Doing favours for those with two x chromosomes!!

[RossJarvis]

Is there a particular reason why people with two x chromosomes seem to think that doing any form of building work is the same as putting lego together and wonder why it takes anything longer than 2 minutes to do any job? This seems to go hand in hand with all sorts of fanciful ideas (which change every six minutes) about what can go where and "can you just do this as well".

Or am I just a bitter and twisted old git?

 

[kernowjoiner24]

I too regularly fall victim to this with the in-laws, paricularly the 'mother-in-law'..
Can I just knock up a small display cabinet to display her youngest sons dr who figures, how many and what size I say ? Oh not many, about 80 to start with but leave room for more, and what size ? Oh they are all different ? Oh and they all need little plinths making, oh and maybe a sealed up glass front to keep the dust out. But dont make it too big. And why havent you done it yet ? And when youve done that the grandparents want some wardrobes making for nothing. Arrrggghhh ! :evil:

 

[Random Orbital Bob]

It's the word "just" that always gets me.

 

[RossJarvis]

These aren't even relatives!

I got home for lunch on Monday, whilst helping the vicar lay footings for his greenhouse (free of charge), and a friend phoned up "could you help me build a shed for 'so-and-so'", so I popped round to so-and so's later, having finished levelling the concrete.

"I was just thinking of housing in all the uprights, and maybe a hipped roof" says the friend, so the next day I popped round to start the job, splicing wall and floor plates, routing housings etc, the friend turned up after work and cut the uprights to length and shot them into the housings, "oh, so-and-so wants to put those windows over there in (pointing at metal windows in rotten frames) I'm not sure whether I've ordered enough wood, We'll need lap joints in all the corners and the job needs to be finished in a fortnight and I'm going on holiday tomorrow for a week!". Then I nearly cut my finger off with a tenon saw!!!!!!!!!!!!

Apparently "people just love to help others out" so I heard today :x :x :x :x :x :x I suppose if I wasn't unemployed and was going to be paid I'd have the option of saying no

 

[Jonzjob]

Part way down your last posting I was going to ask if you had ever heard of the word 'NO' but you beat me to it. .

What the hell. If they want you to help them and they are good friends, then maybe, but to fit with me, but if it's a 'I want it by, with such and such' The next thing is to tell them how much it will cost. Unemployed? Then the pay is pints in paper form, those little beer tokens?

 

[RossJarvis]

Part way down your last posting I was going to ask if you had ever heard of the word 'NO' but you beat me to it. .

It's not so much the helping people out I mind, it's helping out the people who are helping out :shock:

I've also noticed a difference between helping out blue collared people and the "professional middle classes". The poor people will be grateful and give you their last teabag and the others' will tie your SDS drill to the back of a car, drag it around the area for a week, leave it out in the rain and then smother it in render, shatter all your bits and then give it back complaining that the bits "aren't up to much".

I think I am just a bitter old git actually. (plus, in regards to beer tokens, if you phone up the dole office you get the message "press one to claim for benefit, press two to tell us you have finished your claim.....press five to shop a benefit cheat", it's just not worth it as I know I'd get caught, from much bitter experience!.

 

[Mar_mite]

It's the word "just" that always gets me.

Oh yes. I hate this. People like over simplify what's involved. You turn up to look at a job and the customer is already telling you how long It will take.

 

[RogerS]

I don't help out. Simple. I have more than enough to do at home.

 

[RogerP]

I get this sort of thing with some friends/relations asking me to upgrade/mend/sort-out the mess on their laptop/desktop computers .

The last time I was asked I said, "that'll take me about a couple of hours so while I'm doing it you can mow the lawns and finish the digging I'm supposed to be doing - okay?"

It appears it wasn't as I heard no more

 

[Alex H]

I don't help out. Simple. I have more than enough to do at home.

+1 :wink:

 

[pebbles]

Happens the other way round too sad to say... I've finally let go of a friend who was happy to borrow my tools and other useful things, and not give them back, and then either break them or muck them up with cement or plaster that had set etc etc etc. I started to toughen up by not letting him have some cable recently... "but you're not using it"... "but I will be in due course". Compromised and got some for him at builder's merchants when I was there - gave him the receipt - funny he didn't have the cash on him. All went very quiet for over a week (he's normally in touch every couple of days for something or other) till I contacted him and asked for my money. Made all sorts of fuss, as he was obviously hoping I'd forget if he left it long enough. Like I don't see what he was doing?!

