Blacking Out and Blanking Out

Last night after 9pm, all of a sudden the power went out in my apartment. Everything stopped and went pitch black.

But outside in the hallway there was light and I checked my electricity metre which still had plenty of units left.

I called the management office and a repairman came and turned the electricity back on, but soon after he left, the air conditioner stopped working. Just my luck.

Another call to the management office led to another repairman, this time apparently an air con expert.

But as soon as he saw the error message on the air conditioning unit keypad, he said this wasn't something he could fix. He said he would call the air conditioner company, Haier, to send one of their technicians over, as this air conditioner is a huge machine that sits outside my tiny balcony.

Luckily I'm not one of those people who must have air con on and was able to fall asleep, probably tired from having to deal with all the drama of not having power.

The next morning the management office called the company for me and said the technician would come between noon and the afternoon.

So I sat around and waited, working from home. Surprisingly the young man arrived just before 11am. But after he unscrewed my giant air conditioner and took the cover off, he immediately found the culprit after testing the voltage -- three parts malfunctioned, one causing the other two to die. This is probably what caused the blackout in my apartment.

He didn't have the parts on him, and wasn't sure if they were in stock, but promised to call me later tonight to let me know the status.

I didn't hear from him all day and when I came home from work I called him on his cell phone.

He seemed to be out carousing with his friends, and had temporarily forgotten his promise to me, some 8 hours earlier.

He'd forgotten who I was and that I needed to know if the parts were available and would he be coming tomorrow morning to fix the air conditioner?

And because of his lack of interest in letting me know the situation, I had to get tough with him on the phone, demanding to know exactly when he would be arriving. He quickly made up an answer and it made me wonder if he would remember, hearing him chat with his friends in the background.

I don't like having to sound angry on the phone, but sometimes it seems people like this don't mind being berated like children. Why is that?

I'm sure they don't enjoy being treated like that, so why be so unprofessional?

It just shows someone who doesn't really care about their work. While I can understand being a repairman and being dirty most of the time is not the greatest job, it's one where people are grateful when you are able to fix things for them.

So I will see what happens tomorrow... if this young man remembers our last conversation...