I just watched that controversial Gillette TV commercial, the one suggesting most men are violent, harassing, sexist, and condescending bullies. Maybe I should have been offended. But, I just assumed it was some sort of marketing gimmick, maybe to make men feel so depressed and ashamed of themselves they might consider using more of Gillette’s razor blades on more parts of their body, especially their throats or wrists.
But apparently, I was wrong. Gillette is out to change the behavior of every man in America, using the moral authority they’ve earned by being world-class experts on removing unwanted facial hair.
Look, I’m just a simple handyman in no position to judge the genius of Madison Avenue. Unlike Gillette’s ad agency, I couldn’t drive-off 30% of a best-selling brand’s customers even if I wanted to. But if I may be so bold, I’d suggest that rather than paint all men with such a broad brush, they might have done better to focus in on that subset of men who PARTICULARLY deserve the scorn of women (and men) — HANDYmen.
Yeah, I know, I know. It’s not fair to condemn the entire handyman industry, just because 95% make the rest of us look bad. And maybe it’s sexist to presume that all handymen are MEN. But to tell you the truth, while I have HEARD that handywomen do exist in REAL life, REALITY TV is the only place I’ve ever actually seen one. And even then, doesn’t it seem like the closest thing to a power tool Fixer Upper’s Joanna Gaines ever holds is a ballpoint pen? Not that you can blame sexism for the near absence of handywomen — after all, it’s not exactly every mother’s dream for her daughter to become one.
So let’s imagine for a moment, Gillette had a 2nd lapse of common sense, and made the questionable decision to turn over its entire advertising budget to yours truly, Dr Steve. And let’s say I immediately changed their campaign from “The best men can be” to “The best HANDYmen can be.” Wouldn’t these common failings of handymen ring true?:
Toxic Unreliability
If you’ve worked with Fix St Louis, you know that, unlike everyone else, we set firm, scheduled appointments — an exact time, an exact date, and we confirm it by email. We don’t say things like we’ll show-up “sometime between 8 and 12 noon if we’re running on time” or “someday next week depending on when we finish our last job.” That’s not fair to you because it leaves you tied-up at home for hours, unable to leave for work or errands, while constantly glancing at your watch and calling your handyman who never picks-up. In fact, it’s not uncommon for handymen to never show-up and never contact the homeowner.
HandyMan-splaining
Trust me, every handyman with the sole exception of us does NOT want your SMALL jobs. The more tied-up they are on big jobs, the better — more total dollars, more continuous work without gaps in their schedule, less time chasing new jobs, less need to deal with customer service issues, etc.
But they’re not going to tell you that. Instead, they’ll tell you that if you knew as much as they did about home repairs, you’d realize that a bigger job was needed. For instance, they’ll “HandyMan-splain” that it can’t be fixed, so it must be replaced. Or that, “yeah that window can be replaced, but frankly all of your windows are pretty old, so you really need to replace them all.”
An even worse practice is the handyman giving you an estimate 2-3 times higher than they would normally charge for that small job. If you turn it down, no loss because they didn’t want that job anyway. But if you accept it at that price, they’d be happy to do this job that does not take them much time, but gives them a good profit.
Micro-Deceptions
These are the often little, and sometimes big, untruths handymen tell to smooth over the situations from the items above. If your handyman is in the middle of a project, and would rather work on a bigger project than finish yours, you may suddenly hear something like he has to be “out-of-town next week for a few days to attend an aunt’s funeral.” By design, you’re not going to feel like challenging that excuse because it’s about a death in the family, even though no one in human history, with the possible exception of the British Royal Family, has ever had more than a week’s notice of a funeral, much less had to spend several days out-of-town to attend one for an aunt.
So, hey Gillette! Doesn’t this make Fix St Louis “the best a HANDYman can be?” Wait, don’t answer that! On 2nd thought, maybe you should just stick to unwanted facial hair.
Dr Steve
Fix St Louis
314-434-4100