The Eternal Optimist

Despite having lived in Brazil for the past 7 years I still maintain the very British hope that tradesmen will turn up on time! Yes, I know I shouldn't be so naive after all this time, but I still have ingrained in me the very British notion that you turn up when you say you will. Similarly I still expect a good standard of workmanship - despite being disappointed time after time - one has to live in hope or else wallow in despair!
As I write this I am waiting for a man to come and talk to me about putting a septic tank on my property. A neighbour, who he did the same for, called him up yesterday and he agreed to come to my house, which he knew as he originally installed my sewage system some years ago (before I bought the house), at "mid-day". Now, in a land where very, very few people wear watches, mid-day could just mean "in the afternoon", but my neighbour assured me it would be noon.
There is an added element here in that I leave Brazil in little over 2 weeks, so need to get this work completed before I head to Peru.
You have to look out for them to arrive as unlike many countries where they will come and knock on your door (or ring the doorbell) here (and in Peru, for that matter!) they will stand at the gate and clap, whistle, or possibly call out. Just before 2 pm I heard my name being called, but it was the neighbour who had made the arrangements saying the man could not come that day, but would come Sunday "morning". It is currently 11.30 am and I am still waiting, jumping up at every noise in the street outside!

It got me thinking about my other experiences with workmen here in Brazil, and how in fact almost every one was, in some way, unsatisfactory.
1. When I first bought my house I needed to have some work done - particularly exterior painting, a new front door (the existing one was actually an interior door and was in a very poor state), new access (as the existing one was across a neighbouring property), both pedestrian (which also involved having steps built up to the road) and vehicular, and having some canopies built over several windows that were allowing rain ingress. There is no such thing as Yellow Pages here locally but there were some builders across the road constructing a large wall round a vacant lot there so I spoke to them and they agreed to do my work "part-time", which meant weekends and after they finished each day for an hour or so. I ordered all the materials they said I would need and once it all arrived they got started. I had offered the main builder (they were a team of 4) an "entrada", or deposit, but he said that wouldn't be necessary as they were being paid for the other job so it would be nice to get the money at the end (here you just pay the tradesman for his labour, all other expenses like materials you pay separately).
They started mid-week and the first few days it was fine - until Friday afternoon, when Juvenal asked if I could pay him a little in advance as he needed to buy a big bag of dog-food. I duly obliged - I had after all offered a deposit originally - and he said they would be back on Saturday and would work both then and Sunday. I didn't see them until Monday afternoon (they didn't even work across the road on Monday - it is Market Day here and often is considered a "day off"!) when I was given no explanation, other than one of his "mates" implying he had been too drunk to work! This was the pattern throughout the work, but as progress was being made, and I was in no particular hurry, and was told it was the norm here!
Part of the work required him to sub-contract a carpenter, namely the front door and the canopy supports - and the first day he was here the carpenter took me to the local hardware store to get the hardwood door. He measured them up, looked carefully at all they had to make sure they were "true", and selected one, which I paid for. This was the first example of unsatisfactory! Within 6 months the door started warping - but it was the hinge stile that was warping, pulling the hinge outwards, not the flat plane of the door warping! It means I have to occasionally sand down the opposite side, the lock stile, so it doesn't jam!
About a month after the work was completed one of the canopies also fell off (also done by the same carpenter!), ripping the timber supports out of the wall. When I contacted the builder about repairing it (at my cost, of course) he immediately knew which one had fallen off, as he had queried the fact that the supports were too short! Since he was supervising the work I asked why he didn't say anything at the time, and he just shrugged and said it was the carpenter's responsibility! He also said the man was a little crazy and needed hospitalisation!

2. There must be a thing here with carpenters as I had another strange experience with them. The local radio station was running adverts from 2 new carpenters who had started up a joinery (furniture making) business, so I went along to see them. I particularly wanted a new sink unit for my kitchen, but also some storage shelves for my "spare" (junk") room, and some dis-mountable bunk beds, which could be used as 2 single beds. I carefully drew up scale plans and talked through them with one of the carpenters, and he agreed they would be easy to make using local hardwood, which he assured me was sustainably sourced!
I had asked for 2 one metre shelves, but when I went to collect it they had made 1 two metre shelf! Not a big deal, I suppose, and it fit where I wanted it so no real problem.
The sink unit had to fit into the space the old one was in so when I gave them the drawings had explained that the rear left leg had to be half a centimetre shorter for it to stand level and flush. When I collected (it comes in pieces as they don't have transport so you collect it yourself and re-assemble at home) I asked if they had marked the "short" leg, but he said he didn't know which it would be so had cut the all the same!! The unit is symmetrical - open shelves - so front and back are the same, so all it needed was one leg being cut shorter - something I couldn't do as it is very tough hardwood, so eventually had to have the backing tiles cut so it would fit under them!
The bunk beds!! I wanted standard single bed size, which in Brazil is 88cms (24.5 ins), and my plans clearly showed this. Again the beds were in pieces when I collected them so I put them together at home, and then measured them before going to buy mattresses (in the only shop here that sells them!). I couldn't help noticing that instead of 88cms, the bed was only 84cms across, so asked at the shop if they had 84cm mattresses - he looked at me strangely and said they did 78 and 88 only (78 being child size, common in bunk beds!). As it happened one of the carpenters was in the shop (I hadn't actually seen him before as all my dealings were with the other one),and he said that he had been unsure about my measurements so had come to the shop before they built them and measured up a bunk bed (child sized!) in the shop, but then added a little to that measurement! So my beds are 4cms, or around one and a half inches narrower than the mattresses I bought!

3. The old tiles on my kitchen floor were breaking up and though tiling is something I can easily do, and have done in my guest bedroom, I needed this doing fast as it was the kitchen. So I called my builder and asked if he could do it quickly, and he said it would take 2 days! I stripped the kitchen area, removing everything including the sink (we don't have fitted kitchens so all the units had been free-standing), leaving him an empty space to work in. It didn't take him long to remove the old tiles and start marking out for the new ones I had bought, along with a couple of packets of tile spacers, which he said he didn't need! By the end of the day about half the floor was tiled, though the lines were a little suspect, and he had used a tile saw to cut the adjoining tiles (it is open plan) where the lines got too close together!
The second day he completed the tiling by lunchtime, but said he would return the following day to do the grouting as he needed to go to the hospital now as he had the flu! I didn't see or hear from him for the next 2 days so decided I had to finish the grouting myself, and saw then how badly the tiling had been done! The lines weren't straight, the gaps were all shapes and sizes, and there was even a chipped tile! The grouting didn't take that long and I soon had the kitchen back into a functioning state.
A week later there is a knock at the door - it is his son (who was on the original team with hi when they did the first lot of work), saying that Dad had sent him to finish the job! According to his son he had damaged his back, and had been in hospital, which was why he couldn't come back, and looked surprised when I asked him about the (non-existent!) flu! I told him I had finished the work, though was not happy, but wanted to speak with his father and needed to pay him as well. He did appear 2 days later, shrugged at my complaints about the standard of workmanship, collected his tools - and payment - and left!

(Still no sign of the tradesman I am waiting for, over an hour later!)