Out to His Van

 

Dan’s here.  I knew Dan was coming.   But I didn’t know when he’d get here. He needs towels.  Big beach towels.  No.  He doesn’t want any coffee.

Our dishwasher conked out about a month ago.  You’d open the door after a load and the water was still there in the bottom.  Then sometimes it wasn’t there.  My wife had the ‘just don’t press that button’ theory which seemed to work until it didn’t.  We called the plumber.  He came.  Couldn’t fix it.  Said it was probably the pump.  And he pointed out that “Clarksons” had affixed a sticker to the inside of the machine.  You should call them. 

I did.  And I don’t know why a lot of the service companies in this area seem to have attitudes, but they do.  They guys who fixed my mower once and then again were, what’s the nice way to say it; rude.  Gruff perhaps.  I can do gruff back.  “Yeah.  No.  When?  How much?  Really?”  I needed a new unit for my ultra violet purification thing.  You’d think I was calling to ask to borrow the guys car or clean my shoes on his carpet.

 

Well, Dan was gruff too.  He called twice at around 7:15AM to say he’d be calling again, next week.   This was the time he always made his calls.  Fortunately, I didn’t care, as I’d been up on calls since 5:00AM but when someone calls at 7:15AM you expect the tone is just a bit softened.  Not Dan.  He’s busy.  And he doesn’t want to waste his time.  No.  He can’t tell you when he’ll arrive.  He has lots of other visits and will be there between nine and noon.

 

Well, turns out Dan was a nice guy.  He was an intelligent professional whose the third generation of his family doing such a business.  He knew the former owners of our house well. He taught me a few things and got the pump fixed only to discover a second pump was also farkakte.  He tried to replace it and ended up saying he’d work on the old unit and figure out how to seal the leak himself.  And I helped him bring the stuff out to his van.  I noticed he was moving quickly.  And I reckoned he had to move fast, as each stop was money made or money wasted.  By now I felt like I’d connected with Dan and I thanked him and genuinely bid him to be safe out there, servicing folks out there on the front lines as it were.  And I thought that it must be difficult to be smart and capable and make this type of work, where everyone is suspicious of your services and your pricing, go well. 

Monday, 04/12/21