These villains will ultimately be blamed for everything that subsequently goes wrong. Window suppliers have a private language when it comes to estimating times of delivery. This private language is designed to bring a false comfort to the client and avoid sudden trauma. Instead, the suffering is drip-fed over the weeks. They prefer you to quietly fade away while waiting for the windows. Here is a simple conversion table of window-supplier timescales that can lessen the stress: five window-supplier weeks translates to eight normal weeks as you and I would experience them; eight is eleven and twelve is eighteen. If you can remember this in advance, you will be fine, but the window supplier will give you his time of delivery with such confidence you will become confused. This confusion will lead to misery.
All work stops until the windows and doors arrive. It is usual to meet dazed neighbours dragging themselves like zombies along the street who, on you enquiring about their renovation, will tell you they are ‘waiting on the windows’. When waiting for windows, it is best to spend your time out of your shell of a house on a park bench or hanging around the supermarket aisles. That is where most people in that situation congregate.
The windows will eventually arrive on site and, several weeks later, the specialist subcontractors will install them. There is a contemporary trend of fitting the new windows with the handles on the outside. We live in hard times so many of us can sympathise with doing whatever we can to make life easier for our population of burglars. But there are some spoilsports who insist on the old-fashioned approach of having the handles on the inside. In those cases, the windows have to be taken out, new ones ordered, and the wait begins all over again. This actually happened to me. I ordered a floor-to-ceiling opaque window for our new bathroom. The window that eventually arrived had transparent glass with the handles on the outside. When I pointed out this design feature to the specialist subcontractor, he told me that I could climb up a ladder on the outside to lock the window from there and then I would have ‘no problemo’. When I pointed out that I would be on full nude display to the neighbours, he said that he ‘wouldn’t tell anyone how they should live’. When I asked how long it would take to replace them, he sucked the air in through his teeth, rolled his eyes skyward and came up with a new figure. We returned to waiting for windows. For a while there I was seriously tempted to stick with what had been installed. But this is what they want. They want to wear you down.
The Amnesia Rule
Time heals our wounds. Just weeks after the builders have finally gone, the trauma starts to fade from memory, including the waiting for windows. This is typical of our experience of pain. Women forget the actual pain of childbirth, which facilitates them going through it all again for the sake of the population. Amnesia sets in when we try to recall the specifics of a previous building job. The builder exploits this loss of memory.
For example, on the topic of the proposed timescale for the build, T (above), it is very important but impossible to keep in mind that the length of time for the build proposed by the builder should be at least doubled. Builders halve the actual build time when telling clients how long a job will take. Clients believe them, even when they have hard-won experience. You might ask, ‘Are you sure?’ just to demonstrate interest or politeness that you are still following the conversation. The builder will reply, ‘Sure I’m sure. No problemo.’
Builders like demolishing things, even essential supporting walls and pillars, at the beginning of a project because demolition gives an excellent impression of a good start and causes the client to falsely believe that the builder’s T will be accurate. In my own case, the proposed build time was four months, which I foolishly thought was an estimate worked out scientifically by Phil, my builder. It took ten. D’oh!
On-the-Job Rules
So you have dressed for the occasion, you have put aside all of your worries and you have hired a builder. He has underestimated the build time and over-priced the cost, but you have a steely determination to see it through and be the first person you know to come out on the other side unscathed.
Before your builder turns up at your house for his first very short day, you should be aware of a few general rules to keep in mind when dealing with him in a day-to-day relationship. There are specific rules that govern the behaviour of builders once they are on site. First, there is the desire-to-be-somewhere-else rule that governs the yearning of the builder to be anywhere other than in your house. They will turn up on site only to leave immediately. They will use a myriad of excuses, usually involving sourcing obscure plumbing parts, to get away. Second, there is the positive-future-tense rule, where the builder confines himself to talking only about what will happen on site at some future date, rather than what is actually happening at that moment in time. Third, there is the sharp-intake-of-breath rule, where the builder draws air in through his teeth as a stalling device. This rule allows the builder to develop an excuse to fit the circumstance in the length of time it takes him to start breathing again. Let’s see examples of these rules on site.
The Out-of-Site-Is-Better Rule
The contractor will turn up slightly ahead of schedule on the first morning. He will point to his watch, while loudly praising himself for his punctuality. Then he will look both the most impressed and most surprised by his presence, and will ask you to confirm how brilliant he is by saying: ‘Look at that. What do you think of that? I said I would be here and here I am.’ This will be the last time for months that he will be able to make that utterance. He will immediately propose a celebratory cup of tea to mark the auspicious occasion. He will invade your kitchen with his full crew specially deployed for the morning and start looking around for the most important tool on the job, the kettle. For conversation he may ask where you keep the fig rolls. Everyone will settle down to study the sporting pages of The Star.
