Had something happen that was both incredibly disappointing and at the same time ridiculously awesome. For those of you who've been jacked around by dishonest plumbers or other tradesmen, this story may warm your hearts just a bit.
The first year I lived in PC I rented. This summer I closed on my permanent crib. Since my neighborhood has active groundwater the homes here have sump pumps. My home purchase inspector determined the pump was dead and so the prior owner agreed to replace it and suggested I upgrade it to automatic. after I move in.
This week I called the same plumbing firm to add an auto switch. An older guy, an owner of the most respected plumbing firm in town, comes out and says it already has the auto feature but it's really old, at least 10 years, and so no longer reliable. So I said, fine, go down there and install a new one. I figured if it was actually replaced just a couple of months ago then the liar would be this guy. If it wasn't replaced then the liar was probably the prior owner.
Well, the prior owner's a solid guy, the plumber is, well, a plumber. So I figured I'd have some fun with this. When the old guy came out of the crawl space after installing a new pump I told him the story and he's fighting mad. I said to him, "You ought to calm down, I'm not the crook here, if I call the police they'll have to taser you, you're old, you won't survive. Look, a dead dishonest plumber isn't that big a problem for me, except I'm having company later and wouldn't know how I'd get your body to the dump before company comes."
But here's the real kicker. The guy wasn't pissed because I caught him red-handed and made him unnecessarily install a new pump I wouldn't be paying for, he was pissed because the prior plumber was his son who had pocketed the money in cash and then failed to enter the work in their computer system to cover his tracks. Without the replacement showing in the computer, the old guy probably felt he could do the unnecessary work.
I sure as shit wasn't going to pay for the second pump. So in essence, this guy was stealing from himself in trying to steal from me after having been stolen from by his own son. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree. When he saw me smiling broadly while he was yelling at me, he finally stopped and realized I'd played him and was simply enjoying the whole thing.
The first year I lived in PC I rented. This summer I closed on my permanent crib. Since my neighborhood has active groundwater the homes here have sump pumps. My home purchase inspector determined the pump was dead and so the prior owner agreed to replace it and suggested I upgrade it to automatic. after I move in.
This week I called the same plumbing firm to add an auto switch. An older guy, an owner of the most respected plumbing firm in town, comes out and says it already has the auto feature but it's really old, at least 10 years, and so no longer reliable. So I said, fine, go down there and install a new one. I figured if it was actually replaced just a couple of months ago then the liar would be this guy. If it wasn't replaced then the liar was probably the prior owner.
Well, the prior owner's a solid guy, the plumber is, well, a plumber. So I figured I'd have some fun with this. When the old guy came out of the crawl space after installing a new pump I told him the story and he's fighting mad. I said to him, "You ought to calm down, I'm not the crook here, if I call the police they'll have to taser you, you're old, you won't survive. Look, a dead dishonest plumber isn't that big a problem for me, except I'm having company later and wouldn't know how I'd get your body to the dump before company comes."
But here's the real kicker. The guy wasn't pissed because I caught him red-handed and made him unnecessarily install a new pump I wouldn't be paying for, he was pissed because the prior plumber was his son who had pocketed the money in cash and then failed to enter the work in their computer system to cover his tracks. Without the replacement showing in the computer, the old guy probably felt he could do the unnecessary work.
I sure as shit wasn't going to pay for the second pump. So in essence, this guy was stealing from himself in trying to steal from me after having been stolen from by his own son. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree. When he saw me smiling broadly while he was yelling at me, he finally stopped and realized I'd played him and was simply enjoying the whole thing.