Words Like Locusts Flew From Her Fingers

A REALLY EXPENSIVE Man in My House, With a Wrench

I’m going to hold off on identifying the company that hooked up my new bar sink—for now. We’re going to give them a chance to make this thing right. If they don’t, I’ll identify them. Boy oh boy…will I ever identify them!

I finished tiling the bar and countertop and called the company to have them come out to hook up the new sink and fawcet I’d bought. They were providing labor only (okay and also some sink putty and adhesive for connecting the plumbing). It took the guy a half an hour to do the job.

The bill for the job: $302.00.

That’s right. $302.00. For those of you for whom math is not a forte, that amounts to a labor charge of over $600 per hour. Remember, we supplied the sink and fawcet. All the guy had to do is hook it up.

Okay…now you have to understand a little about how this outfit works. They’re a fairly big company and among their selling points are that they show up quickly, they’re willing to do relatively small jobs, they have a set fee that they tell you in advance, and they don’t charge overtime if the job takes longer than expected.

It’s completely true that the guy told me the fee up front and I okayed it before he began work. It seemed awfully high to me but I thought maybe the job was a lot more complicated than I’d thought. Maybe it really did take 2 or 3 hours to do. Plus, to be perfectly honest, since the guy was already at the house I just wanted to get the damn thing installed and be done with it. (I have no doubt that this company counts on people having just that reaction.)

Understand that I’m not completely clueless. I do understand that you’re going to pay more for the convenience of having a guy show up promptly to do a small job like installing a sink. You’d have a hard time getting a plumber from a local company to come out for such a job, I suspect.

But still…. $600 per hour???

So, half an hour after he’d arrived, as the guy headed out the door, I realized: I’ve just been charged waaaaay more than seems reasonable. The guy had left a little customer satisfaction survey for me to complete and mail back. I did so. A bit later in the afternoon a woman from the company called to do a routine customer satisfaction follow-up. (I dunno…maybe the guy told her how unhappy I was about the fee. I didn’t yell at him or anything but I let him know it was WAY more than I’d expected considering how long it took him.) I explained my dissatisfaction to the customer service lady and she promised she’d investigate the situation. It might be that the guy just read the wrong price out of the big book they use. She said I would hear back from her by next Wednesday.

So…we’re giving them a chance to fix this. Stay tuned!