July 15, 2008
Dear Everyone:
Question:
How do you know when a contractor is lying to you?
Answer:
His lips are moving.
It all started on Saturday, July 5th.
In a way, you could say that it all started at the beginning of
June. That’s when I came
down with a monstrous cold and was sick for two weeks.
Just as I was getting over the cold, but not the cough, my back
went out. I couldn’t move
without extreme pain for two more weeks.
Finally, my back got better and I had a few days
off around the
Fourth of July weekend.
And I decided that I could risk climbing a ladder to change the
fluorescent light tubes in the kitchen.
I took one of the tubes with me to the Big Hardware Warehouse
store and bought four new tubes.
I only needed three, but they only sell them in packages of two.
Got home, got up on the ladder, got the new tube
into the slots and turned the tube.
Got off the ladder, tried the light switch and…nothing.
New light tube not working.
After twenty minutes of swearing at the manufacturers who make
these things SO difficult to work with, I got off the ladder and got out
the phone book.
Called a couple of lighting places.
One said they didn’t do that kind of work, but gave me a couple
of referral numbers. The
first one never answered.
The second had voice mail.
So I left a message and continued on with my weekend without kitchen
lights.
That Sunday the power went out at 6:08 in the
evening and, assurances to the contrary, finally came back on at 2:55 in
the morning. This explains
why I didn’t hear the phone ringing when the contractor tried to call me
back. (This is assuming that
he really did try to call me on Sunday.)
On Monday, I monitored my home phone machine until
I got a message around noon.
I called back and left my work number.
Eventually, “Mark” called me at work and I explained the problem.
We agreed to wait until Tuesday and that I would head home
immediately after my one 8:00-9:00
teleconference.
On Tuesday, I called “Mark” at 9:10.
He said he would have to bring his two children with him as he
didn’t have any day care that day.
Fine. He’d be right
over. In the meantime, I
spent an hour or so working on a possible questionnaire for a
prospective customer and emailing it to my supervisor at work.
“Mark”
showed up at 11:00. This was
my first clue that this might not go too well.
He also had two little girls with him, one 4 years old and the
other 2-½. They insisted that
they did NOT want to watch cartoons on TV, but that they needed to help
Daddy with all of his tools, which they regarded as their toys.
“Mark”
installed a new light tube and confirmed that it wasn’t working.
He thought the problem was with the
ballast.
Since this matched what it said in my “Fix-It yourself” book, I
agreed. He changed the 2-½-year-old’s
diaper on my living room floor and went off to purchase new ballasts,
which he said would cost around $12 each.
Hours later, he reappeared with the 2-½-year-old
asleep in his arms. He put
her down on my overstuffed chair and explained that the Big Hardware
Warehouse store didn’t have the right kind of ballast and that he had
left me two voicemail messages.
Turns out he was calling my work phone, knowing full well that I
was at home, waiting for him.
He installed the new ballasts, put in the light
tubes and turned on the switch.
The tubes did not light up, but the new ballasts immediately
began to fizzle and pop and get very hot.
Not good. I needed to
get back to the office. I
checked my schedule and determined that I could take Friday as a
vacation day. We “closed out
the clock” with 2-½
hours, plus the cost of the new ballasts.
In the meantime, “Mark” would research the ballasts.
He would be at my place between 10:00 and 11:00.
He showed up promptly at 12:22 on Friday, with the
two children who amused themselves by pulling the books out of my
bookshelves. Installed
completely new ballasts which did not fizzle and pop and get very hot,
but neither did the tubes light up.
Now he decided that the fixtures needed replacing.
He would go to the Big Hardware Warehouse store, which is only
two blocks away, and get new fixtures.
Two hours later, he called to say that this
particular Big Hardware Warehouse store didn’t have any of the fixtures.
He would hunt around some more.
Return on Monday (another day of vacation time) between 10:00 and
11:00 in the morning to finish the job.
About ten minutes after this phone call, my brain
exploded. The back of my
head began to hurt like nothing I’d ever experienced.
Also the muscles in the back of my neck.
Hoping to avoid another debilitating back injury, I applied a
cold compress to the head and neck and took some pain pills.
Half an hour later, I took some more pain pills and applied
another cold compress to my forehead.
The rest of Friday and most of Saturday are a
painful blur.
I awoke Sunday morning and was lying in bed when
the front doorbell rang.
Rummaging up a robe, I went downstairs to see who would be ringing the
doorbell before 9:00 on a Sunday morning.
It was “Jeannie”. I
didn’t even remember talking to her on Saturday.
So we went to a movie.
That evening, I called “Mark” to confirm what time
he would be arriving on Monday.
He didn’t call back.
So I called him Monday morning and eventually he called to say that he
was working some kind of “load” in
He finally showed up at 7:00 Monday evening.
He had the new fixtures and installed them within 45 minutes.
He really can work almost as fast as he spins excuses.
However, while the operation was a success, the patient died.
Still no lights.
He called someone named “
So now, having burned through three days of
vacation, I’m waiting for “
After about an hour “Mark” called me back, claiming
that “something” had happened to his phone because he hadn’t heard any
of my calls. Here’s the
interesting thing about some cell phones.
If you don’t answer, the call goes to voice mail after six rings.
But after the first few calls, it started going to voice mail
after two to three rings.
That’s what happens when the recipient pushes the button to ignore the
call and send it immediately to voice mail.
So he was hearing the calls, he just didn’t want to deal with
them.
Then his voice mail inbox got filled up.
Guess I wasn’t the only one leaving messages.
So now I’m waiting for a call back from “
I have Thursday as another vacation day, so that I
can get ready to fly to
Otherwise, it will have to wait until the following
Monday which I scheduled as yet another day of vacation because I’m
going to be at the Conference this weekend.
At this rate, I’m burning through a lot of vacation time just to
have lights in the kitchen.
Oh, the joys of owning your own house.
Love, as always,
Pete
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