What a Shit Day

June 3rd, 2006

Friday was like the worst day ever…I guessed I’d be home early as most jobs were quite local, no, first job which included a fire service I ended up having to remove the fire and then re-install it, off to Crawley to fit an Essex Flange to a cylinder, started off really well. When I filled it up it was leaking slightly and as I tightened it some more it leaked more as the rubber washer just squished out the side. On attempted removal of the flange to assess what could be done I mullered the thread and couldn’t get it off at all. Put it all back together for one final test and the rubber washer inside the cylinder squished out so much I was able to pull it off altogether. AT this point having over-run by 2 hours I gave up and admitted, yes, a new cylinder is required. Explained to the office and the customer and all was fine. Next stop Horley (hate the place) Purge and re-light that had already been purged and re-lit!!! Off down the road to do gas safety check, its about 4pm by now and I’m cheesed off to say the least, Boiler fine, Gas Fire Ok, Cooker Range spot on, Installation pipework a leak!!! Got the sniffer out and checked out exposed pipework found a leak on a dodgey joint to the Fire, still a leak, another joint to the fire leaking, repaired that, and there’s still a poxy leak! Isolated all appliances, still leaking, this is to prove it is pipework and not a cooker ring etc. letting by. SO had to cap it all off and go through all the form filling that goes along with cutting off some poor sods gas supply. As it happens the Tennant wasn’t too fusssed and I thanked her for her patience as I left as normally people go ballistic. Now its 5.30pm and I still got 2 calls, and I’m well pissed off. Thought about dropping them both but thought I’d do the one in Hassocks as I can then cut through Ditchling which is a nice drive to chill me out a bit, instead of doing 90mph down the A27 dual-carriageway with white knuckles I’m gripping the wheel so hard, teeth gritting so hard I have muscles popping out of my forehead and blood oozing from my eyes and ears as my blood pressure hits 240/180. Did the service in Hassocks half hoping they would say its too late and they would re-book, went surprisingly ok and the people were nice and supplied me with coffee and even offered me some dinner as I was working so late, I declined as I’d eaten a noodley salady thing and a samosa on the way there. Got home 8pm jumped in bath.

I did actually get a phone call from the office during the day to say one of my customers has rang in and complemented my work and my attitude saying I was a very efficient and competent engineer who knew my stuff! This was the bloke in Crawley talking about my first visit the day before to his leaking hot water cylinder, and the one I was on the way to, to balls the whole job up for him! Though wasn’t really that serious, he was a nice guy and I manged to get his toilets working as since the water was turned off he’d been filling the cisterns with buckets, for this he thought the sun shone out my arse. Anyway I’m back there Monday AM to fit a new cylinder.

Also had a call from Debbie, a girl I met weeks ago at the pub who was into Wing Chung Kung-Fu, she’d beeen bothering me to go out on a date for a while, tonight I gave in and arranged to meet her at my local for a couple of beers and a chat…Well! She can talk, she seems quite agressive in the way she was spaeking although she said she was quite a sensitive girl at heart. She spoke for a few hours and I managed to get a couple of words in edgeways. At the end of the night she offered we get a bottle of wine and go back to her place, thing was I’d had a really bad day and felt like crap after about 4 pints and I was really tired so I declined and went home to bed (plus it was a first date and I felt uncomfortable with it). She mentioned seeing me again next Saturday night…hmmm…

Entry Filed under: Personal