I hate being a jerk sometimes

Confession time.  I know I use this blog for too many things.  Venting, bragging about my kids, complaining.... all of the things I shouldn't.... but tonight, I did something and it's really eating away at me.  I wonder if writing things down will help me to figure out how I really feel.  So don't mind me, I'm just going to confess my sins to all of you!  And I'm going to preface it with all my excuses so that it doesn't seem so horrible.... at least I'm honest.
Tonight was a crazy night.  I took the three littles with me to pick up Bradley and sit out the girls' play audition thinking it would only be a half hour or so.  Much to my surprise it took THREE HOURS!!!  I'm not kidding we didn't leave the school until 6:30.  I posted about their tryouts on my Future Memories post so don't think I'm just skipping over that excitement.  I have to put it in a separate post so that I don't accidentally put this in my book.  Anyway!  So at 6:30, I took my whining, tired, hungry, kids home.  I should say, I was anxious to get home because I wanted to see how the kitchen looked.  We had had a guy painting it all day (it seriously took way longer than it needed to, and the guy was a complete bone head.... just saying).  So I wanted to see how it looked, and frankly I was anticipating that he did something wrong, or left a mess like the last couple of times he had made repairs or done work in our house.  Just as I had anticipated, the kitchen was a HUGE mess.  I was SO TICKED OFF!!!  And I know that my already tired, hungry, grumpy attitude was not helpful, and I should have just backed away and gone somewhere in the car, but no matter how hard I tried, I just could not let it go!!  On the floor, along all the walls, were piles of dust.  Even the top of the lenoleum ledge, where he should have swept BEFORE painting, had dust.  I glanced behind the fridge and it was one BIG pile of dust, that he had not swept before pushing the fridge back even!!  I really can't express how much dust and crap there was all over the kitchen floor.... AND my table!!!  Which, here's one of the more annoying things, he took my pictures off the walls, set them on the table, and then didn't cover up the table OR the pictures!!!  So they all have dust on them!!  And these aren't regular pictures, they're the fake tile ones, that are impossible to clean.  Their wood frames are all covered in white dust.  Ugh.  I just get so mad thinking about it.  So then I get over to the microwave, and he had totally not covered up anything over there either!!  I had my little "pay check" notebook that I use for the kids, on the side next to the wall, along with a Friend magazine, and he hadn't moved them either, they were COMPLETELY covered in dust.  Like, to the point where I don't want to use them, because they feel all chalky!!  I'm sure this sounds lame, I wish I'd taken pictures, the whole kitchen was covered in white dust!  It was ridiculous!  Even a plate of cookies!!!  He hadn't moved anything.  Or even asked me to move them!  I was SO ANGRY!!!!!
And like I said, this wasn't the first time for this guy.  He has been on my list from day 1.  The very first time he came to do work in our house, I answered the door, and without so much as a "Hello" (much less, a "Hi, my name is __________, I'm here to do such and such") he barged in and got to work.  He would leave for hours at a time, then come back and just walk in!  Like he'd had personal access to the place for the day!  Which irritates me SO much when I've got little kids here and I'm alone.... anyway.  He would yell stupid things down the stairs like, "Hello!  Any adults here?"  Just because the kids would be up and down, since we're not very good at putting their lives on hold for dumb little repairs that mean very little to me.  And he was just really rude!!  Today, he came in, for the first time, without Nate answering the door and just yelled downstairs, "Hello, any adults here?" When Nate told him he shouldn't walk in our house he said, "The 2 year old had answered the door".  Give me a break.  So anyway.  He was an hour late, told us he'd be done at 11:00 and wasn't done at 2:30 when we left to take Nate to work. Who knows when he finally finished.  The guy is just a pain in the neck.  I'm not even mentioning the fact that he "dropped the ball".  The ball being him painting our kitchen 2 months ago.  Yeah, he "forgot" to paint it after tearing off the wallpaper and spackling.  I've never had anyone come into my house who is SO rude, SO disrespectful, and SO messy as he has been.

So here's the horrible part.  I called the guy.  And actually, I had called the landlord first because I wanted to tell him about our oven not working, and the call to the Landlord started out okay.  I was pretty polite, but then as the message I was leaving (which I KNOW he won't return because he NEVER DOES!) went on, I just got more and more frustrated, brought up their crappy painter guy, and just went off.  I even said, "but since you never return my calls!..." in my message. So embarrassing.  So I guess leaving that message wasn't enough for me, I took one more step into the kitchen, and freaked out again, and ended up calling the painter guy (I have no idea what to call him, I don't know his name).  I started out by asking him when he was going to finish the job.  He acted surprised of course, and I was like, "The painting looks fine, it's the mess you left that I want finished."  It was when he said he swept it before he left that I got really hostile.  There is NO WAY he swept it!!  He was just a lazy worker.  He made a comment about how he isn't responsible for moving our stuff, and I'm thinking, what painter doesn't cover up the room before they paint??  Is that not normal??  Of if I have left something there, that is going to get ruined, TELL ME!!  I will gladly move it! I couldn't even be in the room because he would get all huffy when someone was in his way at all.  I couldn't help but say, "I know we're renters, and we're not the ones paying you, but you ARE getting paid!  You need to do the whole job!  No cutting corners just because your check is coming from someone who doesn't have a clue what's going on!"  I really do think that these guys get away with things like that because of the situation.  And I don't think it's fair!  I didn't ask to have the room painted, it was hideous before, but it wasn't something I chose to have them do.  I don't feel like I should have to rearrange my day for it, and then clean up after it when it wasn't for me!  Not to mention I have 6 kids to clean up after!  I don't want to clean up after a grown man who is getting paid to do a job!  He was funny because even though he "swept it before he left" he said, "The soonest I could be up there to clean it up would be tomorrow afternoon."  Apparently he didn't realize he was admitting his guilt.  Like I'm going to leave the crap all over the kitchen for a whole day!  We eat in that room!!!  UGH!

Yeah, I'm still bugged. So anyway.  I just hate it when I explode on people.  As mad as I was, I KNEW I shouldn't call, and I KNEW it would go bad.  I wish I had used more self-control.  Luckily my kids were downstairs, I think they missed all the action, but still.  I have my conscience.  I guess I'm just getting so sick of faulty service.  I feel like everyone is always cutting corners!  Nobody gives you what you pay for, and nobody seems to care about doing a nice job.  It's like BARE MINIMUM!!  I'm tired of it.  And now I feel bad.  Do I need to call the guy and apologize??  I don't want to.  I feel like he really needs to know that I don't appreciate his crappy job, and I don't appreciate his disrespect.  I just wish I had done it with a little more class.  If that's possible.  With a little less anger and explosion.  Have you ever done that??  What did you do about it??

I guess that's all.  I'm a jerk.  I hate being a jerk sometimes.  I wish I could just let things go.  It's been a while since I let myself call someone.  It should be never.  Anyway.  Now that I've made myself look horrible..... comments??????