#head plumber

Things that happen at work:

So, it’s Head Plumbers last day, and this is what I made to celebrate. Shepherds pie (technically a cottage pie) and hay stack cookies (I call the moose scat cookies) it turned out pretty well overall, but I did get some legit critical comments from my work children that I treat my plumbers better then I treat my mechanics. Which is a fair point that I do need to work on.

But I did get compliments on my cooking, which is…rare. And not because I rarely cook, but because my cooking is rarely good.

Basically I can do nice tasting things with ground beef and potatoes (provided onions, garlic, butter and salt), or bacon and eggs, with maybe potatoes and butter. And that’s it…my cooking knowledge is strictly in prep and dump, maybe fold into pre-made dough, casseroles and meat pie…

These are also his favorite cookies that I’ve made and Head Plumber definitely made sure that my mechanics felt deprived of “Christmas cookies” and I had to jump in and be like “I made these, now, specifically because you like them most, they are NOT the only thing I make during Christmas”

It’s honestly cute how he likes to just stir the pot, regardless of status. I respect and admire him for being a genuinely kind and empathetic boss, but it takes really a special constitution to take his jokes.

He genuinely likes being called out on his shit, no matter how left or right it swings. He loves being correct about plumbing more than he loves getting promoted…part of the problem now, honestly.

Head Plumber, calling in for the first time in about a month, no hello how are you bullshit: I need to explain the situation and then let you do your thing. You ready?

Me, in the middle of about five other things: I mean. Yeah? Hang on. Kay, I’ve got pen and paper, hit me with it.

Head Plumber: *explains that he’s got a pile of old gas meters he can’t send to recycling because he doesn’t have the correct paperwork and doesn’t know how to find it on an iPad, and has no access to a printer*

Me: Okay, I’ll back track the emails I’m tagged on, print everything out, and I’ll have it ready in maybe half an hour.

Head Plumber: Let me know if I need to charge any of your time to my job and phase, okay?

Me: You’re drastically overestimating how busy fleet keeps me.

Head Plumber, who I haven’t heard from in a month, calling me at work, no greetings or anything: I’m lost.

Me: Lost on what?

Head Plumber: *literally spends one minutes and 47 seconds cussing out Excel spreadsheets, before explaining* I have fifteen dumb fucks, I need to add the little tabs at the bottom with each of their names. And then I need to plug in each address they do, and I need a way to know if they had an outage.

Me: Okay. How many things across the top do you need to be on each page with a name?

Head Plumber: Uh. A through K.

Me: Okay, select row 1 on a through k, and hit control c. Then hit the little plus sign down at the bottom where you need the new name to be. *walk him through typing in the new name, paste, show him how to apply filters, and then how to do filter searches by address, color and number*

Head Plumber, at the end: Okay, I’m going to repeat back to you everything you just said to make sure I’ve got it.

So, Head Plumber has not been fired! On the other hand, the utility company that my company is a subcontractor of, called today. About gas meters that were issued to us, and then installed with no paperwork to indicate the change submitted.

This is a big deal because of all the snow storms recently...customers are getting estimated bills instead of actual usage bills, and there’s no way to track anything with out paying a licensed, unionized plumber $39.80 an hour to go check each individual meter.

There were over 15 addresses that were like this, with at least 30 more that could potentially be similar.

So any way...long story short, Head Plumber and Materials Manager print everything off and never throw paper work away, and after thirty minutes of digging through old meters, a literal box of paperwork, and combing through the new meter cage...it’s not our fault.

We did literally nothing wrong, because the utility company assigned a bunch of meters to our meter cage with out any proof of purchase, proof of receipt, or bill of lading.

Head Plumber summed it up quite well.

Me, answering my work phone: What’s up?

Head Plumber: Remember when I said I missed you?

Me: Which time?

Head Plumber: Meet me outside for a smoke, I just got put in charge of a fucking awesome contract.

Long story short, he’s going to be able to hire back the plumbers that were let go last month, needs to double his staff on top of that, and needs to have three office support staff in order to execute the project.

Field Mechanic, to Head Plumber: Nah, you really wanna fuck with her, you come in here first thing Monday morning and move all her plants around.

Head Plumber: That sounds like a good way to-

Me: Touch my plants, and the police are gonna find your body on the side of the road. Dead, bloody, and alone. And I’m gonna tell ‘em I have no idea how you got there.

Head Plumber: -end up dead. I’m not a smart man, but I’m not an idiot. You might be one, though.

Field Mechanic: I know, right! If things ever get too bad, moving the plants is first on my list.

Head Plumber, coming to get his van fixed: So, put the white sheet in the basket, and keep the yellow sheet?

(There’s a sign on the counter that I put up, that says if you need to have proof you came in for work you need to take a picture to send that to your boss, and submit both paper copies to the shop; Head Plumber knows this)

Me: No. You get nothing.

Head Plumber: Shop Foreman, she’s being mean to me!

Shop Foreman: Good.

Head Plumber: Damn, Shop Foreman’s being mean, too!

Shop Foreman: Yeah. We’re a team.

Me: AAAWWW!!! Also, we just put on a fresh pot, if you want some.

Head Plumber: Nah, I’m all gassed up. I could do with some popcorn though.

Me: That drawer, nuke it for a minute and 19 seconds if you want a half portion and double butter.

Work Child 1, running into the office area: The stray cat is back! C’mon!

Me: *drops literally everything and starts to follow*

WC1: No! Go out the front and circle around to the south door!

Me and WC1: *proceed to trap a stray kitten in a 3000 square foot shop with literally a million books and crannies before chasing it around for an hour*

Me, calling Head Plumber: Hey, you got any raccoon traps left from that infestation you had three years ago?

Head Plumber: Yeah, but just the one. You need to borrow a shotgun while you’re at it? Or maybe just the .22?

Me: What? No, I’ve got my own .22, who doesn’t own a .22? This is for the latest shop cat, so no shooting, just vaccine shots and maybe a hysterectomy.

Head Plumber: You’re no fun. Yeah, I’ll go fish it out of the barn tonight. Also, I just hired five guys, got any ice scrapers left?

Me: Nah, I handed out the last of them this morning but I’ll put in an same day order at Napa, should have them by tomorrow afternoon.