bein on call....

[R12rules]

THE NERVE OF SOME PEOPLE!!!

Ok .... I accept the fact I rotated into duty for this weekend.
The boss opted out once I started.

Ok ... so here I am .. being a good little service man and sticking by the radio, not going fishing like was planned ... not running all over creation ... just hangin out. READY.


mid afternoon I get this call from maintenance at one of our accounts.
So I head on up to Austin, find the place, check it out.

The tenants had simply NOT turned the t-stat low enough.

Oh I admit ... the sucker is probably all clogged up with animal hair. The apt looked like it hadnt seen a vacume cleaner since before Y2K was a threat!

But the system was running and doing all it could do ... just like it had been this MORNING!!!
And YESTERDAY!!!


As well as all of last week!!!


And yet they wait to tell maintenance until a weekend and they expect the service contractor to wave some kind of magic want and all of a sudden it's gonna be perfect!


It's a real good thing I am not a vengeful person.


Cause I coulda stayed there and fixed the problem.


Oh yes .... I could have made it all better and increased the performance ... oh yes!!!



I could have moved in and taken that sucker all apart!!!


Right there in their living room/ hall/ kitchen area!
Right next to where they were sprawled watching their afternoon movie.


And when I brought in that new SIXTEEN GALLON SHOP VAC I bought ... (to replace the "chicken soup" model which was stolen) ... they would have been begging for mercy!!!


But I refrained from doing anything disruptive to their afternoon!
I held my calm. I remained patient.

I checked er out, made sure it would run until Monday and left with a promise to return.




It takes just under an hour to fiddle thru traffic going into Austin.

So I'm heading home ...thinking I made it thru the worste of Saturday.
Unscathed.




I arrive right back where I started from, home ... Lockhart ... and then the radio goes off.

It reads "unidentified number". So I think it's another friend of the boss's who calls my radio thinking he still has it.



No biggee.




a minute later. .. the boss, (the other boss) in calling.


he tells me the maintenance guy at that same account just called and says there is another unit down .... SAME APT COMPLEX ..... AUGH!!!


By now it's SIX O'CLOCK!!!


My blood pressure soared!!! But I said I would call and go.


The boss said to tell the tenant we'd be there in the morning. When he said this, I was relieved, slightly.

I call and explain that ... and she comes practically unglued!


SHE WANTS TO SPEAK WITH MY BOSS!!!



What I want to know is why couldnt maintenance call me WHILE I WAS THERE STILL!!!???

And why did this tenant wait until supper time to call maintenance?


Didnt she think the later it got, the lessor her chances were of maintenance finding someone to come out?


Worse case scenario, she will spend thirty five dollars on a night in a local motel.



Once I gave her the office number, I never heard back from the boss.



When I see maintenance next week ... I wanna have a word with Phillip.
I think I need to give him my cell number and discuss a few things.



like checking where the t-stat is set at BEFORE calling us on the weekend!

[gruvn]

How long were you in the apartment ?

[PaysonHVAC]

You know, I've been in the industry just under 10 years.

What I would like to know is WHEN did having a broken Air Conditioner become such a deal to people that they no longer can wait until at least the next day?

I live in Phoenix. Actually, about 45 minutes WEST of Phoenix.

Most of our calls come in from Scottsdale which is EAST of Phoenix. So that could be an hour or more form home.

There lies the biggest babies in the world. One of their 4 units will be down, and they think you need to come out ASAP, and before anything else so they can use that SECTION of their home which has now started to cross the 80 degree mark! OH MY GAWD you would think you were puting them out when you tell them you can't come!



So when did it become so important that there always has to be A/C techs available 24 hrs 7 days a week???

The first place I worked for, inPayson. The boss had a phone line and a answering machine. After 5PM and before 8AM, they got a machine. And that was that!!! No pager. No answering srvice.

I sometimes miss them good ol' days. Mon thru Fri, 8 to 5!

[Workhorse]

I work for one of the largest companies of apartment housing in the country. They would not hire a maintenance team that could not do a/c work. Just today I got six of those calls and ended up taking care of all of them. I just tell the resident if it is something stupid, dirty filter, breaker, t-stat, they get a "stupidity charge" of $25 that goes into my pocket alng with the double time i get paid. Needless to say I made $75 cash today.

[R12rules]

the apt I went to, "the zoo" ... when I asked the lady of the house ... what exactly was the problem .. she looked at me like I was blind or something... she pointed down at the carpet ... the STAINED CARPET .... and said: "look there ... there's water leaking on the floor!"

I knew Phillip had just been there and cleared out the drain line.
I figured there would be some amount of water around the furnace.


I hped she didnt think she was calling someone just because there was dampness on her carpet?!


I mean .... if you saw the inside of that place ... you'd wonder why the leasing office allowed her to remain a tenant.


I tried to be diplomatic with her.

I really think she was on meds.
Psychotropic meds.

[gruvn]

OK, I understand the circumstances, but how long were you in the apartment ?

[Milk man]

"YOU need to come and fix my airconditioner". Got to love that. Now the HO is issuing orders. People have forgotten that AC is a luxuary.

