I've heard this:
In hiring the trades you can get 2 out of 3:
Timely work (shows up on schedule, finishes on schedule).
Good price. (lower than other bids)
Good work.
You pick which 2 you want. You won't get all three. That would be like expecting to buy a house that is move-in ready, in your desired location, and at a good price. You're lucky to get 2 out of 3. (you pay more, or you get a fixer upper, or you expand you geographical search. Watch HGTV and you see this all the time.)
When I replaced my carpet with hardwoods, I paid a higher price as I wanted good work and wanted the job started and finished on schedule. I didn't want to clear out a bedroom, displace a child, and then find the workers wouldn't come because the truck broke down, and have the work on hold for 3 more days. It was worth paying more to not disrupt our lives longer than necessary (and it would have stressed me out having to chase after them.)
When I rebuilt my balcony flooring and replaced the wooden railings for glass, I chose someone who had done excellent work on our house siding for a good price, had great yelp reviews on quality of work and price, but yelp reviews showed inconsistent time management. It was huge expense and a huge difference in bids so I was willing to put up with half-finished work for some days when nobody showed up.
Both of these projects preceded as expected. That is, the floors were done exactly when promised, and the balcony was about 6 weeks behind.
I didn't mind as they used a ladder to get up and down, never entering my house except at the very end to bring up the glass.
For example, the work was supposed to start in January. I called in early January to ask if we were still on schedule to start and he told me they would be 3 weeks late starting. "Is that ok?" sure!
When they came out, 4 weeks later (not 3), he explained that the previous job had a death in the family so they put that job on hold to give the family time to mourn, and then returned.
So this seemed a strange excuse as they could have come and started work on my place during those 3 weeks they were delayed on the previous job. Maybe he had a "one at a time" mentality where he wouldn't start a new job until the previous one was completed. Or maybe I'm missing something like they wouldn't remove the old flooring and leave it exposed to potential rain too long.
So they started and did a few days work and then nobody showed up. After a couple of days I asked what happened and he told me one of the crew got sick. I didn't ask if that guy was the only one who could do the next step, or if he was the one with the truck. I assumed it wasn't the real reason so I just let it go.
Eventually the job was done beautifully and I paid a great price. He even did a couple of little surprise gifts like replacing the balcony faucet with something shiny and moving the outlet away from the faucet to meet code.