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Job Number Eight, Plumbers R Us

I was sad to leave the temp agency when they worked really hard to keep me working full-time, but when they gave me an assignment that was only a few hours per day, I just couldn’t stay. I needed the money of a full-time job, and to be honest, the whole business of being a temp was wearing on me. So I found a listing for an Administrative Assistant and I applied. I got the call and interview and was hired right away. It felt great to feel that acceptance.

My first day, I was thrown into answering phones and calling customers almost immediately. I heard my coworker go through the spiel and I just repeated exactly what she said. Our company installed water heaters for people who bought them at a hardware store chain. We were faxed the customer’s information and we contacted the customer to set up the installation. There were many problems with this set up.

First, the hardware store chain often made promises we couldn’t deliver, like promising a specific time delivery. Believe me when I say I know how difficult it is to wait around all day for a repairman. I know how much it sucks when they tell you, “Sometime between 8 and 4.” But I understand why they do it. It’s impossible to know how long each job will take, and even if we try to tell our plumbers to try to make a customer the first on the list, they don’t have to listen to us. Often, the plumber will make up their own schedule without our knowledge (usually what makes sense geographically. They have lives, too, and can’t go home until all their jobs are done), so we ever have a timeline for when they’ll get there. I wish there was a better system, but that’s how it worked when I had the job of answering customer’s phone calls asking me when they could inspect the plumber’s arrival.

So already, the customer is going to be irritated at being made to wait around all day. Then there’s the fact that people don’t generally buy a new water heater until after their old one stops working for whatever reason, so they also have no hot water. Sometimes their basements are flooded, too. We’ll just say they’re not “happy customers” when I talk to them. So when I ask them to go into their basement and read me the model and serial numbers from the old water heater, they’re not always compliant.

Problem is, a lot of people only think they know what kind of water heater they have. You’d be surprised how many people buy the wrong one. The wrong size, or even the wrong type (oil versus electric). It’s my job to try to confirm it before the installer gets there and realizes they bought the wrong new heater (which the installer has to pick up from the store for them). If there are any discrepancies, it only delays the installation, and that also makes the customer unhappy, because they will just have to wait around for another day.

So my entire mornings were spent listening to angry voicemails of calls left overnight (we weren’t a 24-hour business) and then confirming all the new orders that came in. We had a cut-off time of Noon. If the customer purchased the new water heater and the work order was faxed to us by Noon, we had to deliver and install the heater that day. We prayed the fax machine wouldn’t go off right before Noon. If it did, I had to find an installer with a light load and/or one that was in the area who could finish the order that day. I’m pretty sure the installers prayed their cell phones wouldn’t ring around Noon. If I had to call for another reason, when they picked up their phone (if they weren’t ignoring me, yes we had a few of those), I’d first say, “It’s not another job!” and then go on to the issue.

This job was the first time someone called me racist, and the funny thing was it was over the phone. How could I tell their race over the phone?



My boss was an interesting character. His father funded his business and worked part time in the office, spending most of the day yelling at his son. My boss’s mother also worked for the business part time. When I started working at the office, I was told I would start out working Monday through Friday and also Saturdays for a little while until I learned the job. After a couple months, I asked when I could start having Saturdays off. I think they would have kept me working 6 days a week if I hadn’t complained. We also didn’t get any breaks, including a lunch break. We usually ate lunch at our desks while answering phone calls in between bites of food. Eventually, the other girl and I (who were the busiest) decided to start taking 30 minutes for lunch, one at a time.

I still remember the day our boss walked in and asked me where the other girl was. I looked him straight in the eye and said, “She’s on her lunch break.”

I could tell he wasn’t happy, but he couldn’t say anything. By law, he was required to let us take breaks, and it was our own fault for not demanding them earlier. My boss liked to cut corners wherever he could. He had the installers work late hours, often six days per week, too. Knowing this, I still recommended my husband for the job of a plumber’s assistant. It paid better than his part-time retail job, and we’d get to see each other a little more often.

They really took advantage of him, though. He’s a really hard worker, and that’s the problem sometimes when you work hard – they see it and take advantage of it, which would be fine if they compensated for the hard work or treated you like a human being and realized you needed a day off every once in a while. More than one day off per week is generally customary for most jobs that are full time. It didn’t matter to my boss that most of his employees had families and wanted to spend time with them. He could only see the money of having his staff work more hours.

When our office moved, it was the staff that had to physically pack up and move everything. Thank goodness it was within the same building. We had to come in on a Saturday to move, and we weren’t paid for the day, either.

There were a few occasions, too, where employee paychecks bounced, which is just inexcusable. Honestly, I don’t know how my boss kept employees. My own job was fairly easy and comfortable, especially once I was down to 40 hours per week and getting regular breaks during my work day, but I don’t know how the plumbers and installers stayed as long as they did.


Eventually, I learned that this business wasn’t my boss’s first business, that in the past, his father had given him money to start a business, and he ultimately ran it into the ground. Soon I’d see that pattern about to happen again. It started with my boss buying a brand new pick-up truck, pretty much the biggest truck around. Within a week, he laid off several of the installers and assistants, including my husband. He assured the office staff that we were safe from losing our jobs, so my husband and I weren’t too worried that he got laid off.

I should have seen it coming, but I didn’t, because I tend to believe people are being honest with me. A few weeks later, I was called into my boss’s office, and I had no idea what to expect. Of course, he started the conversation with, “I guess you knew this was coming,” before he told me I was losing my job. I rebutted with, “Of course, I didn’t know this was coming! You told us the office staff was safe!” It didn’t matter, I lost my job and filed for unemployment for the very first time. Job number eight lasted about 9 months. I didn’t even get to earn any vacation time yet.