08/06/2023
Decorating / painting job completed last week ✅✅😊
🚨🚨 Advance Warning - Long Post Alert! 🚨🚨
Not many will read this, feel free to look at the pictures 😂
This job was completed for a regular & long-standing customer of mine who has used my services & put their faith in me as one of my first ever customers, virtually from day one of me starting out back in 2019.
I mostly work for this customer at their superb & thriving nursery business, carrying out all of their general day to day maintenance, enhancement projects for the play areas & general / sometimes emergency repair requirements.
This time (not for the first time) I was invited to work in their home, unattended, unsupervised, in order to decorate their teenage grandsons bedroom in a colour of his choice…..And Baby Blue was his chosen colour! 🎨
The main challenge in the prep work amongst quite a few cracks and chips in the plaster etc, in particular were two full length upright plasterboards that had cracked all the way up the joint between them, due to the fact they were bouncing at the edges i.e not securely fixed.
Therefore before attempting to deal with the joint crack they had to be secured.
There’s always a limit to what outcome can potentially be achieved (when your not handed a nice newly plastered room) based on what you have to work with at the start & although this room required a bit more than average prep, my focus on delivering the best work I can didn’t waiver & I was extremely pleased with the final finished outcome! 🤩
There can be a wide spectrum of what customers are happy with in terms of expectations of finish & on jobs like these some people are happy with a quick lick of paint to freshen up a room. Granted there are also some people who will claim “anyone can slap a bit of paint on” & offer their work very cheaply (cash in hand) & if both sides are happy with the end result I’ve no qualms there.
However I only really have one way of working & that’s striving to achieve the best possible work and finish I can, within the limits of whats realistically achievable & using that ethos to stay within a sensible budget, but always trying to ensure things are done properly…… as they should be.
This is exactly why this job is an example of one that makes me feel so proud, not so much for the work completed, but for the level of trust placed in me!
I gave my customer an estimated timeframe for completion & it was fully accepted no questions or quibbles. No trying to fix me to a set price which could potentially lead to a loss of earnings on my part or an excessive profit. No saying can you do it cheaper because I’ve had a cheaper quote! No messing, no bartering, just a full agreement on what I had put forward based on trust.😊
I was fully entrusted by her to be left alone to work in her home & at the end of the first day I popped round to the nursery to drop the house keys back to my customer.
On arriving she looked at me & said “wow someone’s been busy painting” to which I replied;
“No unfortunately not, these are just my paint spattered work clothes! 😆 I haven’t managed to put a stroke of paint on yet, as the prep work has been quite instense & still to be completed tomorrow morning! I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news!😅😕”
As I barely finished my sentence, my customer said to me;
“Adam, you don’t need to apologise, I totally trust you & know you’ll do whatever needs to be done properly, that’s one thing I know & don’t need to worry about, so please don’t ever say or feel the need to say sorry to me”
And that response, with a genuine show of trust & faith in me made me feel extremely proud! 😌
It also reminded me that those who know me, and have had me complete work for them time and time again, do so because they trust me , appreciate my honest advice, are happy with my standard of work & accept my intentions are always good.
They know that I’ll always do the best work I can for them at the best price I can, giving 100% of my effort, doing an honest days work & always offering an honest assessment / opinion or advice of the work at hand.
It also made me realise, I am good enough…. even for those who DON’T know me and unwillingly devalue my work, skills, work ethos & personal qualities by bartering on the price given, commenting such things “oh well one guy said he’d do it for this much (cheaper) “ …. Or “ I don’t think it should take that long” or “ Oh I thought it would be cheap as it’s only a small job”…..just a couple of examples.
I understand we are in difficult times & nobody wants to pay over the odds (myself included) especially currently with an on-going cost of living crisis.
However those who put purely price at the top of their agenda also quite often seem to have a lack of understanding of how all the costings are built which doesn’t just consist of purely “time on the job” there are so many other factors involved.
I know my worth (now) & need to remind myself that those who undervalue good workmanship, reliability, willingness, helpfulness, with care & attention along with most importantly trustyworthiness are probably people I do well to end up not getting the job with. ☺️
Have a good day everyone!
