The Yuletide Log

Well Merry whatever you celebrate at this time of the year! It's been almost a year since I've even looked at this blog...now I figured I had wrote all I could on customer experiences, but low and behold I had myself a winner today. I pull up to this singlewide today, now we've had many days of rain in our area over the past 2 weeks, so EVERYTHING around this place was either mud or just standing water. I get to the house and this yappy Pomeranian was going nuts. Then I hear my customer yelling "be quite Cuddles!" You named this loud, rabid, shaking, lint ball Cuddles?! To each his own I guess...So I slop thought their yard to get to the phone box around back, only to be met by the smell of human waste with a hint of cow. I find that the problem is going inside the trailer. About that time the lady comes out the back door, I explain that the trouble is inside. I asked her once I disconnected the troubled wire to check her phones inside to see which ones were working. She came back and told me all of them except her bedroom phone and the one in the bathroom(yes people still to this day have a phone in their bathroom). After about 20 minutes of trying to test this line, I determined that I just needed to replace the wire all together. I grab the tools from my van to start this procedure, all the while tracking mud from her backdoor to the bathroom. Now after a few tries of going from underneath her trailer(as far as I would under that mud pit), back into the bathroom trying to work the glow rod thru, I came back into the trailer and find that the bathroom door is shut. I look at the misses and she says "He's in there, it is morning you know..." WTF do you mean he's in there? So you're telling me that your husband knows I'm working in that room and still proceeded to go in there to drop the Cosby kids off at the super bowl?! Now I'm not sure if it's just me, or does this sound a little rude/gross to anyone else? So as I wait outside for him to finish his morning constible, I hear water gushing from underneath the trailer. Low and behold I just figured out where that human waste smell was coming from, that pipe went to a cow field behind this country castle. So this sound was my cue letting me know the Mr. has finished his early morning exercises. As I opened the backdoor the wife was there spraying some kind of flowery Lysol product. 30 minutes later and almost passing out from holding my breath, the job was complete. I'm guessing the moral to this story is, purchase a cordless phone instead of making someone repair a phone in your latrine.

My Monday Is Better Than Yours

I see it's been almost a year since my last post (10 months), but then again, no one really reads this crap so what does it matter? Let's just say it's been an odd New Year so far...I've lost my grandfather earlier this month and gained a pig as the newest family member. But enough about me, the tale I bring to the table today is about a customer and her 2 Boxer mixed puppies. Now I had this customer on Saturday, and while I was walking back and forth around her house to fix her problem, I noticed a dead headless chicken sitting in her front yard. Not knowing that she was watching me out the window, I must of had some WTF face going on, when I hear "Yeah, that's a dead chicken!" So you already know that it's here, and yet no drive inside to remove it from your yard?! (I said this in my head, because once again I work in the mountains of Tennessee, and this seems to be a norm of some sorts) Well I get her fixed and go start my glorious one day weekend. I get into work today and have a safety meeting or as I call it, the old smoke up the ass procedure. After said meeting I look at my job list. Low and behold Ms. Dead Chicken in her yard is my first trouble...says a lot about my fixing skills! I try to call her and get no answer. When I finally get to her house, I walk to the box on the side of the house to check the trouble. Noticing that the dead chicken had been removed. I then go towards the side door that I used Saturday to knock. I'm greeted by the two Boxer mix puppies before I even get on the car port. I get the old barking and trying to become friendlier with my crotch than I'd like them to be. I shoo them away and when I get to the door, I see a grown man's tighty whiteys hanging out of the dog door.

These kind of things are starting to become more normal to me, but I will take a picture of it...cause that some funny shit right there! Ok back on subject, customer finally comes to the door and says something about the underwear, to which I replied "Not my job to ask you how you party here, but how can I fix it?" So we laughed it off and went inside. I asked her a few questions about her trouble she was reporting, then she says out of nowhere, "Yeah that's the chicken in here." I look around her 5'2" 190lb. roundish frame to see what, but that damn headless chicken sitting on her living room floor.

