Thread: I wasn't "One of the boys"

Originally Posted by big_gumbo

I'm a qualified tradie and i got treated badly with one of the guys from bunnings. I still shop there, but what i do now is, 2 items in pocket, 1 item on the counter (2 for me, 1 for them). Walk out the door - "thanks for the freebies Bunnings!"

So, Big Gumbo, a tradie AND a thief...double jeopardy

Originally Posted by Ian Smith

So, Big Gumbo, a tradie AND a thief...double jeopardy

Wonder how honest he is adding up the hours to do your job?? Then again probably not the only one.

Originally Posted by big_gumbo

I'm a qualified tradie and i got treated badly with one of the guys from bunnings. I still shop there, but what i do now is, 2 items in pocket, 1 item on the counter (2 for me, 1 for them). Walk out the door - "thanks for the freebies Bunnings!"

And people wonder why we ask for receipts, check inside stuff, look in the back of utes, disbelieve dodgy sounding stories, etc etc.

Thieves like you me off mate. Your parents must be proud.


Sean

Originally Posted by scooter

And people wonder why we ask for receipts, check inside stuff, look in the back of utes, disbelieve dodgy sounding stories, etc etc.

Thieves like you me off mate. Your parents must be proud.


Sean

i agree totally. The prices we pay have theft built into them.

I have had great service at Reece in Browns Plains. Don't think poor service is anything other than the attitude of the drongo you have the misfortune to deal with.
Developing a good set of comeback lines at least gives you some satisfaction, even if it doesn't improve the service.

I was in a hardware store once where it was apparrent that I was akin to
an unwelcome bad odour. the store had little of what I wanted anyway. When I was rudely asked if there was anything else hat I wanted help with I said "Yes, I like you to tell me what else you don't have." Got a laugh from a couple of customers.

"You mean zinc"
well obviously if gal is not available, zinc will do
"Ummm yeah, that's the one" I reply
"Does it all come as one piece?" I then ask
"It's an offset you want isn't it?" He asks back sharply
well I am not really sure of the terminology, I usually hack up animals for a living, a butcher by trade ....but a bit better than the one that installed my downpipe to begin with ....so an offset is?...
"What's an offset?"
"Well if you have eaves you have to go back towards the house, or do you want it to go straight down to the ground?" He asks me with a bit of tone.
I want it to look as it did before, as I explained to you....it runs back onto the house under the eaves and down the wall into the ground ....do you have that much pipe in stock??...oh and the bracket thingamybobs to hold it on the wall please

is this going to take long? I am parked in a two hr zone


as you may have guessed the red would have been my responces, whenever I meet someone like this that has no respect for the customer that puts food on HIS table ......then its open season as far as I am concerned .....as a customer I have a right to SERVICE, I am always polite to them and I expect the same in return ....and God help them should they take it into their minds to overstep that boundary ....I DONT BUDGE...and neither should you ...if your not satisfied , stand your ground ...and ask for someone over their head ..... state your case politely and calmly and right there and then ...ask for an appology ....you will get one .......and when you leave you will have satisfaction that this fool is bleeding from the seams because you beat him, and he will without a doubt think twice before irritating you again...

Originally Posted by artme

When I was rudely asked if there was anything else hat I wanted help with I said "Yes, I like you to tell me what else you don't have." Got a laugh from a couple of customers.

hee hee, I've got to try that one artme

Originally Posted by scooter

And people wonder why we ask for receipts, check inside stuff, look in the back of utes, disbelieve dodgy sounding stories, etc etc.

Thieves like you me off mate. Your parents must be proud.


Sean

Thanks for treating us like fools Sean - he confessed that he was a tradie, isn't that enough?

The cheating, stealing, lying, not keeping appointments and general low life attitude is naturally assumed.

Most tradies make second hand car dealers look like they have soul.

Apologies to the fair dinkum good tradies who seem to be in the minority, are honest and excellent at their trade as well as nice people.

Apologies to the fair dinkum good tradies who seem to be in the minority, are honest and excellent at their trade as well as nice people.

Glad you put that in Rob.

Another problem is that certain items of the same sort are known differently in different trades.

Being a female woodworker I am sometimes treated in a similar manner to how you were treated when I go into hardware stores or timber yards. I always try to know the name of what I am after and find taking a deep breath before I go in to the store helps! If the people are a bit rude or unpleasant I usually dont bother going back unless I have no choice.

He turns without saying anything, gets the bits, dumps the appropriate items on the counter, gives me an invoice, and I pay and leave.

Please don't think your the only ones that cop this. Tradies cop the Rock star attitude too. Unfortunately its hard to get people to do these jobs and not all but a few think they're rock and roll stars because they know every name and code.

There is also the handy person who heads into a store and wants half an hours attention to buy a 45 degree connection with $2 margin on it.
Hence some big hardwares just have the gear there and you make your own decisions without half an hours advice on $2.00 margin.

Any rate finishing off a large renovation the other day while the plumber put in the drains. Hes goes to the connections box full of joins, swears, gets on the phone.

"Can you imbeciles not read an order, I spend $100000 with you guys each year and you still cant get it right. How many times are you going to stuff up" (Saturday afternoon) "Get the brain dead knobber in the ute and bring out the connection now or no more $100000"

25 minutes later ute comes flying in with angry staff member and the plumber gives him the stre down. Ute zooms off with angry staff member.

You get attitude with a lot of stores. Some of the bigger hardware store staff run from you into the next isle or send you on a wild goose chase.

