When it Rains

I'm having a certain amount of empathy for the plumbing industry today (inspired by recent events at the house I own in Arizona). Out of the blue I got a text message from my tenant notifying me that water was leaking from the main source, under the driveway and out into the street. In order to prevent damage, he turned the water off and asked that I get a plumber to come out ASAP. I can't even begin to imagine not having running water in the middle of the record heat Phoenix is experiencing. While trying not to get too wrapped up in worst case scenarios (though I was absolutely envisioning the need to rip apart my driveway, water shooting up at all angles creating a lovely fountain affect and costing untold thousands of dollars) I gave Pete Phend a call.

This is where the empathy comes in. I'm in a panic, imaging worst case scenarios and to complicate matters I'm out of state. I know nothing about plumbing. To me, all leaking water constitutes a plumbing catastrophe. I also can't make any claims to being able to speak intelligently about mechanical failures of any kind. My descriptions are limited to "uh, yeah my car is making a rumble rumble, crank crank noise" or "I'm not sure what happened, it just started splashing and spinning... help me, Obi Wan Kenobi, you're my only hope!" In the name of feminism, I try not to rely on the damsel in distress act if at all possible, but this still doesn't do much for my ignorance of technical terminology.

I can't be the only person who calls up Pete in crisis mode. I've received infinite amounts of training around crisis intervention, but I'm doubting that the coursework on plumbing includes much on that note. Between distraught/frustrated/angry potential clients and civilians who don't know a crimp tool from a basin wrench (I went to Home Depot's website to look up the names of plumbing tools for the purposes of this analogy), I can't imagine that many of Pete's professional calls are very fun.

Pete managed to tone down my anti-fantasy about the new fountain in my driveway by promising to be out to the house first thing in the morning. He asked a few more questions and said that it was probably something he would be able to fix fairly easily. He even responded to my requests to please not tear apart my driveway with an explanation of a simple workaround he could do if the driveway presented problems. Thankfully, he toned down the technical jargon and I was able to understand that help was on the way and the situation was likely not that bad. I ended the call reassured that the sky was not falling, which I think speaks volumes for Pete's people skills.

Of course, I don't yet have a run-down on what is wrong and why/how it got that way but if Pete's plumbing skills are as good as his people skills (he's fixed other plumbing problems at the house before so I have every reason to believe in him) then I am in good hands. Now if only he specialized in ways to finance unexpected plumbing problems... ;)