At this point, besides wanting to take a picture of it, cause who in the hell is gonna believe this without visual proof, I mustarded up the words huh and uhmmmm. I'm just going to say that if this happened at my house, my wife would be going into a mass hysteria while trying to bleach the whole house. And yet this women brings it up so nonchalantly, makes me think drugs or alcohol or both have to be involved. We finished up our pleasantries, I left my number (for phone repair purposes only, cause I'm to old to party like that) and went on my way with a slightly different outlook about my Monday.
Well hope everybody has/had a better Monday than me,
Marc

Been Some Time Since Last

Hello, how has everyone been? Good, not so bad myself. Now as I see, I haven't posted since Aug'13, and I don't know why. But I felt the need to vent, just a little...
 Had me a rich customer the other day. Now the only reason I tell this short tale is for the fact that rich people are like you and I, only they have the money to go have fun whenever they want, and really don't have to go to WalMart to buy stuff. Now I was in this rich persons house figuring out his wiring when I realized I needed to grab something from my van. I explained this to the customer and went to my vehicle. When I came back about 3 1/2 minutes later, no customer. So I went back to doing what I was doing. I then heard someone at the top of the basement steps. Now where I was you couldn't see the top of the steps. But I remembered seeing a dog laying at the top of them. Not thinking much about it until I heard one bubbly/moist/and a slightly pushed fart come from that direction. I'm glad someone is that confident in there arse muscles....but damn!!! I think I even heard the dog get up and move. Now my question here is, whether he knew I was back in the house or not, is this rich people etiquette? Do they really feel as those their shit doesn't stink? Cause I'm telling you, that thing sounded like his wife might have to use a little more effort on his drawers when she washes them! He came back downstairs about 10 minutes later, I didn't notice a funny walk nor a smell, and nothing was ever mentioned.
 The next thing I would like to bring up is older people again, with their obsession with animals. Now when you can smell the cat urine from outside, you know it's going to be one of those jobs. But little did I know, she'd have another surprise for me inside. Very nice old woman with a few cats (I counted 22). She came to the door in her nightie...but with little else on under. Hair was going up and about, and the things under her nightie were going more down with gravity. Now I know I've said it before, but something about cat urine on the carpet drives me nutty. Especially if it's where I might have to kneel down. Long story short, she shoved a phone cord into a jack then into the back of her router. But the part she plugged into the router was for out not in. So I was thankful that day for no cat piss on my knees, and the slight burlesque show from the black and white era lady...
Cheers,
Marc

Theme Of This Post: Weird Women Encounters

I bring to the table this post, two different older women that explained to me that they have cancer and need their phones working. Both puffing on a cigarette while telling me this, life choices is what I'm chalking that up too. Next was another older woman that came to the door and told me she "wasn't expecting me", to which I replied, "Did you call in a trouble report ma'am?" And she said "Yes." So I said "Can I come in, the trouble is inside?" "NO, I wasn't expecting you!" At this point I just slowly turned away and said "Have a nice day ma'am." What am I supposed to do? Are these life's small challenges that it throws at people from time to time? How can you even combat with something like that? It's like going to a flea market and expecting brand new designer products for rock bottom prices...lol. You get what I mean, I hope. But my final thought for this post is something that happened to me very early in this week. It is something I've heard before from other technicians, but never really encountered on my own. Now I have been doing my style job for about 17 years, meaning having to go to peoples houses. Which reminds me of a time I had to go to a single wide trailer early on the morning. Now I don't remember telling this story on here but if I did, just skim over it till I get back to my original story....ok? I knock on the door to let the customer know that I was going to be raising their drop wire up off the top of their trailer. It's nice to tell people this before they hear weird noises banging on their house. So like I said I knock on the front door and a young girl, early 20's opens the door in just her bra. Realizing it's me, she jumps behind the door and screams "Oh my God, I thought you were my Dad!" Uh wait, what weird twisted family are these peoples a part of? Ok, quick old story, but back to what I was talking about before, I arrive at the customers house about 8:30 am. It's a little farm about 20-30 acres I'd say. I park at the house and I'm greeted by a older gentleman in red coveralls and rubber boots that come to right below his knees. Now he's probably 4'10" and just a cool older fellow. He explains to me about the phone, and that the box I'm looking for is in his basement. So as I'm following him around towards the basement, we exchange pleasantries about the weather and how screw mowing all this damn grass. As we get close to the door I can hear a woman talking. He opens the door and I follow, to which he turns to the left, as do I. When I turn and look up, there is the woman talking on the phone that was reported not working but she is bent over facing me and the water balloons were just a dangling. She was butt a$$ naked. I immediately turned and walked about 25 feet outside the door and just stared at the cows. I know that my face had to be as red as his coveralls. I heard him say, "The phone mans here, put your clothes on." A few seconds later he told me to "Come on, she's gone." I later figured out that was where their shower was, but DAMN, I wasn't expecting full frontal nudity of a 80+ year old woman. It's supposed to be a young skinny vibrant late 20ish female, this isn't a fantasy AT ALL!!! I had to later come back after I fixed the problem and talk face to face with both of them. I tried to direct all eye contact with him. I don't think she knew what I saw, but he did, and it freaked me out. What do you think he would have done if I would have just stayed there and watched...lol, just kidding.
Well that's all I have,
Marc

It's Just a Basement...Right?

