Jobs you hate doing.

[John Blade]

i haaaaate changing or unclogging SANIFLOS, lol

 

[Mike Jackson]

Changing taps.

Having just been made redundant I'm not going to turn anything down for the minute to get me name back out there.

This morning I went to change a monoblock kitchen sink mixer. Things didn't get off to a good start when I couldn't find my set of box spanners (not used them for 5 years) so I knew I was going to struggle a bit. Get to the job to find that the guy that had installed the tap had done a lovely job of soldering the copper tails into a fitting. The tails came down nice and close to each other and there was no play on the pipes to get a slice on the old tails so I had to cut the hot on the horizontal to give me enough play to get the old tap off. All this was done with a bucket underneath as the stoptap would turn off fully and the one in the road was full of crud. This ten minute job took me over an hour but at least the customer was happy and I've left her with a few business cards.

I should have learnt my lesson and given it up for today but my cold basin tap has been dripping for an age now and the seat is knackered so it needed replacing. To be honest we're not on a meter and I was happy to let it drip but SWMBO reckons the noise of the drip keeps her awake at night so I went and picked up a new pair of taps.

I couldn't shift the tap connector nut but I managed to spin the cold tap and it came free. Unfortunately it was the ballofix tap connector coming apart rather than the tap coming away from the connector. Typically the back nut was brass so I couldn't snap it and pull the remnants of the tap conn out through the hole in the basin. Instead I had to hacksaw the tap off above the basin. I then cut the pipe back and fitted a ballofix valve lower down.

The connector on the hot didn't want to shift either but I managed to spin that one out and leave the tap conn in one piece. The nut on the tap conn was completely seized so I cut this one back and fitted another ballofix.

I sweated up a couple of tap conns outside and came in and fitted them to the new taps. The fibre washer on the hot side wouldn't seal and after half a dozen attempts I ended up stickers two washers in. I remembered then why I used to keep a stock of poly tap conn washers.

Fortunately the cold side went back together with no leaks but in all it took me nearly 3 hours to change a pair of flipping basin taps.

Boilers are so much easier to fit than taps.

 

[SimonJohns]

For me it's anything with water

Love doing gas

 

[Resolute]

I hate any job that goes wrong!

 

[LegionellaSlave]

i find when you get a run of jobs going fine, more or less to plan, few fun challenges to overcome, pleasant customers who are very pleased, decent pay, you get in your van and think 'this is a good job really. i'm my own boss, doing a sociable job, making decent money, being of service...'

then when you've had a panic, or a serious of frustrations, a spirit-wilting set-back, an annoying customer, feel you've let somone down or let your standards slip, when you end up wasting your time, being called back to the same job several times, then suddenly it's a stressful, unforgiving, combative and often lonely job.

my over-riding opnion of this job - in the relatively brief amout of time i've been doing it - is it is very up and down. but i reckon better up than down than complete predictability (office job.)

and sometimes after a really tough day, when i get in the van mumbling to myself about quitting and giving up, i find when i get home, smarting and throbbing and barely able to walk about, i find i have this sort of buzz. like i may have gone ten rouns with tyson but i'm proud of it. it's a sense of achievement. so yeah, all in all, for now, i'm of the opinion it's a good job.

but let's give it 10 years...

Brilliant post Watertight.

You're wasted as a plumber!

You should be a plumbers psychiatrist/psychologist/therapist! :hurray:

 

[Resolute]

Brilliant post Watertight.

You're wasted as a plumber!

You should be a plumbers psychiatrist/psychologist/therapist! :hurray:

Yeah but he wouldn't earn as much as a plumber!

 

[LegionellaSlave]

Yeah but he wouldn't earn as much as a plumber!

Oh yes he would!! :hurray:

 

[jaybob]

easy job that always end up being aa rite royal pain in the arse and everything that caan go wrong does. also jobsss wwhere parts are discontinued and u spend your time trying to get round it another way.

 

[WaterTight]

i woke up thinking of my genuine, non-philosophising, answer to this thread this morning - which must prove how bad it is!

and it is a job.

writing up quotes. for a start i think any job where it's down to you to decide when to do it - and you've any number of days you could do it on - instantly becomes doubly worse because not only do you have to do it, but you have to think about it repeatedly throughout the week until you've got round to it AND then motivate yourself to do it once you decide it's late.

if you're booked in to turn up at a house at 8.30am there is no motivation necessary. you are absolved of the of responsibility of motivation. you can stop thinking about it. but writing up a quote is like excercise. nobody is actually forcing you to do it NOW. you could do it tomorrow morning instead. afterall you've been busy. or even tomorrow evening. but does that ability to put off exercise stop you thinking about it or worrying about it of feeling guilty about it or apparently in my case bloody well dreaming about it?

when you add up time taken to drive to a house, time taken to chat, time taken to look at job, make notes, measure up. time taken to drive somewhere else, time taken to cost and write up the quote - often involving bartering with yourself over final price, then to submit the quote, then to speak to them on the phone to discuss it and then to book it in....and with no guarantee at any point of getting paid for any of it!

add on top of that the frankly countless seconds of thought throughout the week where you realise you'll still haven't done it and it's still sliding up and down your to-do list - it's in the back of your mind, got to get it done.

it's probably the largest most comprehensive potential waste of time we experience. so yeah, quotes.

 

[WaterTight]

and in writing that i just wasted another 5 minutes.

ok. that's final. i'm doing his stupid quote now.




right after this coffee.

 

[Pipedream]

Once again Watertight, right on the money. Lost count of the number of times I have convinced myself to drop the first price I came up with only to be met with 'is that all I had expected it to be more'. I have tried everything from guestimates, to complicated matrices and at the end of the day, I still end up staring at the first price and finding some reason to drop it a bit. My news years resolution is to go with the first figure and see what happens, I may have a lot more time for this forum!

 

[GQuigley67]

charge accordingly, i carried out a landlord certificate and boiler service in the same house and upon looking at my invoice i thought...that's a bit high, but im comparing it to the numpties that are quoting silly prices, so sod it i went with the price and i also added an extra £10er to my usual service price to another customer, she was over the moon as i included sealing her flue in the service aswell to save any aggro over warning notices

 

[e/bourneplumber]

wires running diagonally in the wall - bound to hit them wiv me drill!

 

[Dan]

Don't mind me while I reply to a few of the threads. We need the new thread pages to be picked up correctly. If this thread isn't current, just visit the plumbing forum and post your own new thread or checkout the other existing threads.