- submitted by b-team on 06/25/2007
Electrician From Heck? No, H*ll!
What's your worst electrician experience?
Here's ours -- for the week. After 3 missed appointments, 7 unreturned calls, the Electrician shows up. One of our bathroom lights shorted out, started burning and we wanted it fixed. Because, we told him (he didn't seem sure), having light in the bathroom is better than not having light.
ELECTRICIAN unscrews the fixture, pulls out some wire, says, yea, definitely shorted. He goes to the basement, bangs on walls, bangs on some pipes (we're thinking, why pipes?...he's going to burst them, cause a flood!); he comes back up and, seconds later, we lose all power to the kitchen, upstairs bedrooms and our home office. But, good news, the faulty bathroom light is now fully operational!
ELECTRICIAN says, the problem is the wiring downstairs is really old, some of it hanging by threads. This was a disaster waiting to happen, he assures us. (Guess what, it did happen, and only after you visited.) He says, I've got to go to the shop and get some stuff (what stuff? non-thread-like wire?) and I'll be back later.
Four days later, he's still not back. He's not returning calls. We have no power. And we're ready to form a posse and track him down and unwire his house (not to mention his face). (Of course in no way are we advocating or approving violence. Just reasonable justice, retribution and proportionate pain and suffering.)
ELECTRICIAN finally does come back, with nothing (not a tool or electrician kit, or whatever you call that box they carry around; not even the thread-like wire). He goes downstairs, comes back up in less than a minute, shakes his head dolefully, and says, it's a much bigger job than he expected, he's going to have to subcontract the work out.
We stare at him, say something like, come again? He repeats it, this time munching on the end of a pencil-sized screwdriver he pulls from his pocket. We tell him, get the f*** out, and thanks. We control our breathing. We're good. We call our brother-in-law who always seemed pretty handy. (Anybody who installs his own automatic garage door in less than an afternoon is handy to us...actually a f***ing technical genius.)
End of story? Bro-in-law comes by, demands some beer (and gets it), and fixes everything in 20 minutes. He says it was no big deal, something about wires being crossed, probably done by ELECTRICIAN while he was "fixing" the bathroom. He suggests we not use the ELECTRICIAN again. Good idea.
One of our lessons: It's good to know how to do things yourself. Of course, if you're like us -- and you have no clue (are an embarrassing idiot) -- it's also good to know someone who knows how to do things. And if you do know such a person, you should absolutely do whatever it takes to stay on his (or her) good side -- in our case, keeping cases or kegs of beer on stand-by, available on a moment's notice, for the next electrical or other emergency. It's a sacrifice (always having beer around) but it's one we think we'll get used to...Anchor Steam anyone? ...read more rants
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