You get what you pay for

*sigh* I have been dealing with a person and she is absolutely rotten at her job. She is a self-employed qualified Accountant with an ACCA comment at bottom of her emails. Me; I am qualified by experience and employed.

I am so much better on what I am doing then she is.

This useless cow (she has been called worse by me) is doing the Accounts for our resident association in the private block of flats. The Accounts could not be easier. 20 flats pay their Service charge to the Management agents and then they paid the bills for insurance, maintenance and electricity etc. Then in January, the spreadsheets are being sent to this “Accountant” – her annual charge is around the £300, which is cheap as shit. But then again, we get a shit service.

I had agreed with her in writing that this year we should start March/April. To keep it short, the work started in June followed by a start/stop dance routine. I am off holiday now in October so her deadline was 30 September.

I could finally agree the Account on 3 October and I have now been waiting for the copies to sign. I thought they might arrive yesterday or today but I didn’t receive them so a follow up email was sent. The reply was:

I have printed out the accounts but want to send them special delivery. I wasn't sure if you would be around during the week to sign for them so intend to send them tomorrow for you to sign for them Saturday am

Right ... never giving me the option to have them sent to my work address or checking with me what the best option is. I am after all the customer.

If I had done the same where I work, finishing a project and holding on to the info until it suited me to send it off – well I would have received a fierce bollocking and got fired.

This woman is really pissing me off. The only consultation is that I have been right in everything and she probably dislike me immensely. The management agents don’t really like me either. They have had a cosy ride before I started asking the questions.

If you pay nothing for a service, then the service will be nothing.