This accursed recession shows no sign of abating.

Weak, almost nonexistent growth during the first quarter looks set to be followed by an equally gloomy prognosis when the next figures are published on Monday.

The markets are in turmoil once again and austerity drives threaten to push us into double-dip recession.

But maybe there’s another reason for our continued economic woes.

We’re just plain fed up of the shoddy service we have to put up with.

You would think in the middle of an economic crisis that businesses might make more of an effort to attract and even keep our custom.

But not a bit of it, and buying things is almost as stressful as selling a house – if only there was an interested buyer.

I will give you a few examples.

We are having a new kitchen fitted and not for the first time, so we knew there would be weeks of dust and turmoil, of existing on tastefree microwave dinners and being let down by tradesmen not turning up; it’s part of the process after all – our choice.

What we didn’t bargain for was the 20 drawers in our costly units that didn’t fit, so our joiner had to reset them. Just as we were singing his praises, a man came to measure the worktop. “You know he’s put the sink 7mm off centre don’t you?” he cheerily remarked.

Our hearts sank.

Then the cooker didn’t arrive. At 6pm on Friday the delivery man rang to say that he could not get under a bridge – even though the milk lorry has no such difficulty – and the detour to get to us would mean missing his last three calls.

So he wouldn’t be coming after all.

There’s no point arguing, and by now we are well used to being let down. But my wife had taken a day’s holiday and was stuck in the house waiting for the men to arrive. There was no apology and understandably she was annoyed; we both were. Now I will have to waste a day off this week in the vain hope that this time, the driver is capable of finding another route.

I thought we were the customers, the people who are always right, but how foolish of me. It has cost us two days’ pay and I fail to understand why companies don’t deliver when people are in; say the evenings or, horror of horrors, the weekend.

Lest you think it’s just us, a neighbour returned from the supermarket the other day and she was seething. The weekly shop had taken longer than she thought because the store obviously forgot it was Saturday and decide to call in just a handful of check-out operators.

The lengthy queues caused her to overstay the car parking hour by five minutes and there, in all its vainglory, was a penalty ticket stuck to her windscreen.

The staff weren’t interested, and it took an irate and lengthy phone call to customer services and the threat of taking her custom elsewhere to remedy the situation.

It shouldn’t be like this, but we almost know that anything we buy will be broken, not as advertised or simply won’t arrive when promised.

And in the case of tradesmen, if they do turn up we will be down a kilo of sugar, the house will need redecorating and the hoover will probably give up the ghost when it gets clogged by all the dust.

So it will take a lot to get me parting with my cash again. Years of being let down has taken the enjoyment out of buying, and surely I can’t be the only one who thinks this way.

If we are all fed up with secondclass goods and second-rate service, maybe everyone has stopped shopping and that’s why the economy is in such a mess.

Retail therapy they call it – not in my house.