Tip 4 Where's That Worker? Workers' Phone Numbers, Bills & More Fun Jobs

TURNING UP
Woody Allen said that ninety per cent of success was simply turning up. That applies to performing comedy. But also to fixing my central heating.

The gas board - easy call, see your bill, and they turn up to take a look. Except that the gas board wanted £5000 to change the boiler, flush the radiators etc.

A friend who has property told me the the price of the boiler itself. Then the gas board wanted to put me on a waiting list and could not say when they would do the job.

The worker can also get half way through the job and not come back. He has another urgent job to do. He can come back, 7 a.m. , after you were up late last night. Or 5.30 to 8 pm Friday night when you wanted to go out to dinner with the boyfriend or have a family meal in, or a romantic dinner. Just imagine it.

Very romantic. Half way through the champagne toast 'To us,' lover boy goes to kiss me and the heating man appears, 'I've got a slight problem. What it is, is this. The valve on the ..'

CLEAN SHOES
Workers come in with muddy shoes. Drill holes and leave dust and walk dust in and out. (Some boyfriends and husbands likewise.)

If you challenge them they say they aren't allowed to take their shoes off, because of health and safety regulations, must keep their dainty little toes covered. (Funny, everybody in Singapore can take their shoes off when enterting the house. Admittedly workers all slop about in flip-flops because of the tropical heat, no laces to undo.)

Well, how about plastic overshoes for indoors? Permanent or disposable.

Some temples and mosques in the Far East have overshoes. People with false feet can't remove their footwear. And you don't want to catch verruccas from other people's feet.

If they had to keep on removing the overshoes they'd do less running in and out.

STAYING PUT
Why does a worker have to keep walking in and out of the house to his van? Letting all the cold air into the house. Is he nipping out for a fag? A drink? Lunch? Having sex with a friend in the van?

Making phone calls on the time he's charging me for? I don't mind him getting a phone call or two if he answers calls from me on another person's job.
Why can't he bring all his tools inside in one tool box?

He's marching mud in and out of my hall. Okay, so I wash out one pale-coloured runner at the end of the job, the one which can be machine washed. I lug it backwards and forwards, watch the time. He's taking up my time too.

And hoover the other runners.

And fold back the carpet in the kitchen so he can get to the boiler.

And fail to go to the coffee morning at the neighbours at which I would meet everybody from the whole street.

But I need my central heating.
Although it's summer, I dry out bathroom towels on the radiator. Never realised before.

I could shut down the whole heating system in summer if I had a towel rail on an instant heater. But instant heaters, little fan heaters which you trip over, and ones on the wall which are not on a timer need constant attention. Remember to switch them on when you get up. Then they get switched on and left on accidentally overnight and during the holidays are expensive. That's why you have one big system on a timer.

Bleeding Radiators
But then you need to bleed the radiators. My gardener takes all his radiators off and empties them out on the lawn. I asked, 'How do you prevent the raditors leaking all over your carpets?'
He said, you have to plug up the holes with corks.

We can do it ourselves. You can hear the air in the radiators. Let it out of the top of the radiator with the key.

If We Do Two Jobs It's Cheaper
Cheaper for the first job. Dearer for the second? Certainly dearer to have two jobs done.
The thermostat has gone on the heating boiler has gone. (Do they break something every time?)
However, I can alter the temperature on the main boiler, down from two and a half to two.

If the thermostat is done with another bigger job, it will be half the price, only £50 instead of £90. Ah, the roof man made the same offer. If we do this little job with a bigger one ...

At least I am now organized. I have the heating man's card. It has only a phone number. I have written the address and his surname on the back. Now if I forget I can hunt for them in the local phone book or the Internet. I won't forget. I put the card on the nocticeboard. I have the number in my address book four times, under heating engineeer, his company name, his first name and his surname.

Workers' Phone Numbers
Where's that worker? It must be cheaper to bring a man over from Nepal and employ him for a year. He can sleep in the garden summerhouse. Ah, that has a leaking roof. The man of the moment promised to do that. Where's that worker?