[gruvn]

A\C , is not always a luxury it becomes a necessity when buildings are built that have a high internal gain, they are engineered to deal with that gain with cooling, it many cases A\C is essential tothe proper operation of a building. It is not a luxury, it is a necessity.

[Workhorse]

The real issue in this case is with the maintenance staff at that apartment complex. To call out a professional on an emergency weekend call without even looking at it is pure laziness and negleable. If he worked for my company he would be gone. He should have looked at it first and determined the problem, and from it sounds like it could have been something he could of taking care by himself in a matter of 30 minutes and then called out for complete PM during the week. It's good for your company as they pay for your service but I definitely would talk to his boss about it and maybe set up a complex wide a/c cleaning program.

[PaysonHVAC]

Originally posted by lynn rodenmayer
"YOU need to come and fix my airconditioner". Got to love that. Now the HO is issuing orders. People have forgotten that AC is a luxuary.

THAT is what I'm getting at!

When did people get to the point to where the expect there to be someone at their beck and call 24 hrs a day as soon as they need it?


The first summer I worked in Phoenix I was in shock over the amount of calls that came across the pager. It gets to where you spend so much time calling people back and spending 15 minutes talking to each one, that you can't actually get any work done!
The first week on call when I got hammered I was talking to some lady in Scottsdale (Snobsdale).
I said I was "booked up" for at least the night.

She actually said to me "All I want to hear from you, is what time should I expect you!"

I could not believe it. I again said I was "booked up".

She then actually says "Look. I have 5 units and 17 foot vaulted ceilings. My guest area A/C is broken. Do you know how HOT it is in there??!!!!!"

Again. That was my first tour of duty down here. So I eventually went to her house at about 11PM.

She was so busy doing something she wouldn't even show me around her MASNION where I could find anything.

I finally get to this Trane 2 stage A/C. Find the breaker tripped. And some tech had put a jumper wire in the control board attempting to make it work until a part came in.
Of course I didn't know this until i was there. So i reset the breaker and it was limping in cooling like the last tech left it.

The nerve of some people. I have learned to blow 90% of the people off who call my phone in the middle of the night. "I'm booked" even if they are the first person to call.

I don't think it is important enough for me to wake up and drive half awake to go fix some A/C that can wait until the next day!

Worse yet. The last co i worked for didn't page us calls after 10PM. This one is 24/7
And we also get American Home Shield Warranty calls.
Yeah right. Like I'm going out at 2AM to do a flat rate chump change call on a 40 yr old piece of shit!


THAT's what I think of most people calling after hours and the attitude that has come with it.

Has it ALWAYS been this way? Like 20, 30 yrs ago?
I don't think every home HAD an A/C here 20 yrs ago!

[ARPA]

Maybe I'm missing something here, and I'm not posting this to get into an arguement with anyone, but...

When I hire a tech, and all of my techs know that they are on call 24/7 when their rotation is up. 8 techs now, one week apiece, so that means from Monday thru Sunday, once every two months they are on call. They get $150.00 extra, cash, for this, plus overtime pay added to their paycheck.

The reason I have to have this service is I advertise it to my customer base, at an overtime rate, no price breaks for anything, PM plan or not. All of my commercial clients also request it of my company.
I tell my techs, you have to go on the call if they call, no arguing with them, it is their money, they know what it'll cost them, and if the customer wants to pay for this service, its their money.

Reason for the answer to this thread...so what if a customer calls at 6pm on a Saturday night, you accepted the employment, and where told the conditions of employment before hiring, I hope.

I do understand, it is a pain in the a** to wait around, not planning anything on your rotation, then get a call at 11pm on Sunday night, only to find out that the thermostat was off.......

[Milk man]

Originally posted by arpa
Maybe I'm missing something here, and I'm not posting this to get into an arguement with anyone, but...

When I hire a tech, and all of my techs know that they are on call 24/7 when their rotation is up. 8 techs now, one week apiece, so that means from Monday thru Sunday, once every two months they are on call. They get $150.00 extra, cash, for this, plus overtime pay added to their paycheck.

The reason I have to have this service is I advertise it to my customer base, at an overtime rate, no price breaks for anything, PM plan or not. All of my commercial clients also request it of my company.
I tell my techs, you have to go on the call if they call, no arguing with them, it is their money, they know what it'll cost them, and if the customer wants to pay for this service, its their money.

Reason for the answer to this thread...so what if a customer calls at 6pm on a Saturday night, you accepted the employment, and where told the conditions of employment before hiring, I hope.

I do understand, it is a pain in the a** to wait around, not planning anything on your rotation, then get a call at 11pm on Sunday night, only to find out that the thermostat was off.......

With only a few exceptions, there is no reason for a tech to be out past 10 PM. This leads to tired overworked tech that make costly mistakes. And that is a quote from a man I used to work for. He had his shop for 30 plus years and knew some thing about this industry.

All you are looking after is your dollars and to hell with the tech. Most service calls are due to neglect. Why should you make a guy drag his ass out of bed between 12 and 5 in the morning to repair someone's POS equipment that hasn't been service in five years.

