I absolutely love my customers who bring out tea and Coffee, sometimes with biscuits/cake too. A quick chat and cuppa usually leads into a great friendly / working relationship with the customer. Problem occurs when I'm running behind schedule my head is saying " hurry up you are behind you have another 4 jobs to do, no more tea and chat !". Then out comes another tea ( I never refuse) and before you know it I'm late and then the cycle begins again with the next job and customer.
Im sure I could have made it home about one hour earlier if I didn't take some many tea coffee pit stops.
Anyone else like this? I should be more strict but have developed many lovely customers that it would be rude not to stop and chat. I guess it depends on how busy you are that day although that hasn't changed anything for me in the past.
All work and no Tea makes Jack a dull Boy.All work and no Tea makes Jack a dull Boy.
All work and no Tea makes Jack a dull Boy.All work and no Tea makes Jack a dull Boy.
:)
Views: 45
Replies
The issue is.. once a cup of tea has been refused the offer the stops. so you can not say no.. even if its your 12 cup of the day.. never ever turn down a cup of tea or they will not offer again lol
When on larger jobs, it's great to have a cuppa, but it has to be our rules! We stop at 10am, 1pm and around 3.15...........anything in between messes up the day! Have been known to provide a Dulux shades of brown colour chart as a guide - tongue in cheek of course!
I'm exactly like you there and always enjoy a cuppa, biscuit at virtually every job. Often, I'll carry on working whilst drinking the tea and chatting. As you say, it makes for great relationship with the customer and I find they trust you so much that they'll offer you any job on the property, insisting that you can do it even if you tell them you've never done it before or don't even know how to do it!! True... its easy to fall behind a bit on schedule but it makes for a more enjoyable day. Myself, these days I just schedule in less jobs to allow for this however I do appreciate that others may well wish/need to maximise their income.
The majority of my work is lettings with US tenants. They don't offer anything, not even a cold Coke on the hottest day. The image of white-toothed healthy kids in baseball caps, offering home-made lemonade to anyone who's in need, is a complete fabrication!
The other extreme is the old lady who always brings me a stale biscuit and a cup of tea with either one lump or two. Of milk. You never, ever, get the taste of sour milk out of your mouth.....
Tea can be tricky! I have one customer who waits till I've finished before bringing out a cup of tea. She them wanted to discuss a few things about the garden. Her ploy used to get another half hour out of me for free until I worked out what she was doing!
Its one extrem to the next with us. Some bring you a cuppa every half an hour when you are trying to get some work done its a bit annoying and then you go some other places where we may spend days where you dont even get a single offer. That's when the 'no cup of tea tax' comes into action!!! Im tempted anyway!
I tend to keep the customers who are in, and thefroe offer tea to the end of the day - some of the nicest customers (one who refused to accept vegitarians exist for over a year and kept making sandwidges) are all reserved for 3:30 onwards, so if they hold things up, they dont mess up a day - Fortunatley only about 1/4 of my customers are in when I visit so the hold up risk is low!
Still - I feel its a very important part of english hospitality..... If I'm in, I offer the window cleaner a cuppa - costs nothing, puts a smile on someones face and makes the world a better place on the whole.
my self and my assitant only stop at 10ish for a bacon roll at nearest place availble, but probilly have 6/8 cuppa's a day if a socket is near to plug into, or if customer is at home they make us 3 or 3 cups, having a 5 mins cuppa don't slow us down as we don't stop for dinner so it works out the same break time, most of my jobs are 1off paving slabs or block paving so on a job 4/5 days or so.we work 7am to 4ish
If no tea is forthcomming from a at home customer we usually drop a few hints like has the water been turned off or what that wistling...lol
Say no to one and you never get another lol
What I do if i`m in a hurry is politely say thankyou I`ll just leave it to cool while I finish this and I`ll be with you. Usually they have gone back in by this point.