Mother of a Man-Child

For those who read my last post about the lessons for one of the men-children at the hands of a nasty builder, I am pleased to report several good outcomes from the experience.

Firstly, we managed to get my son paid for the 3 days work he had done during his “trial”, which we brought to an abrupt end rather than have our son work for what could only be described as an “arsehole”.  Not surprisingly, it did take more than a little encouragement, starting with some tactful and carefully drafted text messages from my son, followed by some very pleasant phone calls by me to the builder a week later, enquiring politely as to when he could expect the payment.  By the 3^rd week, and on the fourth round of broken promises and following a quite rude text back to me, I decided that the first of several threats was in order (I had several up my sleeve don’t worry).

So when yet again the promised funds didn’t make it into my son’s account on time (or even with another 24 hours grace), one simple text message confirming that we would be filing an application with VCAT the following day was all it took to secure payment.  Mother: 1, Builder: 0.

I suggested to my man-child that he could thank me for ensuring his bank account was back in the black.  He told me that with patience he would have been paid eventually.  I told him he was naive, and that the only way he was going to get paid was with standover tactics, and that’s what mother’s are for!!! 🙂

The other silver lining of our earlier dark cloud, was man-child actually submitting several job applications on Seek on his own (the horse actually drank the water!!!), and getting a call and an interview from a local builder about an apprenticeship.  We were so pleased that he finally got motivated and even more thrilled when he got an interview and an invitation to a trial period with said builder.  Now I don’t want to moz anything, but already, he can see that this builder is completely different in attitude to his predecessor, and actually wants to teach someone, not just hire slave labour.  I am sure it has renewed his faith in builders as employers, and also confirmed that not all builders treat their apprentices badly.

So, I am holding my breath until the end of this trial, and crossing my fingers that all goes well and that our son secures his official apprenticeship next week.  We are already proud of him and would be even more so if he gets this job.

If you missed my last post, you can read it here:  https://motherofamanchild.com/2014/02/14/learning-the-hard-way/

And please tell me, and I the only one who behaves like this?  Have you done similar things to get the outcome your want and think is fair?