon, that they had to finish up a job before they could come. I was actually out of town by about an hour at the time and knew I wouldn’t make it back before they got to the house, so I told Orlando to just go ahead and go into the back and get started if I wasn’t home and that I’d be there as soon as possible. Around 2 that afternoon, I called Orlando to see how the job was going. He didn’t answer, but he returned my call about an hour later extremely apologetic. He confessed that the job on which they were working was taking considerably longer than anticipated, and he said they wouldn’t be finished until around 4:30, at which point it would be too late to head our way to start working on our fence. Once again, Orlando asked if they could come “tomorrow.” I told him that frankly, Friday wouldn’t work for me and that they would have to come on Monday. Orlando said Monday would be better for them and we agreed on 7:30 Monday morning. He said that he would swing by on Friday to drop off the fencing materials so they’d be here waiting on Monday morning. Well, Saturday rolled around and there were no materials waiting in my yard. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately), I wasn’t able to worry about it because Grant was graduating from UT and I wasn’t going to be home to deal with anything for the rest of the weekend anyway.
At 8 AM Monday morning, I began calling Orlando because no one had shown up to work on our fence. After multiple calls with no answer, I called Service Magic and explained to them everything that had happened. I told them that while I wasn’t ready to file an official complaint with the company (I mean, Orlando had stayed in touch with me very well up to this point, and I was trying to be understanding of the situation that seemed to be beyond his control), I wanted to double-check on their reliability, etc. While I was on the phone with Service Magic, Orlando called. He apologized profusely but told me that he wouldn’t be able to make it out again that day because his wife had gone into labor on Sunday and delivered a little baby boy. He was exhausted, and, as it is a family-owned and operated business, they were all a bit tied up at the moment. He assured me that his brother Jose would be out the following day (Tuesday) to complete the project. Orlando assured me that I had not wasted my money and said he knew how uncomfortable I had been with the size of the deposit and promised me the job would get done. I hung up with Orlando and returned to Service Magic, where I proceeded to update them on the situation. They placed a courtesy call to Orlando, basically letting him know that they were aware of the situation and were expecting the job to get done ASAP. (Side note: The lovely thing about Service Magic is they guarantee their recommendations; if this company took my money and ran, Service Magic would reimburse me and make sure the job got done! I’ve never in my life been so glad that I went with a referral company.) Orlando immediately called me back, freaking out over the call and saying that the job would definitely get done, I didn’t need to worry, etc. I told Orlando that I hadn’t complained or given him a bad review yet; I simply wanted to make Service Magic aware of how much I’d been put off until “tomorrow” with nothing to show for my substantial deposit. He said he completely understood and said that his reputation hinges on his business and its reviews and that he in no way wanted to wrong a customer and that I would be very pleased with the work. Tuesday morning (again at 7:30 AM), Orlando called to tell me Jose would be at my house between 10 and 12 that morning. At 12:15, I received a phone call from Jose. He said, “Miss Katie, I know you won’t believe this, but I’ve had a blowout and can’t drive my truck. I’m trying to find someone to come get me and take me to your house. I’ll call you back.” Almost immediately after hanging up, Orlando called to see if I’d talked to Jose yet. He said that they’d call me back as soon as they’d figured something out. Orlando wasn’t able to go get Jose because was about to take his wife and new baby home from the hospital. Nearly two hours later, I called Orlando because I hadn’t heard from them. Orlando called Jose and then called me back to tell me that Jose was still waiting on a ride. Orlando said that there was no way they’d get out to my house that day because it was already 2 PM and they wouldn’t have time to do the job. He promised me that someone would be at my house on Wednesday to complete the job. At this point, I was obviously skeptical, and I told Orlando my thoughts on this. He said that I didn’t need to worry, that Jose and his crew would be at my house Wednesday morning to take care of the job.
Today is Wednesday. At 8:30 AM, I called Orlando who said that his dad and brother and crew had just left his house and were headed my way. Forty minutes later, I called Jose, who said they’d had to stop for concrete and would be at my house by 9:40 AM. At 10:30, just as I started to call Jose again, the crew pulled up to my front drive. YAY!!! My fence is being repaired as I type this, and the guys are doing a great job. Orlando has called me twice to check on the progress from my perspective. I’m quite impressed with how well he has maintained contact with me over the last week and a half. If nothing else, that was what prompted me NOT to file an official complaint on him. As my brother said to me last night on the phone, “Katie… this is real life. He’s not lying to you… rain, new baby, blowout… you can’t make this kind of shit up!” And he was right. :)