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High Maintenance
I was just on another post and it got me thinking about customers, doing this job you come across some amazing people and some (being tactful) challenging personalities.
I have one lady who is lovely… don’t even think you’re going to refuse a cup of tea and a choccy biccy because you won’t get out the door, and once she’s had all the news on the family she may let you go, I always save her jobs for just before lunchtime so that I can stop and chat, just recently she has taken to sitting in one of those plastic patio chairs because she has developed a form of narcolepsy and has a tendancy to fall asleep in mid sentence, when this happens she found she kept slipping off the side of her kitchen chair.
I can cope with untidy and chaotic but I struggle with high maintenance types, one lady will live in my mind for ever and she wasn’t even the client.
I was sub contract installing and as soon as I got onsite this lady, turned out to be the clients daughter, insisted I meet her dog before we started work to put the dog at ease! (it was a westie btw)
If we were going to drill or hammer we had to warn her so she could reassure the dog, couldn’t wait to get away, so set it up in no time and got dad out to try the lift.
Seatbelt on and usage instructions given Dad is happily riding up the stairs only for her to be doing her nut that we hadn’t prepared the dog for this event – didn’t know the dog would be using it was muttered by my labourer who decided he was off to tidy the van and have a fag. She then pretty much became hysterical saying that the lift was dangerous and dad should stop immediately and come back down! I had no idea what could be so dangerous to take her to this point but there really wasn’t any talking to her so I just talked dad through things and made sure he was happy whilst trying to ignore this woman tripping out at the bottom of the stairs. Dad signed to say he was happy and off we went, leaving him to deal with her.
A few days later we returned to remove the lift, to find her there on her own, it turned out she had decided the lift was unsafe (it was BS and CE complient) and talked her dad into moving to a retirement home.
It was probably a happy way for him to escape this woman who I’d guess had probably never left home or possibly had a job other than to be the adoring owner of a very noise sensitive dog.Come on let’s have your best and worse
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