Work Issues (Frustration)

Do you let the customer know you are having problems involving the work detail?

Verbally assault the plumbing you are working on?


I don't do this too often but today I let it be known that I approached difficulty. Being a perfectionist has serious drawbacks sometimes and things just wouldn't work in my favor.

Flux wasn't sticking to anything, water coming back through the cold and I broke a jet-swet, cut the hell out of my hands reworking the flue pipe for two water heaters, took longer than anticipated.

I was slamming tools around and cussing. I've worked for this fellow before, he's now an Angie's List member so a report is coming.

He acted sympathetic to the situation in the basement and had no problem paying the bill. Made the comment that he could never do plumbing and how us plumbers do it is amazing.

I just blamed it all on it being a monday.

I don't get angry. I burn, cut, soak, bang my head or otherwise mutliate myself regularly. Cussing or throwing things doesn't make feel better, and usually make me feel stupider. If something bad happens, I thank Jesus that it wasn't worse. Temper tantrums or other infantile behavior in any work setting, customer's house or power plant is wrong. You are there at their invitation, and that behavior will be sure ticket to not being invited back.

anger

I was working on a job one time when the refrigeration guy in the basement cut loose with a tirade about poor workers and incompetence. His boss happened to be upstairs and when the guy came up the stairs he was told not to talk to his partner that way. He said, "I wasn't talking to him, I was talking to myself".

Anger on the job

Hey HJ,
Believe me, I understand 'anger on the job' and I sympathise. But do try to control thyself, and I hope the following is a good illustration.
I was working on a fire job (insurance) and I hooked up all the DWV in a coded manner; cleanouts at the base of the stacks, etc. Well, the owners decided to move a drainpipe, and I must have been busy elsewhere, so I didn't get to do the remodel. When I came back to the job, I found a change in my work, and whoever did it, did not put a clean-out at the base of the moved stack. And I ranted, and a little bit of raving thrown in for good measure.
Well the boss (mine) heard about it, and I didn't get to go back to that job, and when I finished my original hire out (water meter installations on a community water system) I took a layoff, and haven't worked for that contractor since.
And he's a busy shop.
Elbert Hubbard said something to the effect, that reputations are built by many good acts, and destroyed by one. So take care my friend, if you have to rant and rave over somebodyelses cruddy work, take it off the job. Esp if you own your own shop. I am damn near starving to thinness, and can't afford my rent, and I suspect it comes from not being employable.
Take it easy bro,
Rudy

EAT "WILD ALASKA SALMON" IT'S GOOD FOR YOU AND YOURS!!

breathe in ---breathe out.....

When doing plumbing and evrything starts to
go wrong....you either have a total meltdown or

you try to find and go to your "happy place".....

where ever that place might be... that usually works....


but when I have a melt down....

I usually give the parts I am fighting with a good talking to and

tell everything that.... no matter how long it takes, you are not

gonna get the better of me.......!!!!

and then in a loud , stern voice, I tell all the parts.......

I am going to win and you are going to lose you spiteful dirty rotten @#%$$#

then smack a few of the parts with my hammer or channel locks....



that usually puts everything right....,...


sometimes the customer thinks I need professional help.

I dont get angry. Yep, I get frustrated, at which times I go to my van, take a time out, drink a coke and relax for 15 minutes. When I go back, every thing usually works out for the better. If not, I deal with it, and I guess if it's too bad, I'll be back again in the morning.

When I reach the boiling point which is rarely I go get a coffee and read a paper, maybe get a burger or something. Then when I go back things seem just seem to go better and the problems are gone.Once or twice I have packed up and gone back the next day but that usually was due to time constraints.

anger

You misunderstood, my revelation was about another worker who had the good sense not to berate others, but did not have a problem dressing himself down.

justified

Rarely do I get to that level of frustration. I can count on my hands the times I let go in the basement while the customer is upstairs like the above described.

I'm working for him tomorrow switching a 3 handle to a single handle delta faucet tomorrow.

No matter if I wear gloves, whenever I have to do a good deal of flue piping install I literally cut my hands up. Had to switch my day off through the week to heal my hands somehow in 24 hours.

Having cuts on your hands in this profession is dangerous, thus the anger for when it happened. Here's what I was trying to get done.



I've "also" shown tempermant when I've met a customer that is trying to 1-up me or get an edge over me. Now I know that you plumbers know exactly what I'm talking about, don't need to explain that one. It works quite well too.





The reason why those flue pipes are not the same is because they were in contact with the ACR tubing for the air conditioner off of the furnace. They burned off the armaflex and that had to make that A-coil work twice as hard to get the house cool. I used the foam pipe insulation that came with the heater to cover it back up; he didn't want to pay the heating guys for such a simple job.

That copper pipe if I took a closeup is all 50 plus years old, all of it is L, most of the bends were rolled instead of fittings and the old style brass fittings you don't see anymore. The inside of that copper looks like the day it was installed. That is true workmanship from back in the day when plumbers had it rough in many ways.

If age is any indication, that copper piping system will outlast the structure.

I'm coming back to put a drip leg on that tee serving the thermostat. I just had a plug, no cap.

Glad it's done, it's a memory.

act sad, show sadness

"sad" replaces some of the "need" to get angry.

be sad. an adult can be sad, without acting childish. Sometimes it has a big impact.

geniescience said:

"sad" replaces some of the "need" to get angry.

be sad. an adult can be sad, without acting childish. Sometimes it has a big impact.