Well hello everyone, it's been over a month since my last post. I have been one busy bee at work since my coworker went out for surgery. But today is the first day in a while that I could sit down a reflect on all the wonderful people I have met in the past month. I've been keeping notes on weird people just so that I could come back later to explain here in my blog. I even have a new story for My Life as a Redneck Neighbor Blog, God I hate my neighbors!!! But enough about that, the little tale I'm going to tell you about actually happened yesterday. I had arrived at the house I had a trouble ticket on. A little old lady, maybe in her late 60's greets me at the door. Telling me that lightning had gotten her phone and her satellite. So I go to our box to check it out, and indeed lightning had tore the box up. I replaced all the guts inside and still didn't have any dial tone. I measure it to find that it had broke at the pole also. After I fix that I call her house with no answer. I go into the house check the phone and still nothing, but it was working at our box. Well with my above the average person intelligence level, I figured out something might be wrong between our box and this jack. Real genius I am...lol. So I come back inside to get a better look at the jack. Her couch was in the way and I told her I needed to move it out. She told me "It's heavy, that's why I don't clean behind there." Looking at the rest of her house, at this point that is, and say to myself SURE, that's the reason. So I slid it out to see that lightning had also gotten it. "Ok can I see your basement please", since the wire was coming from downstairs. She gets this look on her face like did he really just ask me that. Then goes into explaining to me that her brother is on vacation down in Florida and he hasn't been by to take out her trash. ??? Then she opens the basement door. Holy shit, look at all that trash! Must have been the look on my face, cause she automatically apologizes. I get downstairs to find pathways through bags of trash, and I mean TRASH. How long has this brother been on vacation, since February?! But not only trash because all we've seem to have for the last month is rain, we now have soaked trash. So I start doing some investigation to find she has a collection of spiders working overtime on web making. Of course my face was what removed most of them. As I'm spitting webs out of my mouth I keep hearing "sorry!" from the little old lady. She had mentioned something about it's just a basement, that's what you do with them. And ask me if I had a basement, I said I did. She then said is yours like this, and I replied, "No, we use ours as a room, to which she said "Oh, sorry." Ok so after numerous trip back and forth to the van I finally get it fixed, which lightning had hit that wire in 2 more places in the basement. Lightning doesn't always play nice. Go back upstairs now to meet the sister who also lives there. She made me feel like a a free sample of candy dangling in front of a Wal Mart electric cart riding diabetic. She just made me feel uncomfortable, especially since I had to bend over to replace the jack. So of course I hid my ass crack before I go towards the floor, I think I heard a damn come from underneath her breath. I am a catch, just sad that it's to old ass women...lol. Well I get everything done and push the couch back to it's original position and go to my vehicle. The first old lady comes out about 45 seconds later and said,"Sir you forgot to put the box back on the wall." Now she told me she isn't able to clean back there but she's able to go back there to inspect my work?! I grabbed some double sided tape and attached the jack to the wall, even though the dust balls back there were bigger than her head. I find that people are weird about things in their life, she cares not about huge dust bunnies behind her couch or the fact that she has a small garbage dump in her basement, but God forbid that jack isn't attached to the wall...
I'm going home to get into the pool,
Marc

Things That Make You Go Hmmmmmmmmm?!

