My uncle is a pilot and used to fly a lot of small planes. A few years ago, he and a friend decided to fly to the USA together in a one-engine plane. However, they decided to do this in January, and while it is the Brazilian summer, it is rather wet.

As they get to the north of Brazil, they find themselves surrounded by thunder clouds, and their little engine is soon straining under the amount of water being thrown at it. They need a place to land and fast.

Eventually, they manage to land at the military base near the most northerly town in Brazil, near the French Guiana border. There were four sergeants to greet them, looking a bit ridiculous in their t-shirts, shorts, and flip flops. After some chit chat, my uncle gets to the point.

Uncle: “So, sirs, when do you think we can fly out of here?”

Sergeant: “Well, do you know the difference between winter and summer up here?”

Uncle: “Um, no.”

Sergeant: “Well, in winter it rains every day, in summer, it rains all day!”

My uncle gives a grunt of laughter, thinking the Sergeant is exaggerating, while the officers cackle with this clearly traditional line used with the oblivious southern.

Five days later, still grounded because of the non-stop rain, my uncle is forced to concede that the Sergeant did, in fact, have a point.

I heard this story third-hand, so I don’t have all the details, but you’ll get the gist.

We were at the peak of Winter Storm Fern. For those outside the USA, this storm was bad enough to send half the country into lockdown for a day, and many people were without power for several days afterwards, so make of that what you will. I was spending the storm warm and safe in my parents’ house when my father, a manager at a grocery store, got a call from a fellow manager.

Whenever that store is closed for the day, somebody always drives down to make sure everything is in order. Because of the snow, only one person – we’ll call her Kiera – was able to drive down, and only because her husband had a pick-up truck and snow tires, and they live right down the road.

When Kiera got to the store, somebody was outside trying to get in. Kiera tried to tell the man that they were closed, but he insisted that he just needed one thing, that it was an emergency, etc. Of course, Kiera knew better than to let him inside, but he was absolutely insistent that he had to buy this one thing right now. He wasn’t actively aggressive, but that could have been because Kiera’s husband came out of the truck when he saw what was happening.

Soon enough, the police were called, and the hopeful (read: crazy) customer was hauled away for trespassing and resisting arrest, because of course he did that too. Kiera was shaken up but otherwise fine, and nothing in the store was stolen or broken.

Now I’m sure you’re all wondering, what was this one emergency thing that the guy just couldn’t live without for one day? Medication? Diapers for his infant child, perhaps?

It was a light bulb, my friends. The man needed a singular light bulb.

Our state is going through its worst snowstorm in a decade, but of course, my manager calls me and tells me I still need to be there to open the d*** store. Why me?”

Manager: “You live closest! I’ll see you when my shift starts!”

I turn up and open the store at 9 AM, and it turns out I was the only one who could make it into the store. Normally, we’d have three or four people working opening shift, but this wasn’t a problem today, as we had zero customers. Zero. The snow was still coming down, so it wasn’t a surprise.

My manager calls me at 2 PM:

Manager: “Yeah, so I can’t get in for my shift. The freeway closed.”

Me: “No s***. So, do I close up and go home?”

Manager: “What gave you that idea? You need to stay until closing.”

Me: “You want me to stay until 9 PM? Even after I opened?

Manager: “No one else can make it in!”

Me: “That applies to the customers too, you know?”

Manager: “Stay until close.” *Click.*

I should have told him where to stuff it, but I was young, and I needed the job, so I dealt with it and actually worked the full twelve hours. I didn’t mind so much because we had zero customers; I was able to get a lot of college studying done without the distractions of home.

The manager called me at 10 PM to ask how the day went.

Me: “I’m just leaving the store.”

Manager: “Why so late? I thought you said foot traffic was light?”

Me: “Practically non-existent. But I did get an urgent customer come in ten minutes before close.”

Manager: “Well, at least you were able to help someone with an urgent need.”

Me: “Yeah… an urgent need to do a huge-a** refund. Which meant we ended the day with negative sales. Oh, and kept me behind an hour past closing, which means I’m getting paid more for a negative sales day.”

Manager: “…” *Click.*

The manager reviewed the footage the next day and confirmed that we had zero customers in twelve hours (apart from that one at the end), and I got a lot of studying done! Did this change Corporate’s policy when it came to severe weather events? Ha ha, of course not.

Caller: “Hello, I want to know if it will be snowing on [weekend].”

Me: “Sir, that weekend is six weeks away.”

Caller: “Yes, I know how calendars work. I want to know if it will be snowing on that [weekend].”