Anyone in WA pm me and Ill send you to a smaller hardware/plumbing supply that the "big" project builders have used for years that not many know about.
Their service has been very good for years. They have had problems getting staff like anyone else.

Some of the bigger hardware store staff run from you into the next isle

What, to New Zealand??!!

I've always found our local plumbing supply shop (Swan Plumbing) to be very helpful, knowledgeable and courteous. In fact, if anything they are more polite and helpful to my wife than to me. They always get our business.

Our local hardware is going the way of the big city hardwares - only employing people prepared to work for $12.50 an hour with no particular knowledge or skill other than how to run the cash register. I never feel intimidated when dealing with them, but just try and get a sensible answer to a question out of any of them. I go there less and less.

In a way, I would prefer to go somewhere that is staffed by arrogant wanna-bes than somewhere staffed by housewives and career retailers. At least they might have a clue about what you want. Try talking to the girl down here at Mitre 10 about downpipes and see how far you get.

Note this is no reflection on the staff - it's not their fault that Mitre 10's employment policies focus more on how little you're prepared to take home than on how much you bring to the job.

Mostly its because most of you have MUG written large across your forehead.

I must say, it is a bit of a relief to see that I'm not the only one to get the arrogant treatment from specialist hardware stores. I normally find Bunnings etc to be attitude-free, because their business is primarily DIY etc.

I used to have a full-time home business in Yarraville building road-cases, and the nearest engineering supplies store was Swanson Engineering which were about 10min drive away. Amongst other things, I used to go through thousands of rivets each week, I also needed bulk boxes of washers and bolts and nuts. Swanson mainly supplied trade customers, and had products and bulk quantities you wouldn't find at Bunnings. They were so rude, and ridiculously over-charged me, I felt intimidated walking in, it was like I was an intruder. I used to joke with my wife that as soon as I walk in they might as well say `your money is no good here'.

Then, I discovered a similar engineering supplies store called Warburtons (in Sunshine). It meant an extra 10 minutes further in the car, but they were incredibly friendly and helpful, AND their prices were in some instances half what Swanson charged! I didn't even have to ask for special bulk discount prices either; once they recognised my face and saw me turn up regularly and buy similar supplies, they voluntarily started giving me even cheaper prices - this was within only 3 to 5 visits.

The guys at the local Reece trade desk are incredibly rude and ignorant. Sometimes I think they don't want to make money. I have seen this time and time again in various trade stores, be it for hardware, timber and board suppliers, plastering supplies, paint, concrete, even specialist tool shops.

The thing is, you don't see it in other industries or stores. I used to be heavily involved in the music industry, firstly as your usual hobbyist, then later buying high-end gear for a professional studio. At both stages, no matter how many stores all over Australia I dealt with, staff universally go out of their way to assist and never patronise or look down their nose at customers.

In my experience people in the automotive industry at stores like Repco or Autobahn etc can also be very rude at their trade desks, and realistically they should surely expect a far higher percentage of amateur customers. A lot more home-mechanics buy parts for their cars than you would see people buying downpipes or other hardware beyond the usual DIY stuff.

I could go on with various theories as to why this culture permeates the Australian building/manufacturing industries. Do they think money just grows on trees? Are they at all aware of what is involved in a free market economy? The problem is no doubt more prevalent in the coal-face staff at the counter. Their bosses no doubt understand the need to make money.

I think a lot of them are jaded employees, with little to no education, who didn't perhaps `make the cut' in the related trade (eg plumbing or mechanics) and are relegated to doing a very boring and less well paid career, and like to make themselves feel powerful.

The thing is, they have no idea what skills or knowledge their customer has; sure someone may not know all about plumbing, but how does the wanka at the counter know they're not dealing with someone who is a master concretor or electrician etc? Must everybody be totally fluent in ALL areas to get decent service everywhere?

Some people make the argument that trade stores are protecting plumbers and other tradies who wouldn't be able to make money if everybody else was cutting in on their territory and doing it themselves. That makes me laugh - have you ever tried to get a tradesman to turn up on time? Or to even bother giving you a quote? Or finish a job off properly? It's not easy! So don't tell me they need special protection from their fat buddies at the local trade desk.

I recently had a sparky charge a huge amount for a tiny little job, a couple of really easy power points in rooms with no plaster or floors or ceilings (ie no access difficulty for the roughing) and it took him about 2 months to finish it off; he sent his useless apprentice to do the job, who came over 6 times and each time he nicked off after 45 minutes, he didn't bring the necessary items when he actually did anything (ie didn't bring THE POWER POINTS with him). In one room he installed a ceiling fan where there was a plaster ceiling, and poked four big screwdriver holes through the ceiling in a metre radius from the fan location (he was obviously trying to guess the spot from above so he could go back down and see if he was right) and I'm going to have to patch them up sometime. Heaven knows why he didn't just poke one hole from BELOW??? Then he left the wire loose around the ceiling fan, so within a few weeks we had a loud banging noise because it had fallen in. It wasn't hard for me to go in the roof and fix that, but it was such an unprofessional job, particularly when they're charging something like $160 an installation. He attached the power points after I lined the walls, then when I did the tiling I unscrewed the power point so it would fit over the tiles. Only to discover he hadn't installed them properly, he'd left out the backing plate and just whacked a few screws into villaboard! UNBELIEVABLE!

This thread reminds me of that "Not the nine o'clock news" sketch ...