[rob10]

Looking for a new job in a week or so!!

[ARPA]

With only a few exceptions, there is no reason for a tech to be out past 10 PM. This leads to tired overworked tech that make costly mistakes. And that is a quote from a man I used to work for. He had his shop for 30 plus years and knew some thing about this industry.

All you are looking after is your dollars and to hell with the tech. Most service calls are due to neglect. Why should you make a guy drag his ass out of bed between 12 and 5 in the morning to repair someone's POS equipment that hasn't been service in five years.

Lynn:

I should have been clearer: I do not work on or do any resi work. It is 100% commercial / industrial, therefor, if one of my customers call for service at anytime, it could be their computer / server room ac down, a hospital blood bank refer down, and one time a morgue refer down, so yes, my techs will haul themselves out at anytime, day or night, holiday or not to repair the problem. I am not looking for the dollars, just keeping my clients happy, and, I have my techs take the neccessary time off if they worked late, or had a call late into the night.

[Shophound]

I first began learning this trade because the central a/c in our house when I was a kid went through a period where it broke down each summer. Until the tech could arrive we'd break out every fan we had and borrow a few more, open the windows, and do little else. One time my dad endured it for two days and finally piled us into the car and checked us into a nearby motel.

Never at any time did they call up the tech and scream at him to drop everything he was doing and come wait on us hand and foot. He was a bit slow, admittedly, but being he was in his seventies, one could grant him a little leeway. He eventually put in a new condenser and a TXV on the evap and got it running so well and so much better than the builder model that kept taking a dump, those few miserable summers were soon forgotten by many more since that were quite comfortable.

But I can DEFINITELY relate to bogus apartment complex calls, since I used to do apartment maintenance! And it wasn't just for stupid stuff like the stat not being set low enough. How about the pager going off at two in the morning, calling into the answering service to learn of water dripping into a lower apartment from an upper one, driving fifteen miles to answer the call, only to find you can't get in because the leasing agent gave out the last key and there is no master, so you kick the door in and go find that the new tenant moving in had not bothered to tighten the washing machine hoses before turning on the water. So now you have a flooded apartment upstairs and down and a door with a busted lock and door jamb. All because someone was too lazy to grab a pair of channel locks and give that hose end a good twist!

Gotta love it!

[Milk man]

Originally posted by arpa
With only a few exceptions, there is no reason for a tech to be out past 10 PM. This leads to tired overworked tech that make costly mistakes. And that is a quote from a man I used to work for. He had his shop for 30 plus years and knew some thing about this industry.

All you are looking after is your dollars and to hell with the tech. Most service calls are due to neglect. Why should you make a guy drag his ass out of bed between 12 and 5 in the morning to repair someone's POS equipment that hasn't been service in five years.

Lynn:

I should have been clearer: I do not work on or do any resi work. It is 100% commercial / industrial, therefor, if one of my customers call for service at anytime, it could be their computer / server room ac down, a hospital blood bank refer down, and one time a morgue refer down, so yes, my techs will haul themselves out at anytime, day or night, holiday or not to repair the problem. I am not looking for the dollars, just keeping my clients happy, and, I have my techs take the neccessary time off if they worked late, or had a call late into the night.

Yep those are the exceptions. You are probbally a good person to work for. Our exceptions are the jail, nursing home, and hospital.

My last call at two in the morning was from a drunk that wanted me to fix his furnace in a trailer. I told him our terms and that I would be collecting on the spot. All the sudden it wasn't an emergency.

[Milk man]

Another favorite, the guy that calls and says I've been trying to fix this thing all day, can you come and help? It being 7:00 PM

[ARPA]

One of my worst, but most profitablest accounts is at a large steak house. If one of their refers go down, and they loose product, I buy the product. Needless to say, at antime they call, I meet the tech on these calls personally.

Always loved the calls, "its an emergency!" when I did do resi, no ac, hot in my house, and the breaker off, or some other stupid thing, and then having to beg and argue to get paid, at 11pm on a Sunday night. One of the many reasons I quit resi and went commercial.

[The Penguin]

its a real sore point being on call at a co that does both resid and comm

As far as I'm concerned personally anyone can call me out BUT you'd better be prepared to pay the bill no exceptions I do not care if I'm just flipping a breaker on or a stat or what ever. You call you pay thats it. If you want to argue then I will call the boss for you and you can argue with him on the phone and I will write up another bill for that time too. no question about it

[Milk man]

Originally posted by gruvn
A\C , is not always a luxury it becomes a necessity when buildings are built that have a high internal gain, they are engineered to deal with that gain with cooling, it many cases A\C is essential tothe proper operation of a building. It is not a luxury, it is a necessity.

Some truth to that, but for most of my "emergency" calls it turns out the people are week and don't want to deal with being uncomfortable for a few hours. Some even complain it's cooler outside, but refuse to open a window. Futhermore, as already stated, their emergency is cause by a lack of maintance to begin with. Now they want someone to jump through their ass to fix THEIR problem.