Yesterday morning the engineer came to service the boiler in the work. I let him in and left him to it while I went back up to the office. A few minutes later he came stomping up the stairs, marched into the office and said, 'Come and have a look at this!'
'Okay,' I squeaked.
He pointed at the boiler. 'See that?'
'Mm.'
'You've had someone in to change the valve and he's not done it properly.'
'Oh, um.'
'It's not good enough. It's my neck on the line. It's my sticker on the boiler. I can't prove that I didn't do it.'
'I don't remember anyone coming in to do anything with the boiler,' I said, although, in truth, I didn't even know this particular boiler existed.
'Well, someone has, and I'm not happy.'
'No (I can see that). Well, I honestly don't recall any work being done but I'll make sure I find out who did it.'
'I can repair for you but it's not good enough.'
I asked Alun and Colin, our two odd-job men, and they both said, no, they wouldn't change a valve on a boiler, and so I phoned my boss. She couldn't remember but said she'd check the files.
She called back and said that, according to our records, the last time anything had been done to the boiler had been the annual service a year ago. Done by the same engineer. 'So I have to go and tell him that?' I said.
'Yes.'
I had a cup of tea for courage then crept back to the boiler-room. 'I've spoken to Janet ...'
He interrupted me. 'I think it was me. It suddenly came back to me. But in the past there was a lot of that here, getting other people in to do stuff.'
He did apologise in the end. Men!
xx
8 comments:
You should have nutted him - I know I would have. Maybe he checked the place and found the hidden cameras and decided to behave properly...
Hey that 'Men!' comment is unkind - he did apologise when he could have kept up the pretence
The crazy thing about our boiler service is that we always get a comment on the service form telling us that the boiler "is not up to standard" When I asked about this I was told "oh its just that the regulations have changed and your boiler no is longer up to the standard - but there is nothing wrong with it" So what's the point of changing the standards??
Can't a man apologize without hemming and hawing and trying to still find someone else to blame it on? A simple "Sorry" would've done it, eh? Oh well. Pride goeth before the fall.
You know, I hope to email you again one day, haha! Good grief, girl, but life has been so busy on my side of the pond!! I'll shock you one of these days and send one off, I promise.
It must have been the day for gas men yesterday. I had a new boiler installed last week and every now and then it sounded like there was a woodpecker banging on the pipes! It only need a few minor adjustments to the pump etc thank goodness.
This did make me laugh...he was brave to own up :-)
Men indeed. But at least he admitted it. I guess you have to give him points for that. So is he accusing himself of being incompetent?
Mutley, it was tempting!
deejay, he did but only for the unnecessary over-reaction not for actually putting it in wrongly in the first place. He didn't say any more about that in fact!
kris, likewise. I have two emails in my heda waiting to be written; they will be ...
I'm glad you didn't really have a woodpecker in your pipes, cherrypie.
Sally, I'm not sure he really had much option!
jmb, it was very strange: he said no more about bad workmen!
I think that's the best you can expect - at least he admitted he remembered that it'd been him. *sigh*
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