We’ve been undergoing renovations to our main bath for the past couple of weeks. Some if it has been a pain in the derrière and some not so much. For the most part things have gone very smoothly except when dealing with the project coordinator. She has been curt, abrupt and made us feel that it was an imposition every time we had a question.
Just the other day she was verging on rude with my husband when he expressed our wish to have the baseboards installed after the cabinets. He just wanted to ensure that things lined up without too much filler being needed. And in all the renos we’ve undergone baseboards were the last to be installed. But no, it wasn’t going to happen and clearly she didn’t care about our preferences. She further chastised him for wanting to paint before the cabinets were in. It’s easier painting a room before cabinets are in and he told her that’s what he wanted to do. She didn’t like that and let him know. All in all it’s not pleasant dealing with her.
I bet you’re wondering where I’m going with this and what our reno has to do with sweating the small things. I’ll tell you.
One of the pleasant surprises is the young man doing the bulk of the work. He’s the tiler, the demolisher, the drywaller, the carpenter and most likely has more roles with this company out of the scope of our reno. He’s the person responsible for ensuring we had a working shower in 5 days. He’s the person responsible for the glass company coming early to measure so our wait would only be 3 weeks. I’m sure there’s more behind the scenes work he did for us that we don’t know about. Exemplary customer service and beautiful work from this soft spoken young man.
I’m getting there I promise.
His name is Hamza and he’s maybe about 24-25 years old if that. He happened to be in the room and heard my husbands’ side of the last conversation with the project coordinator. She told my husband curtly that we had been giving Hamza a hard time. We know we hadn’t at all and were taken aback. We spoke with him and asked for honesty. He said no, he was happy to answer our questions and to do what he could to get our project done on time. He said he didn’t know how she came to such a conclusion. She could have assumed this because he was texting and calling her to get things organized. In other words he was doing her job. He basically blew off the notion that we had given him a hard time. He said she has never been pleasant to deal with so he ignores her for the most part. We took him at his word as he’d been nothing but kind and nice when we had questions about procedures.
And finally …
We chatted a lot throughout the last couple weeks. He told us he’d like to work at his own business but couldn’t because he needed to prove employment as he was trying to sponsor his mother and two sisters to get to Canada from Syria. He told us that at 15 he had to leave home and travel to Jordan by himself after his father and brother were taken by the government. He said they were just an ordinary family trying to live their lives in Syria when they were grabbed. He didn’t say how but somehow he was sponsored by a church here about 6 years ago and finished high school under this sponsorship. He really wanted to be a cop but couldn’t and can’t spend more time with schooling until his family is safe here. And even then he has to take care of them financially until they get citizenship and can take care of themselves, so he works a lot. He’s happy to be Canadian now and his main goal is to reunite permanently with his mother and sisters here because in his words “it’s not good for women in Syria.” I don’t doubt that.
When we heard his story we asked a few more questions about life there and tried not to probe too much into something that we shouldn’t. He was quite open with us. At the end of the conversation he shrugged and said that’s why he doesn’t get upset and just ignores the coordinators’ bs. It’s just nonsense to him. I get it. He has something far more important to deal with.
Made us think. We’re so lucky and so blessed to live in a free country where our biggest issue today is the rudeness of the coordinator.
Until the next time.
Unfortunately, too many 'born here Canadians' have zero awareness of how good we have it here.
We all need teachers, right? And we find then in the humblest of places. Blessings to Hamza and his family. I am sure he will be successful in his life and succeed in bringing his mother and sisters to safety. I enjoy your writing style and read every word. (Usually I skim through articles!)