The mothers day post reminded me of one of my most hated calls… being engineering, we tend to be the catch all for any and all office problems.

A few years back, I got a call from a part-timer (who was one of our worst problem users) on boxing day at 4 am. 99% of what went wrong on his shifts were caused by him, but since he was all chummy with his boss, nothing was ever done… no matter how many times logs proved he was lying about what happened or that he was out of the building on his fifth smoke break of the hour while leaving the automated system in manual.

Them: There’s a leak in the ceiling.

Me: *looking at clock to see what time it is* How big of a leak?

Them: There’s a little dripping.

Me: So go in to the kitchen and put a pot under it.

Them: (+Bitch factor) I’m too busy for that.

Me: (knowing what his job entails, that the kitchen is 20′ from where he works, and the leak is another 30′) I’m not coming in at 4 in the morning on boxing day just to put a pot under a small leak.

Them: (++Bitch factor) Well I’m not dealing with it. You need to come in here and get the land lord to deal with it.

Me: If it’s a tiny leak, a pot will be fine until later and I’m certainly not waking up the landlord at 4 am.

Them: (+++Bitch factor) I’m not doing it – you’re on call. Deal with it. *click as the line goes dead*

So, he didn’t make it sound like the leak was big or anything, but since I was on call, it was my problem if he wouldn’t deal with it so I figured it was safest to take a look. Sure enough, the drip was small enough (couple tiny drips a minute) that a pot took care of it. I went back home, tried to sleep, and called the landlord at 10a. The pot didn’t even have an inch of water in it.

Needless to say, angry email to boss, who made sure he was reprimanded.

[Picture Source: cloneofsnake (CC)]