Meat Plow said:
One was where I was dispatched to a home to check an electronic air
cleaner. I enter the home and introduce myself to the woman of the house.
I ask how do I get to her furnace and she shows me the way. On the way she
picks up a newspaper and as I opened the door to go into her basment she
hands me the newspaper. I asked her what the newspaper was for and she
replied that I could use it to cover the dog poop so I wouldn't step in
it.
I handed it back to her and told her to clean the poop up first and I
would be back when she called the dispatcher saying it had been cleaned
up.
We never got a call back. Another time I was called out to look at a new
heating system we installed that wasn't working. As I entered the home
there was a strong smell of something that had died. Braving the smell I
opened the back of the furnace where the air handler was located since
there was a loud hum when I switched the blower on. I found a dead mouse
wedged inbetween the belt and the pulley Removing said rodent fixed the
problem. Other homes I have entered had cockroaches marching single file
up and down the walls and all sorts of disgusting things. Lots of times
the dispatcher would advise me if a previous tech found poor conditions on
a previous call but there was no way to know on new calls and we weren't
forced to work amongst filth and vermin.
The guy that I served my apprenticeship under back in the seventies, was one
good-looking dude, and there was one female customer in particular that used
to insist that it was he that called out to her. Every time he got to the
house, and took the back off the set, there would be a smashed valve sitting
there, and she would be leaning over him, jugs on his shoulder. Eventually,
it got so embarrassing, that he refused to go any more.
We also had another customer who used to ring about once a month complaining
that she had problems with the " colour bleeding through ". There was never
anything wrong, but this same guy always managed to sweet talk her into
thinking that he'd done something, and it was now fixed. However, on one
occasion, I was with him, and she had the usual complaint. After having the
back off, and engaging in his usual pretence of adjusting things, he
declared it all ok now, and asked if she was happy with it. " Oh no ! " she
cried " that's awful now - much worse ! There's a big yellow patch in the
middle ! " When we went back around the front to see what she was on about,
the picture was a nice green cricket pitch - with a big yellow area in front
of the wickets where the batsman stands. No amount of remonstrating with the
customer, would convince her that this was just worn out grass, not a colour
error ! We finished up taking the set away and driving around the rest of
the day with it in the back of the van, before returning it to her late on.
When we put it back on, she declared it to now be absolutely fine, and
delighted in telling us how much cleverer the workshop boys were at setting
her TV up, than we were !!
I could go on for ever about the eccentric customers we had ...
Arfa