Builders turn their profession into a performance

Michael Simkins warns against the dangers of putting the trust in building-construction workers.

We want commitment from building workers that they won’t abandon us half way through the contract. What do we get in return? Jason Alden / Bloomberg News

It’s often said that individuals working in the same profession quickly adhere to a stereotype. Those in banking tend to be confident and assertive, greengrocers tend to be easy-going types who don’t take life too seriously and call everyone darlin’, while actors are shallow, self obsessed and have a fondness for wearing long scarves.

But if indeed this professional stereotyping is the case in the UK, then those in the building trade have turned the practice into something of an art form.

Is there is any more dreadful phrase in the English language than this: "We’ve got the builders in"? Yet for anyone who lives in this windy, rain-drenched island, keeping an apartment in good nick is a constant battle against the elements. And finding a reliable builder is the holy grail for householders. And about as unlikely.

It was TV celebrity Anne Robinson who famously said: "Never make your builders a cup of tea." For once you’ve done that, she argues, you’re half way to being their friend. And then there’s no way back when things go wrong. Which they always will.

And yet who wouldn’t offer this simple, quintessentially English courtesy to those whom we’re about to hand over the most treasured possession? After all, we’re about to allow them to remove our doors, to knock down our interior walls, rip up floors, and demolish our kitchens and bathrooms, usually around our ears.

We are helpless without them. We need them to say everything will be all right, that costs won't spiral out of control and that the thousands of pounds we’ve handed over in virtual fistfuls every few days are going to be money well spent.

So on the first morning we make them a cup of tea. We offer them a biscuit. We pore over design catalogues with them. We hand over our keys and the best part of £200 (Dh1,125) a day for their professional services.

All we ask in return is that they turn up on time and do an honest day's work, clear up before they leave and that they don’t overrun on either their stay or their initial estimate. Most of all, we ask them to sign in blood a solemn declaration that they won’t abandon us half way through the contract.

And all goes well for a week or so. They’re there at 8am sitting in their van when we draw back the curtains, and they rarely leave before 5pm. "We’ve got the most marvellous builders," we tell our friends, "not like the usual ones at all. We can thoroughly recommend them."

That’s usually when it goes wrong. About two weeks in, suddenly they’re delayed in traffic. Suddenly they’ve got to go off to the nearby merchants to collect what they call "some bits and bobs"– journeys that inexplicably last for several hours.

Before you know it, every time you peek through the banisters at them they’re not hard at work in the kitchen like before, but on their mobiles in the garden, taking down information on scraps of paper and assuring the caller they’ll be there tomorrow. Then they disappear for an entire week, before returning just as suddenly. They blame their absence on either a family illness or the fact that their van was stolen with all the tools inside.

But why didn’t they pick up my calls? "Ah well" they say, "I dropped the mobile in the wash basin and it’s taken all this time to dry out."

You know the rest. Acrimony, recriminations, spiralling costs, more delays, until finally their last month or so of their stay is carried out in a spirit of simmering resentment between the two of you that makes Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin look positive sweethearts by comparison. They threaten to walk away, while you threaten to withhold final payment. Your only comfort is the sure knowledge that there will at least be four other households in the area who’ll be suffering the same misery.

Tomorrow my wife and I have got the builders starting. Tonight we’re using the last tea bag in the place. From 8am tomorrow it’ll be three falls, a submission or a knock out to decide the winner.

Michael Simkins is an actor and writer in London

On Twitter: @michael_simkins