Once the tea has been drunk, the contractor will stand up to begin the play. He will ask his well-rehearsed sidekick if he brought a particular invaluable tool with him, without which no progress can be made. The contractor will loudly abuse his subordinate for neglecting to bring the specified tool. He will then head off to the building suppliers to ‘pick up’ some named tool or device, promising to return immediately. That is the last you will see of him for weeks. You will eventually discover that his main function as site manager is to source parts for his workmen. Particularly heavy parts will need to be sourced by the entire crew, who will all disappear together.
Once you get onto the plumbing stage, you will find that, as the plumber inches his way along each pipe, he will be missing a vital component at each bend and junction. When you get past all the junctions back to the automatic valve system for temperature zones, it is best to just go on holidays because you will discover that the very largest heating suppliers tend not to stock any of the relevant parts.
Here is a really good business idea that you would imagine should work but it won’t: buy a huge truck and stuff the back of it with every plumbing and electrical device you can find. Park it outside a building site, letting the victims inside know that you are outside and that, if the plumber or sparks need anything, you’re on hand. However, the builders would closely examine your merchandise to note what you don’t have so that they can return later to ask for one or two of those. They might also ask for imaginary parts that you should try to stock.
On the next morning that you actually see the contractor on site, he will receive a precisely timed phone call on his ever-ringing mobile, which he will purport to be from a client who is in greater need than you. This call may well be from his wife, a crew member hiding behind a partition wall for the occasion or just his phone alarm. There are always clients with greater needs than you. He will tell you that he has to leave to rescue some distressed woman and that he will be back in a mo, jiff or sec, which you will discover are all considerable lengths of time, sometimes stretching into weeks.
Another technique that builders use to remove themselves from a site is to arrange minor acc
idents, which oblige them to exit the scene speedily, usually holding a hand under the opposing armpit. On my build, we had two builders in A&E at the same time. One contrived to put his head through a window, while the other slashed his arm with the resulting broken glass. Both were taken away by the contractor in his van (that also functions as a general ambulance), one clutching his head while the other held his injured arm under his armpit. Apparently they were hospitalised for a month. In general, it is important for a builder not to injure himself to the point where he loses consciousness, making it impossible for him to either exit the site by his own volition or partake in a recuperative mug of tea.
I can only imagine where builders actually go when they hastily leave a building site. I imagine them all congregating together like birds in portacabins, well away from their clients, exchanging anecdotes on how efficiently they removed themselves from sites. Wherever they go, they are guided by the principles of getting away as quickly as possible and staying away for as long as possible.
The builder will give you a phone number that you will naively imagine is either his or one at which you can contact him. You will say, ‘I rang you thirty-two times yesterday’ when you next see him. He will offer you thirty-two reasons why he couldn’t answer, which will include: leaving his phone in the van, his phone falling down the toilet at another job, being in A&E with a mate where no phones are allowed, etc. No excuse will include a confession that the number he gave you was not his.
Building Grammar
When conversing with the builders on those rare occasions when you meet them at the back of your house, you must use the appropriate tense or they will become confused. As mentioned, builders speak in the positive future tense. You should respect their optimism. The contractor will point to a hole in the back of your house, while waving his arms above his head to paint an imaginative picture of what it will look like in the mystic future when the job is finished. It is important to practise this syntax so that you can have a meaningful interaction with the builder when he turns up. That way you will avoid wasting the valuable opportunity.
Here is the scene: the builder has removed the doors and windows from the back of your house. With a mug of tea in one hand and a fig roll in the other, you contemplate the opes together.
Builder: I will source the very best lintels, RSJs and u-value wallboards for those opes. I know a great window company in Azerbaijan that we must use.
You: The rain is lashing in right now. Can you just cover it with a few sheets of plywood?
Builder: Other builders would use rubbish. But not me. Only the very best for this job.
You: A rat came in last night. Little Johnny woke up screaming when he found him in the bed. Can you not just nail boards up while we are waiting for the Azerbaijani windows?
Builder: There is a new type of plaster on the market that I don’t have with me, but it will be perfect for this job when I get it.
You: I am really worried about the rising crime rate in the neighbourhood. I would like something to separate my family from the elements while they are asleep at night. You have taken away the garden walls and the back door so I am really worried.
Builder: I have found a new painter who will do a great job. You won’t even know the back of your house was ever off.
[You start sobbing. The builder’s phone rings.]
Builder [answering his phone]: I’ll be right there. Just keep your hand firmly pressed against the artery.
[You get in your car and drive to the builder supply yard for four sheets of plywood, a bag of nails and a tube of Tec-7.]
