Handyman with 10 years of experience finishes a perfectly level TV stand mount, only to have a woman insist it looks crooked

Author image for Etai Eshet
Etai Eshet • Editor
Feb 13, 2026 6:00 PM EST

A TV mount is only as strong as the family that surrounds it.  

A handyman who has been working for a decade shows up to assemble and install a wall‑mounted TV stand for a couple with a three‑ or four‑year‑old boy who treats furniture pieces like a jungle gym.

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  • Man installing a wall-mounted TV bracket indoors, securing an adjustable television mount to a white wall with both hands while standing beneath an air conditioning unit in a modern home setting
    via Sorapong's Images

    Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

  • It wasn’t crooked BEFORE you got here!

    Some context: I've been an independent handyman for 10 years and use a gig app for some extra cash but mainly to steal the company's clients because they're the worst company to exist since they off rip clients and the independent contractors that work for them.
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  • I'm really good at my job and I'm a perfectionist. Most jobs are assembling furniture and mounting items.
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  • Story: I arrived at a job to assemble a TV stand that's mounted to the wall.
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  • It's a married couple with a toddler son, probably 3 or 4 years old. The father is sitting on the living room couch, right in front of where I'm working, scrolling on his phone and the mother is in the master bathroom blow drying her hair.
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  • I take all of the pieces and hardware out of the box and organize everything to my liking, taking the screws, cam bolts, etc out of their package, and get to work.
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  • The little guy stands right in front of me, watching me start to assemble things. I'm cool with kids and animals that are curious and don't mind them watching, as long as they don't start messing with the pieces and hardware.
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  • He watches me for a few minutes and I guess gets bored and starts to walk onto the individual pieces I've laid out, jumping from piece to piece.
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  • Man mounting a flat-screen television onto a wall bracket, holding the back of the TV while attaching it to an adjustable wall mount inside a home interior.
    via Sorapong's Images

    Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

  • If you've ever ordered cheap furniture from online, you know the quality is trash. If you've ever ordered breath the wrong way on some pieces, they'll immediately crack or completely break.
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  • I'm calm and tell him not to do that because he could break it or hurt himself since some pieces are stacked and can slide out from under him.
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  • He gets off of the pieces and I start to work again and he immediately jumps back onto the boards and starts his "the floor is lava" game back up.
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  • I stop again and tell him not to do that for safety reasons. Finally, the dad looks up from his phone, groans, grabs the kid and takes him into the master bedroom and comes back out a few seconds later and continues his doomscrolling.
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  • A few minutes later, the little guy comes back out of the bedroom and starts his game, this time some of the boards start slipping and he sees that as an added bonus of fun and starts trying to make all of the boards stacks shift.
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  • I nicely explain to him again that they can break or he can get hurt. He ignores me and a second time I tell him and I'm still ignored.
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  • Every time the kid gets bored he turns the floor into lava and the boards into stepping stones until the contractor has to repeatedly remind him that cheap online furniture breaks if you breathe on it too hard. The father glances up from his phone long enough to carry the kid away, then immediately returns to scrolling. The kid comes back, switches tactics, and starts poking the handyman in the face and slapping him in the back of the head. Each interruption costs time and focus, especially when the kid knocks over the entire pile of screws and hardware just to mix up their order.  

  • I raise my voice a little so one of the parents can hear me and I'm more stern and tell him he needs to stop or he's going to break something.
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  • Dad, again, groans and sighs and grabs the little turd and takes him to the couch and starts distracting him with toys, but gets bored. very quickly and back to his phone.
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  • The little monster is back and makes a new game up that's just him poking me in the face while mumbling sing songily.
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  • Index finger... hard poke... right in my face. I ask him why he's poking me and tell him it's not nice and to stop.
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  • I'm really trying hard not to set this kid up to where he gets on one of board and I slide the board under the top one out, making him faceplant because I'm tired of him at this point and his parents are not paying attention.
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  • His mom comes out this time and calls home over and he runs off to get away.
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  • The father gets up, sighs aggressively, and goes to another room in the apartment, slamming the door behind him.
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  • The wall anchors included with the cheap furniture are garbage meant for concrete not drywall so the mount ends up sitting slightly off the wall on one side. The contractor secures it to studs anyway so it is stable and level even if the hardware is not ideal. 

