CONTENT WARNING: Thoughts Of Suicide (Happy ending!)
 

This story reminded me of some experiences during the first year of the global health crisis. 

I did a lot of volunteering via the NHS (National Health Service), mostly shopping and other errands for people whose doctors had told them to shelter at home. 

But sometimes I would do check-in-and-chat. It’s a simple concept. Those people who had been told to stay at home were offered the chance of getting a call from a stranger to see how they were doing. I only did a few of these because I would find myself crying quietly after the call. 

But the most harrowing and then heartwarming story was one I heard of through an online support group for volunteers. Early in the first lockdown, a volunteer rang an elderly woman to see how she was doing, and she was distraught. There was a cold snap with temperatures below freezing overnight, and her boiler had failed, so she and her home were literally freezing. She’d become so desperate that she was looking through her medicines trying to work out which combination would most quickly end her life!

The thing is, she had boiler cover; she was paying [Energy Company] hundreds of pounds a year so this would not happen, but they were refusing to come out for “health and safety” reasons, even though her life was in danger. The volunteer called them. There was no doubt they understood, but they would do nothing.

The volunteer came online to find out what to do. He lived too far away and had no car. We were all desperate to help. Luckily, another volunteer lived near her and knew a plumber. The woman’s boiler was fixed a few hours later, and the only payment the plumber took was a cup of tea (plenty of sugar!) and two biscuits.

The lady did not want to fuss, so unfortunately, no formal complaint was made. I’ve just checked, and they would charge me £600 a year for this “service”. I didn’t hear any reports that they stopped taking monthly payments during lockdowns.

Related:
Their Cold Heart Is In Need Of Some Heating

One day at work, a drainpipe above our office starts leaking, dripping vinegary water into the office. We have to hastily cover the computers, printers, etc. We call facilities to have them fix it and replace the damaged ceiling tiles.

The next day, it’s dripping in an adjacent area. Repeat for the next several weeks.

Since they haven’t replaced the ceiling tiles yet, we can see that they’ve just applied a pipe bandage, which obviously isn’t working.

One day, the plumber is there while I’m still there, so I drift over to talk to him. 

Me: “What’s going on?”

Plumber “Well, the copper pipe is all eaten up. I don’t know why. It’s like they’re draining acid through it!”

Me: “Um, yeah, they are. That’s the drain for the photo darkroom, and they dump the chemicals at the end of the day. The developer and fixer are saved to be reprocessed to recover the silver, but the stop bath is just dumped. And the stop bath is diluted glacial acetic acid…”

Plumber: “Oh…”

Me: “And if I recall correctly, all of the copper acetates are water-soluble… so the pipe is dissolving.”

Another week later, I talk to the plumber again.

Plumber: “My management is insisting it’s not that bad and refusing to replace the pipe.”

Me: “Okay. What additional forms do I need to submit to escalate this complaint?”

He tells me, adding that it won’t work.

Me: “It’s all in how you write it up.”

The next day, he sends me the forms through the in-plant mail, and I spend a bit of time working out the wording. Then, I fill the form out on a typewriter (we don’t have very many PCs at the time) and have my manager submit it. I don’t think he reads it because he is already pretty frustrated and wants the problem fixed. (Remember, we’re about a month into this ordeal.)

This was late in the week. When we arrive on Monday morning, even more tiles are down, and there’s a stack of sawn-up copper pipes in a corner and a brand-spanking-new heavy-guage gray PVC pipe in its place.

Ha!

That evening, they remove the sawn-up copper… and no more leaks.

On Tuesday, my boss calls me into a meeting with his boss. They’re looking at a copy of the form I had him submit.

My Boss: “[My Name], it’s not that we don’t appreciate you getting this fixed, but you can’t lie to get it fixed!”

Me: “I did not lie. Read that carefully, and point to one thing I said that is not true.”

My Boss: “This part about hazardous waste!”

Me: “That’s not what I said. I said, ‘Leakage of acid process waste creating hazardous conditions,’ which is not the same. Corrosion damage to energized electronic equipment is liable to cause fires, which are definitely hazardous, and the spillage was also creating a significant slip hazard.”

My Boss: “Um…”

They read through it again.

My Boss: “Um. No, you didn’t say anything untrue, but you know they didn’t read it that way.”

