Home contractors have always been a dumpster fire. They will no show, do a half-assed job when they do show, sometimes take the money and run. It is one of the

Home contractors have always been a dumpster fire. They will no show, do a half-assed job when they do show, sometimes take the money and run. It is one of the worst fly by night industries there is. If you find a home contractor that does a good job, and show up when they say they are going to, pay them well and try to always go thru them, even if it is not their expertise they will usually be able to refer you to another contractor that they trust. I think incompetence is about on the level that it has always been, but I can tell you two things I have seen change in my lifetime (45 years) which I believe make us feel the incompetence more. 1) Companies systems and processes are enshrined in software, when the software does not handle your non-sunny day scenario, the company employee does not know what to do, they punt you to someone else and you get in a loop of no one knowing how to address the issue, or no one having the authority to address the issue. This is a huge problem and many times you the consumer are just left holding the bag. 2) Companies in their never ending pursuit of profit are offloading their business processes onto the consumer. As an example, My home insurance lapsed for a brief period because they sent me an email, which went to my junk mail, in that email was a form that has to be filled out by getting information from the local fire department. Stuff like pumping capacity, hydrant geocords, etc. etc. This was a routine business form that the insurance company needs to underwrite the policy. This is something that traditionally a clerk at their underwriting department would call the local fire department get the answers, input them in the case file and be done with it. Instead, they changed their business process to offloading most of the legwork for underwriting to the consumer. I see this all the time now, in medical, legal, financing as well as a host of other industries, it was not the norm 20-30 years ago.