My partner and I have renovated several
condos in Pattaya.
Each time we have to find a company to perform the work. We found that
sometimes the larger firms were not interested in a small job around
50,000 baht.
We discovered this the difficult and frustrating way. How was that?
When we called the prospective firm they would agree to come to inspect
the
site
in order
to give
a quote. This is standard procedure. Enter the waiting factor.
Make
an inspection appointment and you will likely have to make another
two or
three after
they don’t
show up for the first second and third appointments. If they show up
at all it will probably be several hours later than the time you agreed
on and a
day or
two later. Not to fear not all firms operate like this. We just happened to encounter two or three operating under that peculiar policy.
Another Approach
One Friday with a computer generated drawing in hand my Thai partner contacted
three glass and aluminium firms to quote on installing windows on the balcony
of our condo. Each firm calculated that the job would take around three working
days to complete but two firms could not begin the work for another three weeks.
When the drawing was presented to the foreman of a fourth firm in a nearby
soi he calculated a rough quote on the spot. It was the most competitive
and he could
start work immediately. We were impressed with this and accepted his
quote. He agreed to start the installation on Monday.
On the Monday he
arrived on time
with another worker assistant. We were living in the condo at the time
of the installation so he set up his cutting gear in the public hallway
just outside
our front door. He had quoted a time span of three days to complete the
job so we thought we could cope with a little noise and clutter just
outside our
door for three or four days.
At the time there were no neighbours living
within 4 or 5 rooms from us. So there was no one else to bother. We were
happy to see
our window installer
arrive and start the job on time.
On the first day the two men brought a pile of aluminium and dumped it on the
balcony.
They did a lot of measuring, then, around midday began cutting the
aluminium on the balcony. Some pieces they had to cut with their cutting
machine
in the hallway.
Some how metal crumbs would stick to their boots and
drop off
creating
a continuous path of metal crumbs from the hall through the kitchen
and lounge to the balcony. This was ok we swept two or three times
a day
and as informed
knew it would last only three days.
Their work space was beginning
to over flow into the lounge room. No problem we could handle that
discomfort
for
a short
time. They made reasonable progress by midday the second day but we
could see that it would probably take four days not three to complete
the job.
On that
second day they went to lunch at noon but didn’t return until
5pm. On returning they gathered their tools and advised us that they
would
return at
9am the next
morning.
The next morning they arrived at 10am after spending an hour
at the factory supervising the start of the making of
the sliding window frames. When they wanted to leave
our room at midday to have lunch this time we offered to provide lunch
for them. We thought this might keep them on the job.
The foreman turned down the offer
but then we noticed that the young assistant had brought a packed lunch
with him and he stayed.
By 2 pm the foreman hadn’t returned from lunch and we discovered that his
assistant could not carry on with any work until the foreman returned.
This was
the assistant’s first job ever and he had worked with the firm
for only one week. At 4.30 pm the foreman finally returned and worked
for one
hour then,
as he did the second day, packed his tools and left. This schedule
was repeated for a further three days making a total of eight days
including
a weekend.
Weekend work is prohibited in the condo.
Caught In The Act
This action unveiled a messy situation. The manager and owner of the
firm were unaware that our installation was being done by the firm.
The foreman was supposed
to be working on some other installation about 10 km from our condo.
He was now busted!
The manager promised to reprimand the foreman for his wrong doing and
set the schedule in order.
This gave us a great sense of relief. Then on the tenth day the
foreman and his assistant did not show up on our job. We were deflated
and
pissed off.
After
several phone calls we were informed that the foreman was off sick.
Being busted must have been too stressful for him. “Could you send someone else?” we
asked hopefully. We were told we would just have to wait until
the foreman recovered.
Two days passed and at midday on day thirteen
of the installation
we received
a phone call from the foreman asking if it would be convenient
to
continue the job the following day. Lucky we were at home then to
receive this
important call.
Disregarding the fact that it would have been more convenient had
the job been finished to the proposed three or four day schedule
we accepted
the
offer.
The window installation was completed after a further four days
making a total of
15 working days. But to that time span we must add two weekends
making a grand total of 19 days almost three weeks of hell.
In Contrast:
We needed a similar job performed on another condo. No we didn’t
give the job to the same company. This time we found a private
installer in our
soi. His
name is Jung. He quoted three days to complete the job at slightly
less than the cost of the previous job mentioned above.