Can do without it. It's not friendship.

Grumpy old gits do come in the feminine form too!

 

[bugbear]

Is there a particular reason why people with two x chromosomes seem to think that doing any form of building work is the same as putting lego together and wonder why it takes anything longer than 2 minutes to do any job? This seems to go hand in hand with all sorts of fanciful ideas (which change every six minutes) about what can go where and "can you just do this as well".

Or am I just a bitter and twisted old git?

If you think optimistic/deluded clients are all female, you're being selective!

BugBear

 

[Sheptonphil]

I get this sort of thing with some friends/relations asking me to upgrade/mend/sort-out the mess on their laptop/desktop computers .

The last time I was asked I said, "that'll take me about a couple of hours so while I'm doing it you can mow the lawns and finish the digging I'm supposed to be doing - okay?"

It appears it wasn't as I heard no more

I like that as a retort. Must give it a try as I find it hard to say no, even with enough to do of my own already.

Phil

 

[gwaithcoed]

I had a fellow come to see me a couple of months back. He said Mrs. so and so said you may be able to help me." Iv'e just had my bungalow carpeted throughout with very expensive carpet". " It's very thick pile and the fitter has had to remove all of the doors to all of the rooms".
The fitter had told him that he could replace the doors but as they would need cutting off it would cost £25 for each door.
"So Mrs. so and so said if I came to you, you would perhaps come and fit them for me as she knows you do little jobs for people"

I told him that" If the fitter only wanted £25 per door it was cheap at half the price and give him a call back" and walked off.
The look on his face was a picture. I found out later that he was a retired bank manager. I see him sometimes at our local village shop and when he comes in he always makes a beeline for the reduced and out of date shelf.

Alan

 

[Benchwayze]

It's easy to say No... But not when the person has looked after you and the spouse, for a month, after you both came home from the 'Kranken-Hause', after surgery. But I guess that's different. What started as a repair to a garden bench developed into a small step-raiser outside the kitchen door, and then to a small table for the porch. Payment was offered, but it's a case of 'No charge. You've done enough for me.' Okay until I run out of offcuts!
Oh well... It's called Community spirit!

 

[monkeybiter]

My tea tastes terrible and my help, while willing, is slow to materialise. The undeserving tend to look elsewhere, and the deserving get a better service.

 

[dickm]

So what do you do with the opposite problem, the proud old ****** who WON'T accept help? Our neighbour is in his 80s, profoundly deaf and suffers from balance problems. He's just had some building work done, which has left the surrounding garden really compacted and uneven. So he starts to dig it all by hand. Fortunately his wife was chatting with us, and said what was going on, so I offered to go round with rotovator to do it. He accepted fairly graciously, so I did the job and said to leave it to dry out and I'd be back to give it a second going over.
Apparently, he'd been considering getting a rotovator himself, but the local machinery guys had (possibly recognising his type!) said it wouldn't do the job. So, of course, having seen that my tatty old machine would actually do it, he goes out to another agent and buys his own machine! Which he was out using today; while I stubbed my toe on my machine while getting out some other stuff......................
And to make it worse, he gave me a bottle of single malt for the original work.

 

[joethedrummer]

I had a fellow come to see me a couple of months back. He said Mrs. so and so said you may be able to help me." Iv'e just had my bungalow carpeted throughout with very expensive carpet". " It's very thick pile and the fitter has had to remove all of the doors to all of the rooms".
The fitter had told him that he could replace the doors but as they would need cutting off it would cost £25 for each door.
"So Mrs. so and so said if I came to you, you would perhaps come and fit them for me as she knows you do little jobs for people"

I told him that" If the fitter only wanted £25 per door it was cheap at half the price and give him a call back" and walked off.
The look on his face was a picture. I found out later that he was a retired bank manager. I see him sometimes at our local village shop and when he comes in he always makes a beeline for the reduced and out of date shelf.

Alan

As a retired floor layer, some times we would be called back after the customer had contacted their "man" who would "sort out", the doors" for a" few pounds" that we had removed to clear the carpet we had fitted, called us back to trim the doors, after all, because their "man" was" busy".

 

[Benchwayze]

I do my own, when necessary. End of!

I tell a lie! Some years ago, one neighbor asked, could I trim his new doors, to his mark, if he brought the doors to me. NP. He marked them; I just fixed a straightedge and trimmed with my trusty Elu saw.