From the Front Line

I interviewed a self-builder who has recently completed the most wonderful house earlier in the week. He was telling me that, of all the many unexpected things that happened during his project - and it was certainly full of dramas - the thing that surprised him most was the attitude of many of his tradesmen.

Both he and his wife relayed with amazement the times that they had to sort out petty disputes between plumbers and electricians, plasterers and plumbers, kitchen fitters and tilers - none of whom seemed able to get on and most of whom, at some stage, had a huge hissy fit and threatened to walk off site unless their enemy went first. "I've never dealt with such sensitive people in my life," he said.

So are tradesmen just a bunch of old women? Is the new hub of bitchiness and personal gossip not the office coffee break but the building site? I didn't think much more of it until two more things happened to me this week.

Sat on a train back from London on Wednesday a group of workers from a local building site joined the train at Coventry and sat behind me. God - I've never heard such a level of prima-donnaism. "I'm not working with him again," said one. They had all made up nicknames for other workers on the site and continued to slate them until the issue was exhausted.

Lastly, an email comes in to the office yesterday from The Tile Association (TTA). It seems a comment made by the charming DIY SOS presenter Nick Knowles on his show about tilers (namely, tiling is easy and and old fool can do it) seems to have really upset the tiling community. I'm sure it was just an off-the-cuff comment but can't people take a bit of criticism these days? Unbelievably, they have sent a letter in to the BBC about it. http://www.tiles.org.uk/press/diysoscomplaint.pdf

Talk about sensitive. 

As Editor of the magazine I get my fair share of personal criticism. Company A might be angry about a piece on their specialist sector; Architect B will write in when we run a story on bad designers. It's part of the business and I can usually brush them off. It does seem that the building industry despite its macho image is in fact full of Prima Donnas.