I am not a contractor but I am an onsite computer guy. I do not mind being watched, or even answering a few questions, but when it turns into wanting me to walk through the entire diagnostic process and try and squeeze half a comp sci degree out of me, it gets frustrating, especially with a complex problem. My usual reply if people start pushing the limits of realistic is “I am more than happy to answer any questions you may have, but please realize, it will take longer”. Most of them leave me to work after that.
Some people also operate under the assumption that the contents of their 10 year old dell with a street value of “Pay Drachillix $20 to haul it away” that has a hard time playing spider solitaire effectively is some kind of uber hacker gold mine of valuable data. Obviously I am just looking for any 10 second window to scoop it all to a flash drive so I can exploit it later. :rolleyes:.
Before I read any further or click the link, I’m predicting it’s the thread where some nut had a meltdown about a workman spending too long in her bathroom, presuming that he was jerking off or maybe even taking a shit in there. And some other nut was on about how rude it is to shit in someone else’s bathroom because if you feel like you’re going to have to go sometime in the next 12 hours, just go on and do it before you leave home. Ahh, good times.
One of us is usually around. A lot of the time I stay in the room because it seems like every time I try to go off and do something somewhere else, they develop a bad case of the wheresthe’s. You know, every 5 minutes or so it’s taptaptap “Ma’am, I’m sorry to bother you but where is xyz?” They need the breaker box, the water cutoff, the bathroom, to know if I’m aware the white dog is limping, access to the attic, a pair of channel-lock pliers if I happen to have some.
Or there’s some god-awful or at least ridiculous issue caused by the slap-dash mentality of the previous home-owners that I need to have a look at. My personal favorite story about this is the first time our plumber came out. The gas logs in the living room were leaking, and I sat on the couch reading and listening to the mumbling issuing from the fireplace. It was interesting listening, too. First was “Oh, now who did that?” followed by “That’s not even legal!” My personal favorite, though, was the culmination: “How have they not blown up yet?” Apparently, whoever ran those lines found using proper gas line connections to be too difficult and expensive, so they just used water fittings with a lot of joint compound. Guess where the leak was?
This was a terrible loss but don’t you also think it was avoidable? If contractors are going to be unsupervised in your home isn’t it prudent to put your valuables, especially small items, away for safekeeping beforehand?
Also, I hope you filed a police report once you were sure the ring had been stolen. Otherwise there’s no way you have any chance of getting it back, plus the theif is emboldened to steal from the next client too since there were no repercussions this time.
One of my favorite regular business customers is a pawn shop, a veritable mountain of guns, jewelry, and small electronics. Much of my work is in back areas where they have no cameras. One time I was working in the space they use for checking and breaking up jewelry for shipping out to recyclers. I was sitting at a workstation with a little muffin tin where they had been sorting gems into, and piles of chains sorted by gold carat quality. There was literally a generous double handful each of 24k, 22K, 18K gold chains. As I walked out I was thinking to myself, “yup, they trust me”
A couple bar napkin estimates I was probably sitting with $250K-$300K in gold and gems.
As a former contractor I didn’t mind home or business occupants being there while we worked, and in some cases there were even benefits (one couple for whom we replaced a deck fed us lunch and the husband gave us a six-pack at the end of the work day every day), but not if you’re going to tell us how to do our jobs. If you have questions please ask the crew foreman first, as the rest of us are expected to work, not talk.
If you aren’t going to be home please move fragile items out of work areas if feasible. We do our best to be careful but sometimes Stuff Happens. Also, leave us a means to contact you, just in case.
Please keep pets restrained. I like animals, but not in the paint/putty/adhesive/whatever. We don’t want anyone getting hurt, including the non-human members of the family.
I put small valuables away, lock up the cats in a spare room, and stay home while the guys are doing their work. Yes, most people are completely honest, but it only takes one asshole to seriously ruin it for everyone.
I completely trust my GC. He has a key to the house, which makes it easy for me.
It also helps that he’s a friend, and used to live two doors down from me.
He warns me if he has crew coming over that he can’t vouch for, so I can put things away or be there myself.