Monday 11 February 2013

Monday Blog Hop: Friday was my Monday and why yes, it did suck enormously



This week, my "I Don't Like Mondays" post has been brought to you by last Friday, which turned out to be the most annoying day of last week. And what I learned from it? My boss should really never go out of town again and perm sales are the work of the devil. Also? That Murphy's Law guy is a complete fucking prick.

I should probably explain.

I have 2 jobs...I'm a stylist at a hair salon and I also teach at a hairdressing school. I love both my jobs about 94.7% of the time, but Friday fell under the category of this

Fill it to the brim. The. Brim.
I worked at the salon in the morning, where both hair sinks decided to completely clog up and stop draining. Normally, this would be my boss's problem, but since he was away for 3 days, it was my problem. After a bottle of Liquid plumber and angry plunging the sinks with a toilet plunger  (neither of which helped at all), I called a plumber. Who informed me he couldn't get there that day. As did the next 4 places I phoned. Finally, the last place said they'd send someone as soon as they could, which at this point could not be soon enough because my co-worker was reduced to rinsing her colour clients while bailing the sink into a garbage can every 30 seconds.

Right around then, it was time for me to leave and head to my job at the school, so I wished her good luck and told her to call me as soon as the plumber showed up. I got to the school and realize it's the last day of a perm sale, which means the place is packed and the students are running their asses off trying to keep up (welcome to the wonderful world of salon madness, ladies. And when you reach a point in your career where days like this are the norm and by the end of the day your arms feel like they're about to fall off, your entire lower body feels like it's wrapped in a blanket of ache and all you want to do is go home, lie down with a big bottle of wine and not speak to another human being for at least 12 hours? Congratulations, you're a success! Painkillers, wrist braces for the inevitable carpel tunnel and colour stains on every single item of clothing you own for all!!!).

Now this rush of perm clients is a good thing...the best way to learn is by doing, especially when you know you have a specific amount of time until your next client gets there, so this helps students build up speed as well as skill. The problem arises when a) you realize 5 students have perms on the go at the same time and only 2 sinks to rinse these perms, and b) all these perm clients have put a massive strain on the hot water tank, which can no longer keep up. And now you have the choice of rinsing clients with hypothermically cold water or running back and forth to the kettle to warm up the water  to be put in bowls/water pitcher/anything else you can find that will hold water.

Necessity truly is the mother of invention.

Thankfully, we made it through the day, although by the end all the students looked like they were on the verge of collapse and I was ready to go home and amputate my feet because they were so fucking sore, but I had to run back to the salon and see what was happening with the plumbing issue.

Plumber's Diagnosis: "You pipes are set up stupid. That's why your sinks clog easily"

And for this? Plus 15 minutes of snaking the pipes? He charged $120.

AND he refused to bill us and insisted on cash. Which cleaned out our float. But there was the small amount of satisfaction of having to pay part of it with loonies, toonies and quarters...apparently he was not very impressed by being paid with a big handful of change, but quite frankly I was not impressed with being charged $120 for stating the obvious and a couple minutes of actual work, so I guess we're even.

Since today is a statutory holiday here, I'm taking the day off. And I'm going to enjoy every plumbing-problem-free minute of it

Please click the link to see the other I Don't Like Mondays Blog Hop participants!




10 comments:

  1. Plumbers seems to be in high demand, I didn't know that until I had to call one, lol

    Riding My Own Biography
    NINJA ZX-14 MotoVlog

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    1. I'm thinking I should encourage my son to become a plumber...our salon alone would keep him busy lol

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  2. That explains why our plumber has a pool, an outdoor "kitchen" and a boat. Your Friday sounded like a friggin' nightmare. I love that wine glass. Fill to the brim. Drink. Repeat. ;) Thanks for linking up to the hop!

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    1. I was REALLY happy when that day came to an end, that's for sure...and I so could have used that wine glass!

      Thanks for having me!

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  3. Getting an outlandish bill is always the perfect way to put the icing on the cake of a terrible day

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    1. Yeah and that really didn't make my boss happy to come back to after a nice weekend away

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  5. Being a plumber is actually a good and decent job. You'll be able to know how important they are if your house is facing a plumbing problem. You should encourage your son to become a plumber. Who knows? He might become popular and in demand in your local.
    - Levi Eslinger

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  6. Plumbing isn’t an easy job, but I do hope that your plumber wasn’t rude and didn’t charge you that much. Oh well, at least he was able to fix the plumbing within the day. Maybe you really should let your son become a plumber so that you won’t have trouble finding someone to help you out at times like this.

    Elia Lester

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  7. There must have been a lot of clogged drains that day. Doesn't the salon you work at have a go-to plumber? If not, maybe you could suggest it to your boss. Finding a good plumber who you can trust to fix your problems at a reasonable price isn't such a bad thing. On another note, I found that zip ties can be handy in fishing out hair from clogged drains. Maybe you can stock up on those too.

    -Darryl

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