Interesting times...

We've had an email from T+B stating that owing to the worsening financial situation they have had to halve the company; Joëlle and M. Petitpas are no longer working there...

But they're going to continue to provide the same level of service!

I've had several of the firms working for us ask us how they can be so busy [so busy that they forget major things/don't spot glaring errors/tell people to do the exact opposite of what's required/turn up (hours or days) late because they have too many meetings scheduled, etc, etc], yet always be short of money. How those firms know they are short of money, I don't know, but we knew they were struggling back in January 2010.

We don't know how they manage to have lots of clients/work and no money; it's not as if they come in lowest of the quotes for that sort of work! We chose them initially because of their apparent system; it was only when we were on hand to see what was happening 'on the ground' during Phase 1b that we realised that was all a sham, and by that point it was too late to back out of using them again; I just had to watch everything like a hawk to make sure all the many and varied errors got corrected.

I'm not sure whether we were intended to receive that mail, or whether it was a case of 'mail everyone in the address book'.

I don't think they're sly enough to include us as a dig that we still didn't pay the last few hundred Euro we owed.

We we're still waiting for them to correct the plans before we paid anything further, and the loo is only just connected over a year later! Plus, I'm deducting money for all the project managing I've had to do, so I think we've pretty much written off our plans and any money we did owe.

The fact that they really pissed me off by excluding me from all communication during the latter half of our work [deliberately? I don't know; could just be another symptom of poor job management] but I received that one makes me think it was the sending out equivalent of "reply to all".

To be honest, if they are treating all their clients as badly as they handled our job during the second part, they deserve to go out of business! We know the commune had to cancel the 14th July celebration meal because works have over-run, so it doesn't sound as though they have managed to gain any control over the scheduling of works...

At least we can take consolation that since Jean-Marie declared our job finished at the end of last year, all the work we have had to manage completely by ourselves has gone much more smoothly, and relations with the various trades have been much more harmonious.

We haven't even had any raised voices, let alone any feet stamped!