Monday, April 19, 2004
Home Improvement
My landlord has an interesting policy of hiring only people who don’t speak English to perform repairs around our building. Now I’m not sure if he’s running a terrible ESL class in his spare time or if he’s just been kidnaping foreign exchange students and outfitting them with tool belts, but the result is somewhat unsettling. Call me crazy, but I don’t enjoy having a stranger in my house screaming gibberish and wielding a hammer. Okay, I do, but only in the context of a loving, long-term relationship.
So this weekend we had an appointment with a maintenance guy to fix our air conditioning system, which has not generally been functioning at all, unless you count producing various noises and odors. We were all set to remedy this slight defect at 4 PM on Sunday. So when there had been no action by 4:30 PM, we called back. Turns out that our good buddy Mr. Fix-it had stopped by at 10 AM and, feeling shocked and chagrined that we weren’t there to receive him, simply went on his way. Apparently, they only schedule the appointments so they can amp up the element of surprise.
My landlord has an interesting policy of hiring only people who don’t speak English to perform repairs around our building. Now I’m not sure if he’s running a terrible ESL class in his spare time or if he’s just been kidnaping foreign exchange students and outfitting them with tool belts, but the result is somewhat unsettling. Call me crazy, but I don’t enjoy having a stranger in my house screaming gibberish and wielding a hammer. Okay, I do, but only in the context of a loving, long-term relationship.
So this weekend we had an appointment with a maintenance guy to fix our air conditioning system, which has not generally been functioning at all, unless you count producing various noises and odors. We were all set to remedy this slight defect at 4 PM on Sunday. So when there had been no action by 4:30 PM, we called back. Turns out that our good buddy Mr. Fix-it had stopped by at 10 AM and, feeling shocked and chagrined that we weren’t there to receive him, simply went on his way. Apparently, they only schedule the appointments so they can amp up the element of surprise.
