An Update on our Plumbing Problems

A quick update on our internet/cable/hot water dilemma.

When last I left you all, our shomer shabbos, Toronto-born plumber was banging on our very ancient hot water heater in an attempt to repair damage caused by the installer from Telecom B. We were forced by our condo building into making the switch from Telecom A (which, for the record, had NEVER damaged our hot water heater) to Telecom B and in the process of hooking us up, the Cutie Techie knocked something loose from our hot water heater that seems to have been a holdover from the Reagan era. My hero the Jewish plumber was able to provide us with a fix that cost us $350.00 (an emergency plumbing call is not cheap) which I seriously considered billing to either our condo board or to Telecom B. I was talked out of that maneuver by my dad, who as a member of the condo board, (insert Seinfeld reference here) assured me that I might as well cover myself in honey and throw myself into the bear exhibit at the zoo.

All seemed to be functioning fine until this morning when I noticed that the hot water coming out of the tap in the kitchen was rather tepid. The Husband, always one to leap in and solve my problems, told me to just let the water run longer. Thanks, dearest. I'll remember you to the bears. The final straw came when my morning shower was about the temperature of warm saliva. The Husband went to check on the water heater and sure enough, it was stone cold. The circuit breakers had been tripped, so he reset them and while the water heater started up again, it was only temporary. He opened the unit up to discover that all of the insulation that covered the wiring was drenched like a toddler's diaper. While The Husband is a trained electrical engineer, this fix was beyond his abilities. Another call to our Hero Jewish Plumber was in order.

After a three-minute conversation, Jewish Plumber tells us not to throw good money after bad on a dying appliance. He knows exactly the unit we require and if it is in stock, he can have it installed tomorrow morning for the bargain basement, post-Chanukah special price of...wait for it...$1800.00!A few calls later and we are now eagerly awaiting his arrival tomorrow morning. (As an aside, I should say that this kind of service amongst tradespeople down here in South Florida is highly unusual. It was more likely that I actually would have followed through with the honey/bear thing than get a plumber and a new water heater here on twenty-four hours notice. On that count, we are very fortunate and I am seriously considering submitting this man's name for canonization.) The only real good news to come from all of this is that we caught the leak right away and there was no other damage done.

So....by the time this whole mess is finished, we will have spent $2150.00 in order to have our cable company switched over to Telecom B. I figure that the yearly savings from this switch will amount to about fifty bucks a year on our cable bill, but it will take about 43 years before we recoup our investment from the installation.

Explain to me again why this was a good idea!

Internet or Hot Water? Which would you choose?

If you had the option, would you trade a questionably cheaper and marginally better internet/cable TV service straight up for functioning hot water in your home?

I ask because it seems as if that is the Hobson's Choice we have been faced with all day today. 

This ridiculous situation, that we are STILL experiencing even as I type this, has its roots beginning last March when a few very angry unit owners in our Southern Home were wholly dissatisfied with the telecom provider in our building. Using some anecdotal evidence and a few miserable encounters with Telecom A as the basis for their arguments, these angry Floridians and Snowbirds managed to convince the condo board to investigate switching to Telecom B. After some wheeling and constructive horse trading, the deal was struck to move the entire condo building over to Telecom B. Needless to say that when a few dollars are at stake and the opportunity to stick it to an unattentive and nasty Telecom A is in the offing, a certain demographic of condo owners/board members jumped at the opportunity to endorse the switch.

Of course, not everybody in the building was attentive or even aware of the impending change. Despite countless emails, phone blasts, flyers, and in-person communication, there were and still are many in this building who have not signed up with Telecom B, even though the full impact of the switch-over will be felt in the early days of January. In other words, if you haven't booked your appointment with Telecom B by now, the chances are you may be relying on a dial-up internet and analog television in 2018. I wonder how many of us still have to physically pull our ample asses out of a chair in order to change the channels? And without internet, one can't even Google those statistics.

I was hard-pressed to find ANYBODY in this building who could explain what the shift from A to B would mean to me the consumer. 

"What channels would we be receiving?" 

"The channels will be great", I was promised." 

"Are there channels that will be disappearing?"

"The channels will be great", I was promised.

"Will our internet speed be better?"

"The internet will be great", I was promised.

"Will we still be able to access On-Demand?"

"The channels will be great", I was promised.

"But....you will be saving a lot of money."

"How much?" I asked.

"So much", I was promised.

Needless to say, The Husband and I were extremely skeptical mostly because we have dealt with too many telecoms both at home in Canada and here in Trumplandia before, and they are all equally horrible. So, we both have an "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" mentality when it comes to those magicians who deign to keep us internet-enabled.

After a balagan of a sign-up process that saw dozens of seniors convinced that stormtroopers were coming in to confiscate their televisions and led many to believe that they weren't going to be equipped with HD television and would be returning to the three channel universe of the 1980s, we were given this morning between 8:30am-12:30pm as our designated change-over time. Telecom B's technicians swarmed the building today in a vain attempt to prove that they are indeed better than their heated rivals over at Telecom A.

