The New Contractor

Of several candidates, one of the likeliest was Chang Nek, who had done most of the work on this attractive bar. Under close supervision, I was told, he'd do a decent job, and he quoted me 80,000 baht for the entire work, which seems cheap.

Problems: he quoted the price off the top of his head, which after my trouble with the lovable but utterly vague first builder gave me pause, and he was said to be no good at plumbing. I was also warned that he'd absent himself given half a chance, whereupon his workers would take a siesta that could last for days. He was an hour late for the first meeting, wrote nothing down and made no suggestions. He looked as though he had a permanent unspecified grievance that might prompt him to don a shirt at the drop of a hat, which is his own business, but I took an instant dislike to him, so combined with the other problems I decided he'd be at best a fall-back option.

Next up was Chang Nice, so named because I didn't catch his name and he was unavailable on Saturday, when he said he was going to school. It's hard to shake your programming, so I immediately decided someone so studious must be a good person. Imagine, then, my horror when I met him and he didn't smile, didn't laugh, didn't meet my eye, spoke barely above a whisper and generally conducted himself as though his Saturday classes focused on silent killing techniques for the Secret Service. Worse, he wore neatly pressed clothes and a pair of desert boots, wrote everything down in tiny handwriting in a Rolodex, and firmly corrected any erroneous notions I might entertain as to the particulars of the job.

For instance, I felt the circuit board merely needed to be moved from inside the downstairs bathroom, where the mains creeps out of the tiles, to the outside of the same wall. In this I was mistaken. Without looking, Chang Nice informed me it would go in the left-hand corner of the front bit. When I started to argue, he merely pointed to the tangle of wires at the top of the bathroom, which indeed had no very good reason for being bundled up there because the wriring ascends to the upper floors from the corner to which he had pointed, and said, 'There.' I gave him no further lip.

Having inspected the property, he lightly circled Wednesday the 7th on his Rolodex, pointed to the page, and promised by that date to produce a detailed breakdown of the jobs in hand, materials and labor listed separately, the go-ahead to be given for each item as and when I had the money to pay for it, and left without another word.

I suspect he's got the job; if his workers are half as terrified of him as I am the work will be swift and accurate.