The Breathing Rule
On confronting the builder on site with any question whatsoever, with the exception of ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’, he will respond by taking a breath and holding it for as long as possible. This allows him to avoid making any rash responses before he has had time to run the question through the computer-like processes of his mind. For example, if you ask, ‘Will you be here tomorrow?’, he has to mentally examine the permutation of a variety of clients, when he last visited a particular client, how mentally disturbed they might be in the morning compared with you and, importantly, what excuse he can give to avoid turning up. His default setting is to say, ‘Yes, I will be here tomorrow’ without any consideration of the veracity of the statement. When a builder gives you a straightforward positive response, he is usually lying, or fibbing (in his parlance), which is just a white lie. He wouldn’t believe himself, so why should anyone else?
If you ask how much something costs, you will notice the builder changing colour to purple, because costings take longer to process mentally than simple lies about being somewhere at a specified time. He will exhale and play for more time with the standard observation: ‘Oh, that’s a bit complicated because a job like that needs special [fill in an obscure specialised expensive component that necessarily is neither on site nor easily or cheaply sourced].’ He also has to extract from you what expectations you have in terms of cost. You can practise this exchange by buying a carpet in Marrakech, Morocco. In haggling for a carpet in Morocco, it is customary for the carpet seller to get things going by naming a ludicrously high price. You should respond by coming in as low as possible without laughing. Importantly, you should not offer any sum whatsoever unless you are actually willing to pay that amount if a deal is struck. When haggling on site with a builder about a contingent cost, the carpet-selling model is inversed. In this case you have to suggest the lowest sum you can say with a serious face. The builder will come back with the highest counter-offer he can make, also with a serious face.
A typical scenario is as follows. The builder calls your attention to the fact that the distances between your radiators are now much longer than he had originally guessed from the drawings. Furthermore, the pipes they are making these days – naturally imported from abroad from some place determined to rip us all off – are not as long as they used to be, so he has to buy more of them than he planned. It is now over to you. Just to get the haggle underway, you ask how many extra pipes he needs. He takes a breath, holds it, and, when purple, tells you it is impossible to tell at this stage until he sees what lengths the pipes are in the builder suppliers. You should now offer a figure to keep the momentum going – three, for instance. Three of anything seems reasonable. It is not too many and it doesn’t commit you to a cost because you have not yet agreed a price per pipe. It also allows the builder to make a credible increase on the number. He comes back with: ‘You definitely need fifteen more pipes.’ While knowing nothing about plumbing, you should not cave in at this point. Say something like, ‘I don’t know. That seems like a lot. Couldn’t you stretch them?’ Builders can stretch anything when they need to. You should say, ‘I think we could get away with six.’ It is important to use the phrase ‘get away with’ because that is something builders understand. After more breaths and a careful study of your general demeanour, he counters with twelve. You should settle on nine.
Now for the tricky part. You have to ask how much each pipe will cost. Turning deep purple from the mental effort, he gasps, ‘It is hard to know these days.’ He asks, ‘What do you think?’ You should suggest that such pipes could be purchased for two euro each. He laughs at your naivety and wonders aloud what planet you are living on. He says that pipes he bought just yesterday for a similar job with elastic distances cost him two hundred and thirty euro each. At this point you should counter with your firm commitment to live in the house without any plumbing. Then walk away. As an afterthought, on your way out of any of the many large gaping holes left in your walls by the builders, say that for ten euro per pipe you would consider the luxury of central heating. He will drop his price accordingly. After an hour, you can agree on eighty-three euro per pipe for seven pipes.
* * *
I am left with only one building wish. I wish that when builders are installing Velux windows in inaccessible vaults they would remove the envelope of installation instructions glued to the glass. Tha
t envelope of instructions is going to be there on my window until an archaeologist in the future carefully peels it off to preserve it in a museum.
8
Christmas: Who’s Doing the Washing-Up?
Christmas is a time when people of all religions come together to worship Jesus Christ.
(Bart Simpson)
The mainstay of anthropology is the documenting of conventional behaviour. There is nothing as conventional as Christmas. An important feature of Christmas is that it is an anthropological opportunity to study Irish families on their best behaviour.
I usually go abroad in December to a country that doesn’t practise Christmas rituals. This is becoming more difficult each year as more and more nations and religions join in this globalised Christian festival. When studying rituals, you shouldn’t try to make sense of them; you should just go with the flow. For the sake of anthropological research, I gave up my plans to travel to Ak-Turpak, a village in Kyrgyzstan that is the last outpost of the Christmas resistance movement, to host this cultural phenomenon myself. The gods seemed to be on my side because, for full effect, we had a white Christmas. I had no idea what the point of dreaming of a white Christmas meant until I saw the advantages firsthand. However, despite mobilising my neighbours to shovel snow onto the roads and pile snowdrifts up against the house, our guests still made it through to be with us for Christmas.
How to Be Irish Page 15