   Today I bring something to the table that still puzzles me from time to time. I've been doing house visits for at least 10 years, and every now and again I come across this. I knocked on the customers door and a young woman came out to greet me. She told me she had to put her dog up that was in the yard that I needed to get into. Having brought out a collar with her she then took the dog around the backside of the house. About that time someone else came out of the house, I'm guessing to stay with me in case I needed anything. The problem here is that I'm not really sure what sex this person was. I even tried to strike up a conversation with it, but damn that didn't get me anywhere. So I have come to the conclusion, it was either a prepubescent boy, or a, what's the politically correct term...gay female trying to look like a prepubescent boy. And not that it really matters, but I would like to know what I'm talking too. Just in case I make an off colored joke, I want to know that I offended the wrong person. LOL just kidding, I'm in customer service, I would never intentionally offend anyone on purpose. This makes me think back to the time I had to call a customer before I was to arrive at their house. Now my Facebook friends already know this story but, here it goes anyways. Now it's our companies policy to call a customer that your working on before, during, and after. So I did as I was threatened to do and called this certain customer. Talked to them asked questions, blah blah blah, ended with "thank you ma'am, I will see you in a few minutes. Bye bye." To get there and find that the customer was an older man living alone. And I don't think he liked the ma'am comment, from his facial expression the whole time I was there.
   Here is another little tid bit of info on me, not that any of you care, but I'm gonna tell you anyways. My user name on here is crsh3x, I've used this name for years I guess since I was about 26 years old. Wow 15 years, damn I'm getting old. But where this name came from was when I worked at Bell Atlantic in Maryland I had 3 different accidents in my work van within a year and a half, which led to my early retirement from said company. So my user name is meant as crash 3 times, which equals unemployment. Ha ha ha, everything happens for a reason.
Ok, that's it for a Saturday,
Marc

Well Look At That Almost 2000

   First I would like to take the time and thank the 12 of you out there reading my blog. As it gets closer to 2000 views, I never thought anyone would even read it once let alone 2000 times. So once again thanks.

   Yesterday I had a customer that I've had before, but it has been some time since I had been there. I did remember he was from Jersey or somewhere in close proximity, just because of the way he talked. I get there and he greets me at his screen door. He is about 4' 8", no shirt on and has this weird golden brown old person tan....uuuuhhhhhmmmmm ok. Reminded me of what the Pillsbury Doughboy would look like right out of the oven. Now I know you should feel comfortable in your own home, but damn, between his little dog nipping at my ankles and his golden brown butterball gut, I felt uncomfortable. I was looking for a pop-up timer on his well baked ass. In the end I did get through all the "you know what I'm saying?" references and not kicking the dog once...on purpose that is.
   Had another customer who owned a child a few weeks back. Now the kids are and have been out of school since May 20th here. Yeah for us, damn road obstacles! But back to the story, well since the child is out of school what better way to keep him out of your hair then to tell him go see if the repair guy needs any help. And darn if that kid didn't stick to me like a dog's tongue on his own...(you get the point). I had to run a new wire along the outside of their home. Of course 80% of the house I had to get to had 4' high bushes in front of it. Not so bad if it hadn't rained the night before. Needless to say I knocked most of the water off the leaves, with my face, UGH!!! Then I get to the porch where this child's toes are in flip flops 3" from my head.  The kid never said anything, just watched me like a hawk watches a field mouse. Gave me an odd feeling, but I then remembered, it's not the kids fault he's dumb, it's his parents fault for being such close DNA matches. It got to the point where I had to ask him to move so that I could get my wire through yet another very wet bush. I felt like getting the kid to hold my wire then shoving him into the bush. But that wouldn't be very customer oriented, now would it?
   On a side note, you know what's fun to do? Ask a customer if you may use their restroom, and imply that it's so you can do a #2. Tried it twice in my 17 years as a repirman, didn't work either time. Damn I would've built a nest, not like I want my butt touching where your butt touches...lol.
Have a great day,
Marc

