god this dipshit at work is trying to make up nicknames for everyone how do I frame this guy for murder
Make up a nickname for him.
Something like āPedo Danā.
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oh hey look, they did it again today! shock
Has anyone figured out the fastest possible way to get to āprofessional courtesyā levels of respecting your raises out of people?
So my house was finished being built in November 2021, and by November 2022 the roof was leaking. Nothing major just a couple of minor wet spots on the ceiling in the kitchen, probably no big deal, definitely still under warranty.
I fill out the warranty form with the builder and nothing happens for 2 weeks. At this point me being me I follow the next step in my personal process and try to find a person I can call on the company websiteā¦ no dice. OK thatās fine I have zoominfo for work so I pull the names of basically everyone who works for the builder in corporate and start sending emails.
It turns out the builder doesnāt have anyone in the warranty department in Austin so no one has even looked at my claim yet. Multiple people pawn me off on multiple other people. Six weeks in and the rainy part of the year has started so I proceed to post my entire experience with the builder in the most negative light imaginable everywhere I can. Within hours I get a call not from their warranty people but from the supervisor who managed to construction of my home on behalf of sales who are apparently losing their shit about the misery I have posted for them online.
Within 10 days heās got someone up on the roof to fix it and it appears to be fixed. He leaves me his phone number in case anything else goes wrong and I think Iām done.
Fast forward a year and itās leaking in the exact same spot again. I call the supervisor and tell him this, he attempts to tell me my warranty is only good for a year (itās good for 3 years you have to report thereās a problem in the first year which I have already done obviously) and that I need to do the warranty process.
This is where I wish there was a better way to do things. Up until this point Iāve been very polite / professional in the Iām trying to send upper class vibes kind of wayā¦ but this kid is trying to blow me off. I do my standard line in this spot which is 100% fastball right down the middle as hard as I can throw it. I tell him he has one week to get me some kind of positive resolution, and that if I donāt get it I will hire my own roofer to fix the problem so that I donāt get mold waiting for them to deal with the claim, take them to small claims to pay for the roofer (who they have zero cost control over), win because of the mile wide paper trail Iāve been laying this entire time (and even if they win they will 100% need to send an attorney to deal with me which will cost them more than it would cost to fix the roof now), and repost the review that originally was a huge problem for sales with an update that makes them look like they try to solve flawed worksmanship with sealant to get past the warranty window.
I did all of this while pretending to be significantly more angry than I actually was. I truly do not take any of this personally. If I was in IT this would be just another support ticket, dealing with situations like this is like 50% of my work life lol.
I had a guy on my roof today on the 5th business day from that conversation.
The annoying thing about that whole series of events is that I couldnāt convince these people sooner that I was a problem that needed to be fixed properly until I put on a show about being angry. I hate the angry show and it ironically makes me a bit angry. I would like to stop doing that, but I donāt know how to get people to take me seriously quickly without also spending my entire life being a complete asshole.
Complete asshole is the only way to go with builders, especially after they get paid.
Yeah thereās a subset of people out there who respond to literally anything but receiving pain with trying to fuck you over. They never ever just accept your leverage and go for the frictionless transaction.
I donāt want to ruin your day, but I will if you force me toā¦ and then Iāll feel jittery and upset for the rest of the day because I feel bad for roughing up some 25-29 year old dude who is probably overworked and underpaid.
Had a big blowout with my warranty guy. He was hard to get ahold of. He eventually came through and got the repair done.
Then he gets on me wanting a survey completed and how ā5ā was the only acceptable rating. Said I couldnāt give him 5 since it took weeks to get my problem fixed.
Basically harassed me. I finally gave him a choice between no rating or a ā1ā. He went silent.
He was gone from the position shortly thereafter. This was about a year before the crash. No one stayed in those positions more than a few months anyhow. The housing and associated labor market was on fire.
Yeah we never even got a contact with an actual warranty guy for Austin lol. These guys built hundreds of units in Austin in 2021 and didnāt even have a warranty person lol.
The only way I ever got the people who could even do anything about the problem was by writing the kind of review that gets marked as helpful by a lot of people.
If these guys had ever read a write up I have done on a trucking company after some serious fuck up that was intended to put them out of business they wouldnāt have tried me lol.
The only place Iāve ever had any real success getting āprofessional courtesyā ironically is car dealerships lol. Well and trucking but thatās because before they call me they see my MC number and then when I pick up the phone I sound like what you would expect.
I wonder if going straight to a lawyer letter would work any faster? Probably not as cheap as putting on a show though.
If I was 5x richer I would have just tasked it to my staff lawyer as soon as the roof started leaking. Yes hiring a lawyer to be my in house guy as his/her ~second job out of law school is a personal ambition of mine. Mostly because it would change the math on how we choose to deal with certain types of problems with customers and carriers where we currently just write it off instead of fighting it out.
I think writing it off is terrible and encourages more bad behavior and if I was 5x richer I would win that argument easily lol.
There are a few situations where I would retain a lawyer almost immediatelyā¦ and in 2024 a major medical issue is for sure one of them. Iām not waiting for the insurance company to use some faulty AI to deny the claim. Iām going to have the lawsuit ready to file the second the first denial hits my mailbox. They will put my ass in the special queue for troublemakers IMMEDIATELY and I donāt care if that costs me a little money up front to get there.
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This resonates with me as I feel like literally everything in life now boils down to either grabbing your ankles and taking endless poundings from every angle or dialing it up to full sociopath karen in order to get even the tiniest bit of service from anyone, anywhere, ever.
I hate it, and itās only getting worse day over day and I donāt see anything stopping the endless and inevitable slide to perpetual grievance-fueled rage AND IT MAKES ME NON-POLITICALLY ANGRY.
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Seriously itās absolutely everyone you donāt have a repeat business relationship withā¦ and even then thereās a subset of people who like to overperform at the beginning of the relationship and then get shittier forever afterward over timeā¦ and thatās a shitty experience that requires you to either let someone take a mile out of your end one inch at a time or do the asshole sociopath thing every time they step over the line.
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Itās fucking jarring going to Europe. You go to a restaurant, get amazing service, they just auto add like 12%, thatās it. Traveling really hammers home how much this country legitimately fucking sucks. We have like 330 million people working their ass off for the benefit of like 25,000 people.
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The best way to get good service ime is to not be a dick and be clear about what you want.
Every once in awhile a patient will pull the ābe super rude to meā as a way to try to get something they want, never goes well for them
LOL wat?
Iām only exaggerating slightly. Amazing service at European restaurants happens occasionally, but itās definitely not the norm.
European and American waiting styles are different, because their customersā expectations are different. There are definitely plusses and minuses to both overly attentive Americans and Euros that let you just eat and talk.
I donāt disagree with that, but I also donāt think your typical American diner would describe your typical Euro service as āamazingā. People tipping 20%+ would expect something different from that.
in my experience it wasnāt the norm either (early 90s Italy, Germany)
but even āserviceā meant different shit in euroland. Like when my now-ex and I visited Holland where she was born and raised, we went out, and the plates and glasses and shit just pile up as the courses are consumed. They consider that normal. I kept waiting for this asshole to come pre-bus, because wtf wants to stare at a half-eaten plate of whatever this bland shit is while people talk to each other in this orcish language I donāt understand?
otoh I wasnāt expected to tip so that was nice
In Italy the table is yours for the night typically. I have no idea how they make a living. Prices are a bit less that the US.