Its very difficult to ensure that the person who is employed to project manage your project whilst you are many miles away is either competent or is following instruction.
When we arrived in France in November for 10 days, after some hairy nail biting moments of trying to get plans for a staircase out of our project manager, we discovered a number things wrong with the work we were paying to be undertaken on our behalf. Work that if properly managed would be easily done. Some of it was right. I am not sure its THAT difficult to clear out a house, but as the days we were there unfolded it became evident, that all was not well. One of the issues being that the "project manager" who will remain nameless, didn't even come for site meeting till a week after we arrived.
Instead he spent time texting me. I was fed up of that one in the end. You don't do professional project management by text You actually come and see the client particularly if you know their time is limited.
This is a person who was "recommended" by default through association with another agency.
So TIP 1. always check credentials and even if you are given an document with SIRET number on it, dont accept that at face value. Professionals will always show you their licenses or whatever they need to before they take you on as a client. You can insist there and then to see that documentation. But more importantly, it should be offered.
Even so, you can get caught out as we did and when we finally got a copy, it was only by checking the siret number we found out he was not registered as a project manager. If his attitude towards us at the end had not been so odd, I probably would have not become suspicious. I would just have gritted my teeth and got on with it. But his attitude to my asking him for a requote and a reduction on the total cost as so many things were wrong was out of proportion to his response.
The "problem" is of course, that John and I are very cluey about renovating houses. Johns been doing building work for over 40 years. He has built houses. His Dad taught wood working and so he knows the score and I had just renovated a house in Melbourne.
The "PM" could not believe it when he discovered we had put the floors in. We were accused of using his "staff' to work on our work. Not true at all. John and I are very squeaky clean when it comes to matters like that. but more importantly ...we are COMPETENT. It was clear he could not have done what we had done and therefore could not believe we had done it ourselves.
I was angry, though I had tried to be generous in my approach. When we left in November, after having had what I thought had been a cordial conversation with him ( turns out he did not have the same view ) we went round to the house to turn off the water. We found that the slab under which the water tap sits inside the house, had been cemented in, as his "staff"were putting the cement down on the floor. It took us a bit of time to use the cold chisel and the crowbar to loosen the slab, get it up and turn the water off. We were also by then on a tight deadline to meet someone for a business meeting, and then get our flight. Finally we managed it. But for me it was the final straw.
