We should be careful about who we hire to do odd jobs for us, warns OUR CORRESPONDENT who had an awful experience with one of the men who did a piece of  work for him.  Read on…

ONCe in a while, something has got to be fixed in our homes, on our bicycles, cars, stoves, cisterns, roofs, electric irons, among others.
In such situations, we invariably summon the experts in their trade to put things in order for us, at a cost, of course.
Usually, depending on our relationships with the experts we hire, we agree to get jobs done and payment follows later. It can be spot cash soon after the job is done depending on one’s cash flow, or the payment can be staggered over an agreed period or paid in full within an agreed time frame.
On Friday last week after attending to private matters, I drove straight home.
When I hooted at the gate a strange man opened it. Normally the gate is opened by family members or the maid.
But it turned out that the man wasn’t a stranger to me after all. He was one of the two men my wife had recently engaged to do some minor painting of part of the living room wall that had flakes of paint or ‘pimples’ caused by rain water seeping through.
Earlier, the two young men were hired to re-plaster the wall by ensuring they mixed a sufficient quantity of cement with river sand.
Indeed, the ugly-looking spots were now smooth and just needed sprucing up the wall with a coat of paint.
My wife’s friend recommended the young men do the task.
The agreement was that they would get their payment after a week or two as we were expecting some payments from our sources. And we paid them in full after a week.
Then, the same friend also recommended the two painters to do the work. As a matter of fact, these fellows used to work with a very experienced man whom we used to hire for painting jobs but, unfortunately, he died recently (MHSRIP).
He shouldn’t have died!
As with the two young men, we agreed to pay them for their work after one or two weeks; we were pushing for payments with our debtors and that once payment was ready, we would call them to collect their dues.
What a mistake!
After a week, we called them to come and collect part of their money, 75 per cent of the agreed total sum and they collected happily.
We assured them that we did not intend to make part payments, but that the balance would be cleared once our debtors, whom we were pursuing like criminals, had met their obligations to us.
On Friday last week, one of the two painters came to collect the balance on the payment!
He’d been accompanied by another man I did not know who was introduced to me as a friend of his. My wife was not at home at the time and I thought it wise to compare notes with her; to establish whether she’d called the man. She said she had not.
She was, in fact, chasing a payment at one of the offices in town.
Then I asked the man why he decided to come before being advised to do so.
The drama was just beginning! He claimed he’d been told by my wife to come on that day.
The man who was sitting on the floor of the veranda put on his socks which he had removed before wearing his boots and started thumping the floor with his feet shouting on top of his voice: “I want my money now. I have walked a long distance and I have a family to feed. If you are eating well, don’t think everyone is eating well. Don’t play games with me!”
If the raving and ranting could kill, you wouldn’t have read this story because I would have been dead by now!
Explaining to the man that our payments were delayed by months sometimes – not days like in his case – before they could materialise, was balderdash to him. He was uninterested to hear that even big companies sometimes have to negotiate payment terms with their suppliers due to poor cash flow.
“If you don’t want to pay us you can eat the money,” he declared before boasting: “Let me call my friend with my air time, not yours, and you (referring to me) can talk to him.”
He extended his mobile gadget to me, but I politely declined. There was nothing to discuss with his friend which I had not discussed already with him.
Then he beckoned his friend, shouting: “Let’s go. It’s better you eat our money! If this is how you used to deal with (the deceased painter), I’m sorry you are dealing with the wrong type! In future, we will never to do work for you again; don’t even bother to call us.”
And they walked out of the gate as he continued pouring invectives.
I’d never been embarrassed like this before. I felt grossly demeaned and abused.
Is this the way we should treat our debtors? I kept wondering.
This man who came humbly with his friend and agreed to the terms of payment was now insinuating that my wife and I were crooks who apparently dupe people after receiving services! How unfair!
This episode taught me one lesson. Never hire unknown people for any job on credit. Raise the money first and then hire labour. The reverse might cost your image.
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