Me: “Their lack of reading comprehension is not my problem. And I shouldn’t have needed to do that to get a leaking pipe fixed. Explaining it to the plumber should have been enough, but it wasn’t. Actually, his report on the conditions discovered should have been enough — and it wasn’t. On the other hand…”

I gesture at the new pipe above the ceiling.

My boss looks at his boss, who is nodding.

His Boss: “Just don’t do it again… unless it’s necessary. And maybe tell us first if it is.”

My boss looks a bit embarrassed.

My Boss: “[My Name] gave it to me to submit, and I’ll admit I didn’t look that closely because I wanted it fixed, not patched.”

I work for a tankless water heater company. I talk to plumbers all day long. I get a lot of calls from people who have hooked up the very clearly marked COLD water pipe to the HOT connection on the unit and the HOT pipe to the COLD connection. This causes the heater to not work.

I am suggesting this to a plumber.

Plumber: “I’ve been doing this for over twenty years, and you don’t know s***!

Me: *Calmly* “The problem must be with the unit. I would advise you to shut off the cold water valve going to the unit—” *thus no water pressure to the unit* “—and remove the part to inspect it.”

I then heard the plumber drop his phone in a garbled mess of water spraying him and everything around him, something that could only happen if he had mixed up the pipes. I then giggled and waited for him to pick back up, make an excuse instead of admitting that he was wrong, and hang up.

I am NOT handy around the house. I can do the bare minimum of replacing toilet seats, replacing doorknobs, hanging pictures, etc. But I loathe doing such things. Plumbing I really hate as it makes me nervous when things leak water. (Several incidents involving plumbing accidents in the house contributed to the trauma.)

We had a spray nozzle on our sink that began to leak badly. My son bought us a new nozzle, but I had to put it together and install it. So, I took a deep breath and began assembling it. When I finished and hooked it up, it sprayed, but it leaked. No matter what I did, I could not find the source of the leak. I assumed I’d put it together wrong.

A friend suggested I go to a local plumbing supply store and ask one of the guys there if they had any suggestions; maybe I was missing a washer or something. I’m not very comfortable in such places, and despite being a middle-aged man, I don’t think I give off a “Mr. Fix-it” vibe.

I went into the store with the nozzle in hand, approached one of the employees, and briefly explained the context. He was incredibly condescending.

Me: “I have this spray nozzle that I’ve put together, but it still leaks. Could you suggest anything I might use to deal with the leak?”

The employee barely glanced at the nozzle.

Employee: “The only thing you can do is contact the original manufacturer of your sink. This nozzle won’t work.”

Me: “The sink is over thirteen years old. I don’t even remember who we got the sink from. Can’t I just adjust this nozzle?”

Again, he didn’t really look at the nozzle.

Employee: “No, these things are customized to the sinks. You need to contact the manufacturer.”

Me: *Getting a little frustrated* “You mean there’s nothing I can do except contact the manufacturer? I mean, in this whole store, there’s nothing that can help with this.”

Employee: “That’s the way it is.”

I was not happy. I didn’t expect him to play plumber, but he could have at least looked at the nozzle. It was obvious to me that he’d sized me up as a know-nothing (not really inaccurate) and didn’t want to be bothered with my penny-ante problem.

I left and called a plumber. He came the next day and I gave him the nozzle. Fifteen minutes later, he had it working and not leaking.

Me: “That was fast. What was wrong with it?”

Plumber: “Nothing really. Everything was put together fine; I just needed to tighten everything up.”

The nozzle has worked fine ever since. I still loathe plumbing.

Years ago, my wife and I had a couple of leaks in our bathrooms. Water was dripping down into the kitchen and living room. I decided to move quickly on the issue, so I contacted a couple of plumbers. The first one I contacted wasn’t interested in doing the work; he just wanted to rant about how the builder of our house was a cowboy (we already knew that) and how all the people who worked for him were incompetent.

I contacted another plumber. He seemed friendly and professional, and I asked him if he would mind coming out and looking at what needed to be done. He agreed and turned up at the house.

I showed him what was going on and he told me what he felt the solution would be — something that sounded expensive! I asked him if he could give me a quote.

Plumber: “Well, I don’t like giving people quotes. I’m tired of giving quotes to people who then let me down by going with someone else!”

Surely, that’s how quotes work, isn’t it? You get a price and go for the one that fits your budget!

In the end, he never came back to me with a quote and I ended up contracting a young lad who showed up at 9:00 am on a Wednesday morning and had the whole job done by early afternoon! He didn’t cost a fortune and we had no more leaks!