  • I finally have the structure build and time to mount. A side note, the wall anchors that are included with the furniture are never good quality and are never the correct type of anchors for drywall; they're meant for concrete and other solid structures.
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  • I don't have any correct anchors with me, I have to use the cheap, crappy ones they included.
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  • I line everything up, making sure it's even using a level, double check everything and mark where I need to drill.
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  • I make sure I'm able to secure it to a few studs so it has stability.
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  • I make a few holes when all of a sudden I feel tiny hands on my back shove me.
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  • The little shit is back and he's hell bent on making this complicated for me. He shoves me a few more times, each time I'm about to start drilling.
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  • I told him in a loud stern voice not to shove me. To his credit, he doesn't shove me again, this time before I'm about to drill, he slaps me in the back of my head.
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  • I just say loudly again to not do that. I'm not yelling or shouting, just loud.
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  • The mom comes out and starts her gentle parenting before she just offers to give him candy or iced cream.
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  • This kid not connects being a little shit with getting delicious treats. He says yes to treats and as soon as the mom turns her back to get one, he kicks at my pile of hardware.
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  • All the screws and cam bolts get mixed up with each other, it's just a pile of mess and chaos causing me to spent extra time reorganizing.
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  • The mother walks in, sits on the couch, and says it looks crooked. She ignores the level, the contractor’s measurements, and the fact that both ends of the stand are at the same height. She doubles down by comparing the stand to the TV and sound bar which are actually crooked and mounted by her husband and her brother. When the contractor points out that the TV and sound bar are wildly off level, she retorts that they were not crooked before he arrived.  

  • Would you believe this little asshole smirked at me, so proud of his assholeness, then runs away giggling.
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  • I get the thing mounted and of course the anchors are crap so one side isn't pressed against the wall.
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  • There's nothing I can do, I have to work with what I'm given to work with.
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  • But it's up and it's secure. I finish everything else, the doors are on and I start packing up.
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  • The mom sits on the couch and she tells me it looks crooked. I KNOW I mounted that thing PERFECTLY.
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  • I checked before securing it and after and the level tells me I'm dead center. But, I checked again and it's still perfectly level and center.
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  • I show her the level and explain that it's mounted perfectly and she tells me she doesn't "go by" what the level said because they can be wrong, she goes by her eyes.
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  • The job drags on thanks to the child’s chaos, the contractor runs overtime, gets paid a pittance, and leaves without wanting to work for that family again. The only real takeaway is that no level is as unreliable as a parent who thinks treats fix everything.

  • I tell her it's physically impossible for a level to be incorrect. She tells me to sit on the couch to see.
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  • I amuse her and sit down and it's STILL CENTERED PERFECTLY visually. I tell her as much and she sucks her teeth at me and starts pointing at specific areas where it's not level.
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  • She tells me to look at where the outlets are positioned compared to the stand. I don't see anything off, but I measure both ends and the middle of the stand.
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  • Each point was at exactly 24 inches of height. She doubles down and tells me to look at the TV and soaker that are also mounted.
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  • I see the problem, THOSE are crooked on the wall. I check both with my level and they are so off that the bubble is all the way to one side of the vial and I show her.
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  • She told me "Well they weren't crooked before you got here!". I explain that she's used the TV and sound bar being off that anything compared to it looks. wrong.
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  • I asked her if she had a professional mount the TV and sound bar and she said her brother and husband mounted it Her husband, the guy who was pissed off that I wasn't there to babysit his demon spawn as well as assemble and mount furniture did it with her brother.
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  • If they're so great at mounting, why even hire me to begin with? They could've done this themselves if they're so good at mounting things.
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  • She demand I fix it and I apologize and tell her that I'm already 40 minutes past the allotted time the company gave me to assemble and mount it (thanks to her goblin child), and she could call Angi to book another person to come out and purposefully mount it incorrectly for no extra cost, but it's definitely not going be me.
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  • Again, I apologize to her and wish her a goodnight. I've never wanted to slap an entire family before so badly, let alone a toddler, but gentle parenting doesn't work when a kid is playing his parents like a fiddle and they reward him for being a little troll.
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  • I got paid $30 to do that job and I'm not gonna get a pay adjustment for the extra time I spent there.
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  • The only perk to this job is that if a customer is angry for no reason and ask to speak to a manager/supervisor, you can always tell them they ARE speaking to the manager since we're independent contractors.
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  • TassieBorn I would have given the dad one warning about his kid's behaviour, and if (when) it didn't stop, walked out.
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  • Existing_Proposal655 $30? For that little amount of money, I would have given one warning to the parent, then if it happened again, start packing up to leave. Dad can install it crooked again.
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customer service TV freelance entitled people handyman
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