My job can be fairly mundane at times, but some of the people you meet going into strangers houses can make for an interesting encounter.
The above picture was one of those interesting encounters. It was a call on a water heater in a part of the inner city where very bad things happen. There are many boarded up houses and various entrepreneurs on street corners plying their trades.
When I called the customer to verify the call, he told me to knock loud on the door he sounded like a young guy who could hear ok, but whatever.
When I arrived and saw the sign I just had to get a picture of it. The customer was a young guy; we went to the basement to look at the water heater. He was a very polite and well-spoken guy, he introduced himself as John, he seemed a little out of place for that neighborhood.
He was telling me about his background in computer technology and was showing off his incredible memory skills like how he uses a product key for his password and reciting back to me the serial number of the water heater. It was a fairly new unit that had some warranty left on it. I determined it had a leak and would need to be replaced; this was a 3rd party call so I called the manufacturer and gave them the info so he could get a new one. The women on the phone wanted to know he purchase date, the guy didn’t know. That's not unusual, people often forget and don't keep the receipt. Then the women needed to know where it was purchased. I looked at the guy and he gives me this Joe Biden in the headlights look.
It seems that Johnny Mnemonic can remember a string of random numbers but can remember which big box hardware store he got his water heater from less than two years ago.
It was then the guy started acting a little hinky.
He didn't seem so interested in straightening out this whole mix-up and was more interested in shutting down this whole investigation.
Then it hit me, I could tell as soon as I saw the thing it was a self install and I began to suspect the unit had been purchased at "Midnight Appliance Supply".
They don't give receipts there and they sure as hell don't do warranty exchanges.
The above picture was one of those interesting encounters. It was a call on a water heater in a part of the inner city where very bad things happen. There are many boarded up houses and various entrepreneurs on street corners plying their trades.
When I called the customer to verify the call, he told me to knock loud on the door he sounded like a young guy who could hear ok, but whatever.
When I arrived and saw the sign I just had to get a picture of it. The customer was a young guy; we went to the basement to look at the water heater. He was a very polite and well-spoken guy, he introduced himself as John, he seemed a little out of place for that neighborhood.
He was telling me about his background in computer technology and was showing off his incredible memory skills like how he uses a product key for his password and reciting back to me the serial number of the water heater. It was a fairly new unit that had some warranty left on it. I determined it had a leak and would need to be replaced; this was a 3rd party call so I called the manufacturer and gave them the info so he could get a new one. The women on the phone wanted to know he purchase date, the guy didn’t know. That's not unusual, people often forget and don't keep the receipt. Then the women needed to know where it was purchased. I looked at the guy and he gives me this Joe Biden in the headlights look.
It seems that Johnny Mnemonic can remember a string of random numbers but can remember which big box hardware store he got his water heater from less than two years ago.
It was then the guy started acting a little hinky.
He didn't seem so interested in straightening out this whole mix-up and was more interested in shutting down this whole investigation.
Then it hit me, I could tell as soon as I saw the thing it was a self install and I began to suspect the unit had been purchased at "Midnight Appliance Supply".
They don't give receipts there and they sure as hell don't do warranty exchanges.
