No-shows and cancellations for deliveries and contractors every time- normal?

[Anonymous]

Everything has finally come together for us and we have our first not-starter house. It needs a lot of work but we saved for 14 years at our old house and were excited to be able to hire people to fix things like knob and tube wiring, a failing hvac system, some new furniture, etc. I’m personally happy because I finally have the money for my first new couch! We have been sitting at the kitchen table or in little chairs since January and were so excited 3 weeks ago when we got the notification that the delivery company could schedule us for delivery. The date was confirmed multiple times including confirmation of the time window last night. I took the morning off work to be home for the delivery today

They just called with an hour left in the 3-hour delivery window and said our couch was the last one to be loaded and doesn’t fit into the truck so they have to reschedule. The earliest they can do it is next week but they can’t say what day or time of day yet I have to take another day off work when I really have no PTO left. I don’t have anyone nearby who can accept it because everyone is leaving town.

I’m so frustrated and disappointed. This isn’t the first time we’ve had cancellations and it eats up tons of time and PTO. Whether it’s contractors overscheduling themselves or delivery issues like today’sI feel like everyone takes scheduling as a gentle suggestion and I’m expected as a customer to just take it and be available 24/7 once I’ve paid for an item or paid a deposit.

Is there a way to get these people to stick to a schedule? What am I doing wrong? I’m finally not broke and I thought being able to spend money on things would make things easier, but it’s definitely not the case.

[Anonymous]

It happens, OP, and it completely sucks for households with no work flexibility. We gut-renovated our home when I was staying home with little kids, and my husband had flexible work hours. I don't know how else we'd have stayed on top of the workers, whose shoddy work wasn't corrected by the general manager, and received deliveries, some of which were delayed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It happens, OP, and it completely sucks for households with no work flexibility. We gut-renovated our home when I was staying home with little kids, and my husband had flexible work hours. I don't know how else we'd have stayed on top of the workers, whose shoddy work wasn't corrected by the general manager, and received deliveries, some of which were delayed.

At this point I think we’ve had 4-5 deliveries and all have changed days, and easily 11 different contractors or repair people, and none of them have showed up on the first day they scheduled and many have taken multiple weeks and even months of random days here and there to do jobs that were originally scheduled for 2-3 days in total. I feel like I have been living my life in cancelled and shifting 6 hour increments for the past 4 months, and I’m frazzled and scattered at work.

I can’t say a word to people in person because I don’t want to sound ungrateful to be able to be in a bigger house and be able to update it, so I’m relieved to be able to vent here.