Our cute-assed techie did indeed arrive within the allotted time and he did indeed seem to know exactly what was necessary in order to complete our transmutation. And then....the fun began.

Our wiring is accessed via a box just above our very ancient, but still serviceable hot water heater. In order to get our internet/cable functioning, Cutie Techie needed to work in that box. All of a sudden, The Husband and I heard a squeal coming from Cutie Techie's general vicinity. 

"Umm....I think you have a leak", he said.

 The Husband ran into the room to help and indeed noticed that through the course of his work, Cutie Techie had gently elbowed a corroded pipe off of the hot water heater and it was now spewing water into the laundry room. No damage done, but no hot water for us. 

Two hours later, we now have a new cable/internet service that seems to be faster and cheaper than what Telecom A was previously providing. Yay us! Except that now we don't have any hot water.

We placed an emergency plumbing call to our service contract repair company, who is almost as decent and reliable a company as Telecom A, which has now been jettisoned. Service Contract employee shows up, looks at the job, tells us that he can't fix the problem, suggests we replace our ancient hot water heater, and tells us that he can't guarantee it will be in before Christmas. The Husband is having none of that and promptly starts to scout out plumbers. Six calls and six hours later, a very skinny (no plumber butt required) and very Jewish plumber (he doesn't work on Shabbes) arrives at our door, looks at the problem, can't guarantee the fix will work, and says that it will cost $350.00.

So, our financial savings that were coming from the switch to Telecom B have now all been eaten up for the next three years by a plumbing problem caused by them and the fix from an emergency plumbing call that may or may not work or last for very long.

IF IT AIN'T BROKE, DON'T FIX IT!

A really wise motto to live by.

First-World Problems

If one more well-meaning soul lectures me about first-world problems and why they are wholly unimportant, I just might have to stick a stiletto through their iris. I get that in the grand scheme of the world's issues, my battle for Internet and cable is trivial. In no way am I comparing my frustrations to those of the child escaping war-torn Syria nor am I comparing it to the misery of the pregnant young panhandler who sits on a corner down the street. I fully understand that I am blessed and I count those blessings every single day. I NEVER forget what I have and how it came to be and I refuse to be lectured to by loving hearts online who have no idea how I go about my daily routine.

You see...while they might seem trivial to some, "first-world problems" are real issues because we happen to live in the first world. These are the everyday aggravations that punctuate our day. It could be that traffic jam that made you late for a crucial job interview or perhaps it was the self-checkout machines at the grocery store that double charged you for the cherries. What may sound petty to me is mostly likely not petty to you. Maybe that job interview was your first in a month of unemployment or maybe that double charge means no protein for dinner. So, when I post of my aggravations on social media about the fact that we have now been without Internet and cable service for more than three weeks, with no end in sight, I am offering up a public primal scream to relieve the frustrations. I have tried to infuse humour into the situation because, frankly, laughter is a tonic and the absurdity of this situation cries out for it. But, no! I do NOT choose to be aggravated and sometimes we are not the source of our own unhappiness. Sometimes, and this is absolutely one of those cases, other people are the source of my aggravation. In this case, it is the dozens (and I am not exaggerating here) of service people, technicians, call centre employees, managers and the like at THREE separate providers that have caused my aggravation. We have had people hang up on us; been told that the job has been rendered complete; stiffed on appointments after wasting SIX separate days staying home waiting; told that there would be no problem in hooking us up and then told they don't service our building even though half of the units here use that provider; been promised phone calls that never came more than a dozen times; and that is just the short list. So tell me again how I am the source of my own aggravation?

If you think that the lack of Internet access is a first-world problem, I hear you. It is also crucial to how we work and make our livings. Imagine for a moment that you rely on electricity to make your business viable. Certainly, you could operate for a few days without it, but three weeks? My guess is that when it started costing you time and money, that little "first-world problem" might not seem so trivial. How's that aggravation level now?

This battle for Internet/cable/phone service has both The Husband and me at the end of our tether. We have probably exceeded our data plans on our phones attempting to solve this problem. It is yet another hard cost that we will never recover. God bless my man as he has taken on this odious task and has spent far too many hours raging against the conglomerates, hours that he should have been working. Is he really the source of his own aggravation? 

I have refrained from cursing in this post because I can no longer come up with vile enough or descriptive enough words to adequately express how I feel. The comedy of errors, in this case, has turned into something uglier and while I am trying to keep up my sense of humour, I do draw the line at online rebukes and lectures. Unless you are sitting where I'm sitting, keep your judgements to yourselves. That said, honest help on any level would be gratefully appreciated.

I apologize publicly if I have offended anybody with my rant. I get it that people would rather hear or read the hearts and flowers stories of life online in their social media feeds. If I have disappointed you all by turning negative for a bit, the unfriend or unfollow button is at your disposal. I'm a big girl. I'll get over the disappointment. But I refuse to pretend that everyday problems aren't relevant problems simply because they don't fit someone else's definition of importance.

For now, I'm still waiting and hoping that somebody somewhere can get us out of the last century and turn on 2016 for us again. We kind of miss it.