People are awesome!!

[mgoncalves]

I work for a heating and air company and have to run On-Call service every few weeks. We get a lot of funny calls where people just expect you to do whatever it takes to fix their furnace at any time of the day, but they want it for free.



I just had such a call, and I couldn't help but laugh out loud after getting off the phone with the guy. His furnace isn't working, so he calls us at nine pm, I get the call from our answering service and give the guy a call. I tell him what the price is for me to come out for an after hours service call, and he flips out that I would want to charge him the after hours rate, afterall, he bought the furnace from us thirteen years ago and it shouldn't have any problems by now . Thirteen years with no trouble and he flips because I have to charge him after hours rates to come to his house at 9 pm. :{



Needless to say, he chewed me out and ordered me to come out first thing in the morning and not charge him so dang much. I said thank you, we'll call you in the morning as polite as could be. Man, one of these days I'm going to lose it with one of these idiots that expects everything for free. It's like they think my only point in life is to run out to their house at any hour of the day, fix their furnace, and only make 5 or 10 bucks for my time. Sheesh!! God forbid we try and make a living!!



Well, I feel better now.

Matt

 

[klenger]

1, 2, 3, ... 9, 10. I'm feeling much better now.

 

[mgoncalves]

Hey, it's my last night of a week of this stuff



I am usually not a happy person towards the end of my on-call shift, I'm trying to laugh away the insanity this time.





Matt

 

[klenger]

We're here to listen anytime.



I noticed you're from CO. I sure do miss the area.

 

[dslmacdown]

I know the feeling exactly. People calling on the weekend and in the middle of the night. Wanting it fixed right now over the phone or wanting you to come look at it for nothing. People always want something for nothing, boy do I have stories.



Chris

 

[ToolManTimTaylor]

Goooooosssssfaabaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh



I hear ya loud and clear! I am on the same rotation with the same morons.



TODAY:



Call comes in @ 11:30 last night on the emergency system. Guy is cleaning his SELF CLEANING oven. He starts it and of course after the thing reaches 500+ degrees it starts to burn off the crud and whatnot. Well he freaks out when he sees smoke and RIPS OFF THE OVEN DOOR latch tweaked and glass , handle and door frame go flying. So our paging service (Which I am amazed sometimes know how to do the right thing) Tells him that it is not a fire , flood , no heat and his call will be dealt with in the A. M



Knowing the carnage I grabbed a door assembly right off the bat because well Mr Winch-it had to fire the door off. I walk in the apartment and see 2 cans of easy off layin on their side next to the oven. HAHA Guess what icknod the clown you just bought yourself an oven. You cannot use oven cleaner on a self cleaning oven The ceramakote was destroyed as well as his door LOL! Now his ego too :-laf

 

[mgoncalves]

Chris, you need to get down here and get signed on as a service tech so I can have more of a break between on-call shifts. It would also be nice not having the dispatchers calling me during the day asking if I can run calls for them after I'm done with my job.



Oh by the way, I'm not on call anymore and I'm having a few cold ones tonight, I feel like I've earned them this week.



Matt

 

[mgoncalves]

So our paging service (Which I am amazed sometimes know how to do the right thing) Tells him that it is not a fire , flood , no heat and his call will be dealt with in the A. M

I know what you mean there , every once in a while some moron on the other side of the country gets our number off the internet and calls in to our answering service. They aren't bright enough to realize we don't run service calls that are 1500 miles away :-laf and will actually call us up to give us their info.



Hey fellow TDR guys that are not in any home service industry; Be nice to the people you have come out to your house, we're on your side.



Hey, I even met a TDR member this last weekend. He had two Dodges that were pretty nice, so I had to ask and sure enough another TDR brother . He doesn't read the forums on here, but another one of us just the same. His furnace got the good treatment, and even cleaned it up a little for no charge of course.



Matt

 

[rbattelle]

Hey fellow TDR guys that are not in any home service industry; Be nice to the people you have come out to your house, we're on your side.



Matt

Always always always. It's amazing what service you get from people if you just treat them nicely. Everyone I work with complains about the horrible service from the cable company, electric company, banks, etc. Interestingly, they all tend to be ornery and disrespectful when dealing with the service people... as if they're somehow "better" than them.



I, on the other hand, tend to enjoy pretty good service and I get a lot of free advice and assistance just by giving people the respect they deserve. Problems begin as soon as you start thinking you're somehow "superior" to other people.