Click to expand...

I'm gonna take you up on that. I'm going to cry like homer simpson next time I bust my knuckles wide open. I'm a glutton for punishment though; I get calls that a couple two three plumbers have tried to address and now I'm the one who gets the glory to fix it, permanently.


I just looked at the poll and I believe quite a few understand dry humor.

dry humor os ok

Its better to have dry humor than to have
no humor at alll...

a whole lot of plumbers I know around here

somehow they have got it in their heads they got to
act like hard-asses 100% of the time.....

they will blow a gasket someday......

I used to belong to the PHCC and
I found it very hard to deal with some of them....

And my atitude towards them has always been

"piss on you if you cant take a joke"

exercise

My insurance agent was working his frustrations off a the gym one morning when there was news report of a truck into a swimming pool. He thought to himself that some agent was going to have a weird claim, and then when he got to the office he found out it was my truck.

God, one in a million chance.

I go to the gym for that very reason your agent does, or did; to work off frustration. ( and pleasure) I can now do 6 miles on the treadmill, in less than 20 minutes. Somewhat of an incline.

I have a routine. I do the treadmill, do the bikes, first I walk, then, I do the machines. And, I lift weights. Then, if time left before work, I swim a couple of laps, then a sauna for a few.

Lots of frustration, and anger; plus, I love it, the gym...I started working with a trainer, but, he is too slow. (next big marathon)

O.K. hj, how did it end up in the pool?

I really want to hear this.

Wow Cookie... do you realize that you are paying people to let you work???? Why don't you channel all of that energy into something productive? Get you an ax and chop firewood, dig a ditch, run down to the creek and get a bucket of water for your bath...then heat it on a fire with all that firewood... add an iPod and you'll have your own personal gym!

Yes, how did that car end up in the pool? I thought of it, after I had closed down my computer and I was too lazy to restart it. Cass and I want to know, lol.

Oh, Randy, I do chop wood, dig holes, lay floors, do roofing, ask Cass. I tried plumbing, that did not go over so well, lol.

In the Pool?

Cass said:

O.K. hj, how did it end up in the pool?

I really want to hear this.

Click to expand...

Me too, it's gotta be a good one.

Rudy

swimming trucks and vans

Hj,
Would love to hear the story.

I've got one of my own; An uncle of mine has a plumbing /heating business. He also likes boating. He towed his boat around with his work van. One day at the lake his van went for a swim He had backed the boat trailer down into the boat launch and was out of the van getting the boat on the traler, when suddenly the van popped out of gear (he didn't have the e-brake on) and rolled backwards into the water and off the edge of the concrete launch ramp. He had the windows open on the work van and papers, parts, and tools started floating up and out of the windows as it sunk into the lake! The van hit bottom and the only the top 3' of the van stuck out of the water. The part with his company name on it! At that point nobody could load or unload their boats and there were several houses near the launch. Probabaly about 100 people watching by the time the fire department showed up and towed his work van out. The van was ruined. And my uncle wanted to change his company motto to A&E Plumbing aND Heating, WE GO DEEP" !

pool

3:00 a.m. Dec. 7, 2000. I had just cleaned a drain at a Carl's Junior before they closed. I was coming down the street and as I entered an intersection a guy waiting at his stop sign decided to pull out in front of me. I hit the brakes and spun the wheel to avoid him. I missed him, but when I looked out the window there was a block wall in front of me. The truck lights went out when I hit it, and when the truck stopped it was down at the front. I assumed I was sitting on a berm like people put around their yards, but when I opened the door water came in. My first thought was that they used flood irrigation, so I started to get out of the truck, but the farther out I went, the deeper the water got. THAT is when I realized I was in a swimming pool. I used my phone to call 911 and told them that some idiot just pulled out in front of me and ran me through a wall into a swimming pool. She asked me where I was and I told her inside the truck. She asked if I could get out of the truck, and I told her it depended on whether I was at the deep or shallow end of the pool. Holding onto the steering wheel I started to step down and reached the bottom about 2' down, (the water was only 48" deep at that point). I told her I was out of the truck. Then she asked me where I was and I told her in the swimming pool. She asked if I could get out of the pool and I told her yes but they I would have to hang up, because it was a dash mounted phone and the cord was not long enough. She asked for an address and I told her which traffic light I had gone through and what the next one would have been and said I was somewhere between the two. She said they had a report of a vehicle through a fence at a certain intersection, and I told her that must be the one because I doubted that it happened to two people at the same time. The occupants of the house called their neighbor to check it out because they were certain I was dead because of the noise, (which I never heard), and all the concrete hitting their rear glass door. When the police showed up the Barney Fife female officer wanted to give me a ticket. Her partner asked if she was crazy. He said you can see his skid marks and know that he was trying to avoid someone. A neighbor on the other side said that the car turned the corner, parked, and the driver walked back to look over the wall, and then drove away. It took all day to get the truck back on dry land, and for a while they considered getting a crane, because it had to follow the exact path coming out as it did going in. A little bit to the left and I would have impacted directly into a tree, a little to the right and I would have rolled over a barbecue and possibly tipped over. If the pool would have been a foot farther either way, I would either have gone all the way into the pool or two wheels would have stayed on the deck and the truck would have rolled over into the pool.