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Friday night tradition in our household demands attendance at our local, the Unwashed Self-Builders Arms - a pub until recently owned by HM the Queen. A pub so well designed that anyone using the carpark gets treated to a ringside view of the shake, bob and tuck routines (some more extravagant than others) performed by occupants of the men's loo. But hey this is West Lancashire. By the fireside we chatter about the week gone by, and plans for the next. We’ve been going to this pub for many years now. Time enough to notice patterns of behaviour, and be able to read the car park accurately enough to see who’s in and who isn’t. One thing that unites trades folk in this pub is their tendency to gaggle at one end of the bar. A phenomenon that I have seen for years, but not really noticed. Until recently. Trades people are an elite. They have wealth far beyond the more common understanding of the term. It is at least in part an earned elitism. First, most have expertise if not by formal qualification, then by experience: sometimes both. Many of those same experts are fantastically adept at avoiding communication. In exactly the same way as formally qualified, licensed professionals make themselves invisible, incommunicado behind layers of secretarial support, trades folk have a simpler but just as effective modus operandum. Don't answer the phone. Let their voicemail inbox fill up, Or maybe switch the ringtone off. Then they are also an elite because of the professional networks they construct. The one slight difference about their professional networks is that they started building it in primary school. How many doctors, teachers, dentists, work daily with their best mates from their school days? So many times in the last couple of years I have heard and watched trades people contacting a series of other tradesmen by phone. Each phone call was answered instantly. Each conversation came up with the resolution to a problem we needed to solve jointly. (well at least the promise of one). And how many BuildHubbershave that high a strike rate? I’ll tell you: every single trades person on this forum. And none of the rest of us. I made a huge mistake: I assumed that trades people would always communicate efficiently, or at least as efficiently as I had to in my professional career. How naive, how smoked could I be? I now use four phones, not just one. Why? I’m certain that trades people will almost always answer a call from a new phone number. It's a self-limiting tactic, though. How do you contact an uncontactable tradesperson?