ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade General Discussion Area Had a couple of humorous phone calls.....

From my days as a maintenance tech.:

Knock on the door: "Howdy, ma'am, what seems to be the problem?"
"My heat ain't working!"
It sure seemed cold in there, so I head on over to the furnace. The fan is up and running, so I know I've got power. What usually happens is one of the two 5kW heating coils would fail, and the tenant would never notice the difference. Then when the second one failed years later, suddenly there's a no-heat situation.

I open up the control panel and see if I have voltage across the heating coils. 241 V., check. That tells me my control circuits are up and running. I trip the breaker and ring out the coils, they both read a couple of ohms. Tells me my coils are good.

So, why in the world is it so cold in this house? I go and I look at the thermostat (I should have started there...) and find it set on 59 degrees.

"Ma'am. The reason it's so cold in here is that you have your thermostat set on 59."
She looks me dead in the eye: "So?!?"
Me: "...Uh, well, if you want it to be warmer than 59 degrees you have turn the thermostat up."
Tenant: "I shouldn't have to do that!(that part killed me)If I turn it up my light bill goes up to!"
Me: "Yes, ma'am, that's because this is an electric furnace..."
Tenant: "That's because this furnace is cheap! Ya'll can't give us nothing that works right."

Apparently the expensive furnaces actually produce heat without using power. Who knew one of the selling features was defying the laws of physics...?

-John

I received a call from a woman who wanted to have recessed lights installed, before she painted, which was a good idea. I told her that there would probably be access holes. She told me that she knew that from a call she made to another EC. She said that the other EC would have the ceiling ready for paint when he was finished. She asked me if I would patch the access holes like the other EC, I told her no. She then said " but I'm a single parent". Whatever that means, I told her to call the other EC back.

I received another call that went like this:
Customer: 'lectrica
Me: yes
Customer: you come now?
Me: come now? I don't know who you are
Customer: you come now?
Me: what is your name and address?
Customer: agghhh!! and he hung up

I spent a couple of years working in a theatrical rental shop. We rented lighting, staging, special effects, cable, power distro, scenic draperies, etc.

I used to get calls, generally on Friday afternoon at about 4:30, asking "you went pawtee liite?" Excuse me? "you went pawtee liite?" Could you repeat that slowly? (finally figured out that they were asking "do you rent party light?")..

The answer is Yes, we do rent lights, that can be used for parties.. what are you trying to accomplish? how big a space? what sort of lghting do you want? what is your budget? when do you need the equipment?

I told them to come to the shop, we close at 5:30, so get here by 5, and bring somebody who speaks at least some english..

(not to bash non-english speakers.. I've dealt with theatre techs from Taiwan who spoke no english, with the aid of a student translator, and pretty much all I had to do was point at a few places on the sound patchbay before the guy gave me a double thumbs up, and started plugging in cables..)


It seemed like at 5:15 on friday was when everybody would show up to rent lights for the big party that weekend, and we'd have to spend 45 minutes getting their order pulled, and loaded out the door.. This was always the folks who had no clue what they wanted..

Then there was the regular customer who would call up at 4, saying that his client just called and wanted lighting for his event, and could we set him up with his usual package, and that he's be there close to 5:30.. (this wasn't so bad, since his package was quick to pull, and used equipment that wasn't used very often, so chances were that it was in the same state that it was in when he returned it last time..)

Just got a call from a GC I've worked with many times asking if I was registered in Will County. "Not sure if it has lapsed or not" I told him. "Why, what do you have in mind?"
"It's just to get a permit released in my neighborhood," he tells me. "Then when we're ready in about four weeks if your available you can do the work, or if we change contractors we'll file the necessary paperwork."
Well Will County requires a letter of intent from the contractor. "Is that something I can just type up with your letterhead and run it down there?"
"do you intend to have me do the work?"
"hang on, let me get right back with you."

He knew to get off the radio at that point, because my next statement was going to be, regardless of his "yes" or "no", "Quite honestly, not having seen a print or given you a price, I don't really intend to do the work, so to put that on paper and submit it would be a lie." But like I said, he knew where this was going.

"WHAT DID YOU DO?"

It was a customer that was having some pretty major problems.

I had just gotten back to the office after a job walk at a (totally unrelated) building right next door to him.
I had short cut through his parking lot about an hour earlier, and he saw the truck.

When he started having problems, he was sure I'd been doing something that must have caused it

I drove back the 20 or so miles and fixed him up.

Seems that electrical systems and film projectors have the same sense of humor.

I have had a few calls where, in a multiplex theater, I would repair one machine and hours or a few days later another machine would have a totally unrelated breakdown!!

Oh, and film projectors have a rule: they'll never break down when the theatre is not full!! They wait until it's a packed house, usually on a Friday or Saturday night.

Logical I guess since the machine's entire existance is spent looking out that glass port....

edited for spellins...

[This message has been edited by mxslick (edited 04-19-2006).]

That is like doing maintenece work. I use to work for restaraunts, schools, churchs, etc. When something goes down, they want you NOW!!!, not later but NOW!!! I was out on Sunday's at 4:00 pm becuase to roof exhaust fan for a large rest. went down. (This was years ago and supply houses wern't open on Sun. I was out at 4:00 PM on New Years eve. because a rest. went down. (Found out there was a large power outage. The POCO lost several towns to a black out. The Rest. owner said that he was haveing a big party and was there anything I could do. I said YEAH, PRAY that the power comes back on!

Well, the thermostat was working......

That kind of reminds me of the one from years ago where somebody thought that he could save money by wiring a 3kW heater onto a 5-amp (240V) lighting circuit.

"If it's only got 5 amps it's going to be cheaper, right?"

I guess he may have had a point at that. After the fuse blew he'd have been saving money by having neither heat nor lights!

Harold's post above reminds me of a tech support call I recently heard about. . .

Customer: My computer shut down and won't come back on.

TS: Can you look to be sure it didn't become unplugged accidently?

Cust: No.

TS: Why not?

Cust: Becuase it's dark.

TS: Can you turn on a light?

Cust: No.

TS: Why not?

Cust: Becuase the power is out, and the whole neighborhood is dark.