Me: “We can’t know what the weather will have in store that far in advance. I’d recommend you look up the weather for the area closer to the time of your trip.”

Caller: “Of course I know I can do that! But you live up there! You must know what the weather is like!”

Me: “Where do you live, sir?”

Caller: “Florida.”

Me: “Will there be a hurricane in six weeks?”

Caller: “How the h*** should I know?”

Me: “Well, you live down there. You must know what the weather is like!”

Caller: “That’s different! Hurricanes are unpredictable!”

Me: “And so is snow. Not even the weatherman and his Doppler can predict weather patterns further than a week out, sir.”

Caller: “But… you live out there!”

Me: “And I still have no idea.”

Caller: “But if I check the weather a week ahead, I’ll be doing just what everyone else is doing!”

Me: “There’s a reason for that.”

Caller: “Will your manager know if it’s snowing on [weekend]?”

Me: “No, sir. No one will.”

Caller: “This is so stupid! You charge an arm and a leg for people to go skiing, and you can’t predict the weather!” *Click.*

At the time of this story, we’re having an unusually heavy snowfall in the Netherlands. Other countries will probably laugh at the amount of snow, but here ‘the country is on its bum’, as we say.

Public transportation is down, trash no longer gets collected (narrow streets + big truck = disaster), people can’t go to work because the roads are white and the snow ploughs can’t keep up. The trash companies actually let their truck drivers drive snow ploughs or trucks that spread salt because they are used to heavy trucks.

My company rents out Social Housing. Because of the amount of snow, we are forced to work from home. Many can, and some technicians are on ’emergency repairs’ duty. If there’s an emergency, our technicians will brave the white outside, but it may take a bit longer than usual. And because we all care about our coworkers outside, we customer service people make sure it is indeed an emergency.

A Lot Of Callers: “I have an appointment for today; how late will the technician be here?”

Most Of Our Responses: “Unfortunately, they won’t make it. I see we tried to call you for rescheduling, but no one answered the phone.”

Insert reason why they didn’t pick up and understanding customer… great! Rescheduled!

The Occasional Client: “What?! But I waited for weeks for this appointment! This is unacceptable!”

In reality, it was days.

Me: “I understand your response, but there is a national weather alert.”

The Occasional Client: “I know, I can’t go anywhere!”

Me: “And our technicians are in the same boat.”

The Occasional Client: “Well… this is an emergency! Surely you have an emergency protocol!”

Me: “We do, but unfortunately, hanging up a shelf is not an emergency.”

The Occasional Client: “It is an emergency!”

Me: “So you say you need to leave the house and can no longer stay in your house because of this?”

The Occasional Client: “Leave the house?! Have you seen the weather?!”

Me: “So you can stay in the house?”

The Occasional Client: “I can’t go anywhere!”

Me: “So that means it’s not an emergency, right?”

This usually shuts them up. However, one call went differently:

Client: “My faucet is leaking.”

Me: “I am so sorry to hear that. I have a plumber available in two days, assuming the weather will be better.”

Client: “Yes… but my faucet is leaking.”

Older client, repeating himself… maybe hard of hearing? I repeat the offer. Same response. I repeat the offer in different words. Same response.

Me: “All right… can you put a bucket underneath it?”

Client: “Will that stop the leak?

Okay, red flags. I put the client on hold and call the planner.

Me: “Hey, I have [Address], and the man has a leaky faucet… but my belly—” *onderbuikgevoel* “—is nagging. Something is off. No matter what I try, he doesn’t answer my questions, only repeats… He is in his eighties, so…”

Planner: “You wouldn’t call if you weren’t worried. You’re in luck, I have a guy working two streets away. I’ll ask him to check it out. Might take a while, though.”

Me: “Thanks.”

I return to the client and thank him for waiting. No response. I shout (working from home all alone does have advantages), no response. I hear no movement… nothing. I return to the planner, letting him know there’s no sound whatsoever anymore.

The planner says he’ll take over from me, considering the wait line. Through chat, he lets me know that calling the client was of no use; no one picked up.

You probably all share my worry, so I won’t stall any longer: all was fine.

The technician went over, the older gentleman opened the door, and all was well. The older gentleman managed to grab a pan and put it under the leaky faucet… and promptly forgot about the phone. He was indeed hard of hearing, so when he was in another room, he did not hear the calls.

He did not seem confused or anything else worrisome, but our ‘outside housing manager’ (who walks around the area to check on houses, gardens, illegal dumping, and people we worry about) decided to visit the client when the snow was mostly gone. Again, nothing worrisome, but my coworker will check on him regularly just in case.

To the technician who braved the white world because of a leaky faucet… You are a hero!