The End Of The Road
This morning I received a WhatsApp message from our garden service who visit with their team once per week. Their job is to maintain the garden making sure the bushes and tree branches are trimmed away from the electric fence along with the lawn being cut. Nothing major and lately they have been rather slack so I gave the owners a good talking to.
Two weeks ago I pinched an employee from work to get the garden back to how it should be and we had quite a pile of garden refuse for the garden services to collect on their next visit. They reluctantly took some and left 80% which they said would be for the following week. One of the team or driver has complained to the owners and why this message was sent. I cannot stand lazy people especially if I am paying for a service that is clearly not being done to the standards required.
When I read this message this morning I knew exactly what it was aimed at and the part in yellow stood out. Will only remove cuttings generated by us had me cursing and the owners had left the barn door open for me to walk right in and give them an honest appraisal of their business.
When a service provider becomes a problem then they are no longer providing a service and the only reason why I had to use my own staff to get the garden back to the standards we expect. The pile of garden refuse we made was from the result of the garden services not doing their job and I told the owner exactly this and I should deduct the days salary of the monthly bill. If they don't take the refuse I will have it collected and deducted from their bill so they have two choices to make.
I do not think the owner was prepared for this and she kept on saying she needs to do follow up checks more often which is very obvious. This I told her did not fill me with confidence since I complained 4 weeks ago and here I am complaining yet again with two strikes and the third strike they are out. They do not know it yet, but next week will be their last visit as the contract is being cancelled for sub standard work and will find a company who would appreciate the business. They must take the remixing garden refuse first as this is still their problem and not mine.
The problem is an unmanaged team will do the least work possible and with lazy owners no one is bothering to follow up and check standards are being maintained. You dop start to wonder how people get through life if they cannot keep a garden contract when you have a team of 6 gardeners visiting each property. They make noise with the equipment, but nothing gets done besides the grass being cut and rake marks on the soil. The important trimming is ignored for next time and with so much rain around a garden only needs to be left for 2 weeks and you have the starting of a jungle on your hands.
I will ask around our community WhatsApp group for a garden service who can be recommended. I know of 3 or 4 companies that visit our area so surely one must be half decent to still be active in the area. You try and give people opportunities and they still manage to screw things up.
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