Monday 19 April 2010

The problem with being deaf when things break...

Boiler broken: check

No hot water or heating: check and check

Toilet broken: check

Just as well I’m old enough to own a Mastercard isn’t it!

Seriously though, things breaking in my flat are a nightmare for me, as I can’t just pick up the phone and get it sorted. However, when I first moved in, I found a local plumbing company to service my boiler and was able to arrange the whole thing by email. So this morning, as I was having my cold shower, I resolved to email them as soon as I’d warmed up and sort the whole thing out.

The problem with email is that there’s lots of too-ing and fro-ing with questions that could be answered quickly if I was on the phone. So this time, I thought I would email them with everything I could possibly think of concerning the boiler/toilet issues. So I took pictures of the offending boiler and toilet and photoshopped in arrows and text to illustrate what the problem seems to be.

But on reflection, this probably means that right now, there’s a gaggle of west London plumbers rolling around the floor laughing at the email they’ve received with pictures of a toilet and broken boiler and blonde-girl speak written all over it trying to explain what the problem is.

Maybe I should go to plumber night school so I no longer have these communication problems. And while I’m at it, I’d better go to electrician night school, too. And maybe car mechanics night school. And if I can’t learn how to fix it, perhaps I’ll just have to make lots of plumber/electrician/car mechanic friends who I can text when it all goes wrong!

A fool-proof plan… no?

2 comments:

Dianrez said...

Chuckling at this...can sympathize with your efforts at communicating around the communication wall, and have done it, too...Here in USA it's the landlord or building owner that is responsible for repairs, thankfully.

Then again, some workmen never get it, even if you handed them the operations manual with the specific paragraph or illustration circled.

Anonymous said...

WELL AT LEAST YOU WILL NOT NEED TO USE THE SAUSEPAN ANY MORE!!!!!!!

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