What is it About Handymen/Maintenence People?

Are they all rather, shall we say, flaky? It’s been my experience that people that go into this line of work are somewhat peculiar. Interesting folks, fun to chat with, but exceedingly frustrating to deal with on a professional level.

Here’s my situation. My refrigerator quit working. The freezer still works, but the fridge? Not cold at all. I’ve been keeping a supply of drinks and a few perishables in a cooler with Blue Ice packs which I rotate in and out of the (thankfully) still working freezer. I’ve been doing this for longer than I am willing to admit to because, well, I’m a bit of a flake myself. I abhor anything that interferes with my routine, or lack thereof. When my work week is done, I value coming and going as I please above all else. If it’s a nice day and I want to spend it on my bike out in the countryside, that’s exactly what I’m going to do. That’s my reward for working those 14 hour shifts.

Anyway, back to the fridge. I’m on vacation this week so I bit the bullet and decided to take care of the situation. I call my landlord and she says she’ll have her handyman call me. He calls Monday around 12:30 and asks if I’m going to be around for awhile. He’s got a couple of stops to make and will come by later in the afternoon. “Yeah, yeah, that’s fine” I tell him.

5 o’clock comes and goes, no handyman… finally around 5:30 he shows up. He chips at the thick frost in the back of the freezer (which I didn’t even realize was there) for awhile, then says he needs to let it thaw for a bit; he’ll go take a look at a leaky faucet nearby and be back in a bit.

He never comes back, or calls. Tuesday morning, I call him and try to pin him down as to what time I might expect him. He asks when is good for me and I tell him that I’m on vacation and that the soonest he can be here would be great. When I mentioned being on vacation he commented that it “Must be nice.” Oh yeah, it’s great; sitting here waiting on your ass all day. Sheesh!

So, he’s coming around noon (we’ll see about that). Hopefully he can get it fixed in time for me to get a ride in this evening. I sure as Hell hope so.