-Ryan

 

[98rammer]

Man, one of these days I'm going to lose it with one of these idiots that expects everything for free. It's like they think my only point in life is to run out to their house at any hour of the day, fix their furnace, and only make 5 or 10 bucks for my time. Sheesh!! God forbid we try and make a living!!

yeah, like we can all make a living on $10/hr... and for some reason you don't deserve making way more than that



and there's other customers who you could charge $100/hr profit and they'd be delighted to have you do the work. who knows

 

[mgoncalves]

I just remembered a real good one from about a year ago.



I get the call, no display on T-stat that we put on about a month prior. I am talking to this lady on the phone and I can hear a guy in the background screaming about how I'm ripping them off with the after hours charge, yada yada yada. So I ask if they have changed the filter recently (#1 cause for furnace not working when people can't get the doors back on), no nothing different, get out here now, we'll pay with credit card and call your office first thing in the morning to dispute the charges.



Okay, whatever . I get out there, she answers the door, he's upstairs out of sight but I can still hear him complaining :{ . Go down the stairs and get about ten feet away from it and can see that the doors aren't on right. Pop the doors on correctly and it fires right up, and the the T-stat magically works again.



So, I'm by the stat "verifying" that all is well, and I ask again if they changed the filter recently. I heard him say something about crummy equipment and service from upstairs, as she's headed up to tell him what the "fix" was. She comes down completely embarassed and says he changed the filter that afternoon and she is appologizing left and right. So, in my infinite wisdom, I explain to her how easy it is to change the filter as long as you have some idea of how mechanical things work, and maybe they should just call us to change their filters if they can't handle it from now on. I made sure to speak loud enough for him to hear me (he never did come into view) and I think she knew what I was doing, because she was looking upstairs the whole time I was talking :-laf :-laf .







Ahh, simple mind, simple pleasure



Matt

 

[Hohn]

Matt-- you guys service Cheyenne??? hehehe.



Justin

 

[Rman]

I just remembered a real good one from about a year ago.



I get the call, no display on T-stat that we put on about a month prior. I am talking to this lady on the phone and I can hear a guy in the background screaming about how I'm ripping them off with the after hours charge, yada yada yada. So I ask if they have changed the filter recently (#1 cause for furnace not working when people can't get the doors back on), no nothing different, get out here now, we'll pay with credit card and call your office first thing in the morning to dispute the charges.



Okay, whatever . I get out there, she answers the door, he's upstairs out of sight but I can still hear him complaining :{ . Go down the stairs and get about ten feet away from it and can see that the doors aren't on right. Pop the doors on correctly and it fires right up, and the the T-stat magically works again.



So, I'm by the stat "verifying" that all is well, and I ask again if they changed the filter recently. I heard him say something about crummy equipment and service from upstairs, as she's headed up to tell him what the "fix" was. She comes down completely embarassed and says he changed the filter that afternoon and she is appologizing left and right. So, in my infinite wisdom, I explain to her how easy it is to change the filter as long as you have some idea of how mechanical things work, and maybe they should just call us to change their filters if they can't handle it from now on. I made sure to speak loud enough for him to hear me (he never did come into view) and I think she knew what I was doing, because she was looking upstairs the whole time I was talking :-laf :-laf .







Ahh, simple mind, simple pleasure



Matt

Dang Matt, Be careful you're liable to get shot mouthing like that in someone else's house! Damn funny though! haha

 

[Rman]

Guys keep this thread going with stories, it's better than reading the depressing news. Another girl got abducted, some whacko offed his ex wife, another guy offed his boss because he was late. Your stories are far more entertaining!

 

[barbwire]

Always always always. It's amazing what service you get from people if you just treat them nicely. Everyone I work with complains about the horrible service from the cable company, electric company, banks, etc. Interestingly, they all tend to be ornery and disrespectful when dealing with the service people... as if they're somehow "better" than them.



I, on the other hand, tend to enjoy pretty good service and I get a lot of free advice and assistance just by giving people the respect they deserve. Problems begin as soon as you start thinking you're somehow "superior" to other people.



-Ryan

Ryan, I have noticed in a lot of your past posts that you have a unique way with words. I for one wish I could spend some time with a person like you. I have no doubt that I could improve on the quality of my life as a result. There is an elderly gentleman in our area that, when someone's name is brought up, he says "wonderfull, wonderfull person". Well needless to say, I think "he" is a wonderfull person.

You can go out and buy a bigger hat now!

 

[tURBOdIEZEl]

woooooosaaahhhhhhhh i bet ya forgot to call him the next morning. :-laf

 

[rbattelle]

I for one wish I could spend some time with a person like you. I have no doubt that I could improve on the quality of my life as a result.

Stop that... you're making me blush.