Oh The Jobs I've Done

Well its' been over a month since I've last posted, but in my defense I've been busy with the honey to do list and people visiting us....sooooo. Not too many fruitcakes as of late at my job, so there is another reason for my lack of posting. I did have a lady come to my van window when I pulled into their driveway and speak AT me, with what I figured was here outside voice. And only like 6 inches from my face, nothing like a women shouting at you that close. I think I could feel facial hair moving from here breath winds...not pleasant! But since I haven't had any overly fun customers lately, I figured I might write about some of my past jobs, and I have had a lot of past jobs! First job that I would like to talk about was not my very first job ever, but was early in my job getting career. It was a McJob as I like to call it. Now most of the time you could find me in the back walk-in eating pickles out of the 5 gallon bucket and slurping down OJ. And I would grab a few McNuggets to get the pickle breath off me. But the real kicker to this job was how I lost it, I was fired for sexual harassment. I, being the kind hearted person that I have always been, felt the need to make a not so pretty girl feel good about herself. How, you might ask could I, a simple little fellow do something like this? Simply by grabbing her butt, this I thought at the time might just give her the self confidence she needs in this hard reality we live in. But instead of the self boost I was hoping for, just got me let go. One good thing is that I learned a valuable life lesson from this experience, never eat that many pickles in one sitting. Another job as a youth I had was at a wood pallet place, here they would refurbish pallets then resell them. No big deal, right?! I get there on my first day and I would say about 30 minutes into the shift I hear a siren and see some guy leaving with his hand all wrapped up. The boss then comes over to me and explains that I will be changing jobs due to an unfortunate event. Meaning the guy I just saw leave with his hand half ripped off was on this piece of machinery he wants me to now jump onto, needless to say I quit that job within 10 minutes of that news. Had a job at Taco Bell, but that was me sitting in the back walk-in eating yellow cheese and cinna-twist. I've had numerous jobs as a dishwasher/cook at some of the corporate places like Friday's, Red Lobster, Outback, etc...Good place to meet people and go find parties, but that's about it. Couldn't handle that lifestyle anymore, so glad I did it, but no more. Had a job at a bowling alley when I was in Southern California, I never knew how many Asians lived in this part of the world, nor did I know how much they like to bowl?! The part I liked about this job was when these Asians came to bowl, you couldn't get a pair of bowling shoes under the size 5, all taken. Little feeted people bowling, I'm sorry that's funny to me! Some other places I've worked, Uhaul, Sbarro's, Dominoes, MCI/ Verizon Business, I was a paperboy, Bell Atlantic, Bill Bateman's, Rainbow vacuums salesman, Hi Gear Auto, Papa Johns and a few more that at this point I can't remember. So there you have the life of a slacker before he walked into responsibility. Hey but it has made me the smart ass I've become today. And for that I'm thankful...
Hope everyone is enjoying this hot weather as much as I do working outside in it,
Marc

McDisgusting

Is there ever a polite way of telling someone they live in filth? From time to time I find myself going into places that is beyond livable. And yesterday I had one of those lovely experiences...I was met at the door by, wait, let us start with coming up to the house. I see the address numbers on a sign by the street and make the turn into the driveway. Here is where I first hear the lovely sounds of a small dog barking to greet me, but couldn't see him through the tall grass, always a plus to not run over customers pets in their driveways. I see this house that just looks run down with two of the windows boarded up. And on the corner of this house I once again see the house address on the side of this P.O.S. and start thinking AWESOME!!! But as I got further into the landscaping nightmare, I saw a car parked behind the shack. And low and behold a single wide was back there with it. Not much better but more put together then the 1st house. Now at this point I have finally got to see what was barking at me, a little male daschund that was as friendly as could be. And another white Toto looking dog that just kinda sat there and stared at me. I knocked on the door and out came a women that has, how do I say it, let herself go?! Wearing a t-shirt and I'm not too sure if anything else was under there, but a there was a very large t-shirt on her. From what I could tell the inside had about the same effort put into cleaning it as the outside did, with just a hint of Pine Sol in the air...ha ha just kidding, it smelled like old McDonald's and farts coming out of that place! There in the back ground I could see the silhouette of something behind her, not sure what it was, but it was large. I was explaining to her that I had installed her service and was wondering if she had hooked up her modem yet? She told me no and that her son said he could do it. At this point the person behind her came out of the shadows and appeared in the daylight. It was a young girl, maybe late teens early twenty's. I'm not going to comment on her for the fact I kinda feel sorry for her, seeing how she is living. I'm guessing  this was my customers daughter, or girlfriend to the son. I went and checked to make sure that everything was working as it should at the box and came back to tell her it was good to go. This is when I met the son, he too was over the 350 lbs. mark and wasn't wearing a shirt? WTF, I weigh a lot less than that and barley EVER take off my shirt in the house, how in the heck can this guy feel comfortable walking around outside???? It's really weird how one's nipples start to oval out after they become so large, only on males of course, no need pissing off the ladies. And besides they usually keep their shirts on. I did see the one women tell the little dog to stop trying to come in the house, which I think was a smarter choice for the dog then he realized. Now I know this seems like a rant about overweight people, but it's not, it's about people being lazy and not taking care of themselves, their pets, and their personal property. Damn you live there, take a little pride and clean up.
Sorry for the rant just venting, have a good day,
Marc