Down Memory Lane - My Painting and Decorating Days

Hi folks!!

A typical balancing act on a ladder!!

I ran my own Painting & Decorating business for 15 years and met quite a number of weird customers and consequently I have some funny stories. I keep saying I will chronicle some Ambulance stories from my later experiences . . . . and I will! . . . . but these will follow later.  Talking about following, I welcome all my new followers from various Blog Hops . . . and of course I also welcome my existing friends.  Talking of friends I stumbled on a very funny door mat when I was delivering my son's papers the other day - he sometimes is not able to do it!! . . . or won't LOL.  The doormat said, well it didn't actually say it, but it read,

Friends always welcome. Relations by appointment only

Well, it has a ring of truth in it, doesn't it?  But Eddie, you might be thinking, stop digressing and get on with the story!!!!

OK.  I worked with my friend Chris for the 15 years, on most jobs and on this particular occasion we started working for a Regional Bank Manager (Did I hear some "Boooos"?).  This job was a recommendation by a humble Branch Manager, one of his subordinates, who was highly pleased with the work we did for him and his wife.  Mr X, as I shall call him, was something else. (Funny all Mr X's seem a bit weird in my experience.) Anyway, the job was to decorate his landing, hall and stairwell, plus his front room.  He took us to one side right at the start and said he expected perfection and rarely got it, and would we guarantee that he would be 100% satisfied.. A bit of a tall order we thought but we suggested he would be pleased because we worked to a high standard. He said, "Come and look at this!", and highlighted a new wooden conservatory which he had recent had installed.  He said he was very dissatisfied with the installation and pointed at a roof beam, remarking that the joints were not very good and that he could see two pieces of wood instead of one.  I looked at Chris and he raised his eyebrows in unison with mine.  I could not help replying that there were actually two pieces of wood in that joint and it looked perfect to me.  Chris nodded in agreement. Disgruntled he said, "Well, it's not good enough!".

Anyway we proceeded to decorate the landing and he seemed satisfied with the standard of our preparation of the woodwork, the undercoating and gloss work, which took us a couple of days.

Next day we started papering and completed the first two quite complicated drops, involving ladders and scaffolding planks. Guess who worked aloft? You've got it!  We heard him cough behind us and he said, "Oh! dear, oh! dear, that will not do at all!".

We asked why.

He replied that he could see the join in the paper. Now we are pretty good wallpaper hangers and it looked OK to us but we obliged by adjusting it slightly.  Fortunately we were able to slide one drop a little to the left - ever so slightly and carefully.  

"I suppose that had better do!", he said, and seemed reluctantly satisfied with the remainder of our wall papering.

When we got to the lounge we had a lot of problems with him criticising our papering.  Honestly, it was a good job but this "psycho" seemed to belong on a different planet.  The fireplace wall was large, 30 feet by 8 feet high.  He said, "There are joins in the paper and I expected not to see any!  I wanted to see the pattern uninterrupted across the entire wall!".

I said the wall is very large and unfortunately we were unable to find ONE piece of paper large enough to do the entire wall . . . . and had we been able to, how did he suggest we might paste it and hang it!".

"Well, I want perfection!  I have a new house and what do I find?  No-one can do their job properly!  The plasterers made a real mess of things because some cracks appeared in the wall when it dried out.  Those idiots installing the conservatory were totally incompetent and . . . . . now you seem incapable of hanging paper to my satisfaction.  I expect perfection!"

I said, "Now look Mr X, I am afraid you will not get perfection this side of the grave  . . . . . but please rest assured the standard of our work is exceptional and that is why we obtain so many recommendations from satisfied customers."

This seemed to rock him a bit and he made a beeline for Chris and said, "You are not upset are you? I hope not . . . . . look into my eyes . . . . . look into my eyes . . . . . oh! I can see you are upset! . . . look into my eyes!"

The "weirdo", we thought in unison and tried hard to stop laughing.  We imagined him making people redundant at the bank and saying, "You are not upset are you? . . . . . look into my eyes! . . . look into my eyes"".  In fact if he wore a glass eye we might be tempted to look into that because, as the old bank manager jokes say, there may be a modicum of humanity in that one, unlike his natural one.

Anyway, eventually he seemed fairly pleased with it.  His wife was delighted and said to us when he was out, "Take no notice of him, he is a silly old fart!  He just loves to pick fault. It makes him happy!"

He paid us on the dot but we were very relieved to have him out of our hair.  We have never forgotten this experience and still have a laugh about it . . . . . often we say, "Look into my eyes! . . . you are not upset are you?".