Wherin we find out who we can rely on

What ever happened to service and reliability?

Background: This past weekend I was afforded the opportunity to head on up to camp to do some trout fishing with my friend Jefe' and his 2 sons. Our women and daughters stayed at home scrapbooking...you could say the testosterone was up north and the estrogen was at home. It was truly a mutually beneficial arrangement. Saturday morning, at camp, my cell phone rang...it was my bride:

Her: U-mm, We don't have any hot water...

Me: Did you check the hot water heater?

Her:I dunno how to do that...

So I, in all my benevolence, agree to walk her through the process...

Me: Go to the utility room to check and we'll check the pilot light...

Her: O.K. .... (a bunch of idle banter on scrapbooking ensues as she make her way to the utility room and I hear her opening the door) .... Oh my!

Me: What!?!

Her: Theres water all over the floor under the water heater!

This, of course, means the hot water heater is toast and immediately I am thinking, Great! There goes my weekend...

Me: Well, we had better turn the water of to it...it's the valve just above the top of the tank...turn it clockwise to close it...

Her: I can't...it's stuck...

Me: Try to get a hold of one of the neighbors

Her:O.K....and don't you worry too much about this...you stay up north...I can handle this

Me: (Thinking to self) Yeah...right....

After making several phone calls to the various neighbors, all of who appeared to be outta town or away...I mean after all it is a Holiday weekend... she finally gets a hold of a friend of ours who is a builder/remodeler. He comes over and shuts the valve. My dear wife proceeds to make several phone call to various plumbers in an vain attempt to get the problem repaired.

See, now heres where my initial question comes into play...What ever happened to service and reliability? It seems that no-one offered emergency service on the weekend or, as in this case, a holiday weekend. What's up with that? They have an answering service 24/7 and all, with the exception of 1 vendor said they could not, would not, be able to help us till Tuesday...the day after Memorial day. WTF?? The one vendor, who was in another town, who would consent to repairing, wanted a $250.00 emergency service call fee up front on top of the cost of parts, labor, mileage etc. etc. They coulda just as well told me to bend over and grab my ankles. Not wanting to go without hot water for 3+ days what was one to do??

So, were just about to bite the bullet and make the call when builder friend "R" rings up...turns out he just happens to be doing nothing in particular that day and he also just happened to have an extra Rinnai tankless water heater available...he had purchased a few of them, installed one in his house, and in some home remodels he had done, and still had this one available and he offered it to us along with his services to install it. You may not always be able to rely on your local plumbing service, but you can rely on friends and neighbors! 6 hours or so later, the new tankless water heater is installed and now we have endless hot water!

But really, what happened to service and reliability? There used to be a day and age when you could count on that. Not so much anymore. All of the people the wife did get a-hold of seemed to have a too-bad, so-sad....why, shame on you for having a malfunctioning water heater on a holiday weekend....we can help you but not today so deal with it attitude. Pathetic. There used to be a sense of pride that a company would have being available 24/7...not so much today. It's sad.

Thankfully we do have good neighbors and friends and now we have endless hot water to boot! A benefit that we are already realizing from this is our teen-aged daughter can't gripe at one-another about there being no hot water! HA! Peace and Harmony...well, til they got some other petty thing to bicker about any-way.