I Have A Bad Case Of Plumber's Crack...

I Don't Know Whether To Laugh Or Cry...


You know, Ladies and Gentlemen...

In spite of the economy and the current job/employment situation, I say that there is the distinct possibility that there are some people out there that either operate from the standpoint of "just not giving a rat's ass"...

else they're just plain TOO %$#@ STUPID to successfully handle the ins and outs of doing the job they're in on a daily basis.

As an example opposite of what I'm talking about, take ME for instance, as a person who is actually interested in doing my job and understands I have to provide a useful, marketable service for a reasonable cost, generally within the agreed upon time frame.

How do I do that?

Well...
First of all, when you call me on my business telephone or my cell phone (my business phone automatically forwards to my cell), I do something which is apparently beyond the capability of many independent businessmen and some if not all employees of the "Plumbing Companies" listed in the telephone book and on the internet with operations located in Southern Alabama.

I ANSWER MY FREAKING TELEPHONE.

Next comes the difficult part, apparently.

When someone which has taken the effort to find me and my company and made the aforementioned phone call to me and/or my office, and I've successfully answered the telephone and said "hello" and identified myself by name...through a series of questions (by me) and answers (by the caller) I can generally manage to tell them after a few minutes if I actually supply the services which they are requesting.

(If the idiot on the other end of the phone is cold calling me trying to sell me Gold Futures or stock in some obscure failing company, or telephone service or new vinyl siding for my all brick house....things go a little differently...but you get the picture.)

So any way, back to my story...so now after answering the telephone, and questioning the caller about their needs, and agreeing that I can in fact supply the service, I apparently do something which is amazing...veritably unheard of in the annals of the so called "plumbing profession."

I do something which I'm pretty sure, if I were a "professional plumber," would qualify me for admission in the "International Plumbing and Pipe Fitting Hall of Fame", if there is such a thing.

It's pretty simple actually.

You want to guess or would you rather just that I tell you?

I PRODUCE A WRITTEN  PROPOSAL DESCRIBING THE SCOPE OF MY SERVICES AND OFFERING A PRICE FOR SAME.

Isn't that Idea FREAKING A M A Z I N G?

Then of course if we come to an agreement there's all of the messy stuff like purchase orders and having to do the work and pay my material suppliers and labor on the project, and then comes the invoicing part after the work is completed and there's always that 30 day period spent standing by the mailbox waiting on the check to arrive.

But other than the above, as I see it that pretty well describes how to run a successful business if you are not a lieing cheating theaving IDIOT.

Now...(taking a big breath here boss)

For most of last week I've been making phone calls to "professional plumbers" seeking the services of same to find and repair a leak in the main service line running under one of the concrete driveways at my mother's home on the farm in  in Lower Alabama.

Fully three quartrers of the phone numbers had been disconnected and were out of service, and half of the ones still working had unintelligable answering machine greetings and when I left a voice mail with a phone number didn't return my call.

I managed to find TWO companies within a three county region of southern Alabama which actually answered their telephone and were willing to come out and take a look at the problem and quote "give us a price."

The first guy showed up...on time...and then called me and said he could do the job next week and he'd get back to me with a price.

Never heard from him again...

The second guy showed up on Friday afternoon...again on time...said he could do the project on Monday but simply stated he worked for $85 per hour and get this...

he said that he "would not put anything in writing."

Further, in spite of me calling the local utility Locator Service ("Call before you Dig"), he said that they wouldn't locate water line on private property.

I thought that my head was going to explode.

What a stupid piece of shit asshole the fellow apparently is.

He wants me to hand him my Mother's checkbook and then sit up here in Knoxville while he and a bunch of day labor drunks and drug addicts screw around digging holes and waisting time runnning back and forth to Ace Hardware and Lowe's because "we don't have one of them fittings on the truck."

Bullshit.

So as a result I'm getting on a Delta Airliner at 7:35 this morning and flying to Dothan by God Alabama and if I can't solve the problem myself I'm going to load my Shotgun and stand guard over the proceedings on Monday while the aforementioned team of "plumbing professionals" does an expedited effort on the project.

You will have to excuse me now while I wipe the spit off of my monitor and go wipe the foam off of my mouth...