Elaine Smith Writes

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Category Archives: Casa Lagarto

Awesome customer service

Unbelievably awesome!

Unprecedentedly awesome.

Is “unprecedentedly” a word?  It seems unlikely.  Perhaps its use here is unprecedented! Real word or not, however, it conveys my meaning–which is that I have never before experienced the kind of customer service provided this week by the gentleman who is painting the exterior of my house.

First of all, he did all the normal things right:  gave us a verbal estimate that was a good price, followed up with an email providing proof of insurance and a formal written estimate, and offered to begin sooner than he originally said was possible.  The latter, of course, was due to a cancellation by another client, so I don’t really count it heavily on the awesome side of the scale, but he was low pressure about it (which I like), provided references immediately upon request, and was patient while I checked them and worked out a scheduling difficulty.

Then, he showed up on time and got right to work pressure washing.

So far, this is good business but not extraordinary, right?

And then something happened.

He was about halfway through the pressure washing when we discovered his machine wasn’t pulling enough water.  And then we discovered it was because there was no water.  The aerator was empty.  The pipes in the house had nothing but air in them.  Oh, no!

We had been having a problem with one of the pumps that pull water from our well, so we shut it off.  Months ago.

And we’d forgotten about it.  There are only two of us in the house, and we don’t use that much water.  The drought has ended around here, for now, and we haven’t had to water the lawn.  Consequently, the other pump–the one inside the house–has been enough.  We had totally lost sight of the fact that we’d shut off the outside pump.

Once we all figured out what the problem was and verified that the pump wasn’t working correctly, I would have expected the painter to say, “Call me when you get it fixed,” and disappear for weeks.

What he actually said was, “You need a new pressure switch.  I can fix that for you.”

And he did.

He took off for Home Depot, bought the parts, came back and spent time in the hot sun doing something that was not at all part of his job.

Of course, we told him to add the cost to his final bill, and even then the job came in under budget!

I call that unprecedentedly awesome customer service.

The pump is working now.  It comes on when it is supposed to start and shuts off when it is supposed to stop.  It’s much quieter than it was previously.   We’ll be able to use the sprinklers if we need them.

Oh…and the paint job?  It looks great!

If you are in the Middleburg, Fleming Island, Orange Park, Green Cove Springs, Jacksonville area and you need a painter:

Russell Rowell of Perfect Painting.

Shoot me an email, and I’ll give you his number.

Meanwhile, I’m thinking it makes sense to always ask ourselves how we can go the extra mile.  How would things change if we all assumed we were responsible for everything around us going well?

One hundred percent responsible.

For everything.

Think about it. Because Russell has set the bar pretty high.

 

Celebrating the MotH*

 No, I am not a lepidopterist.

Thankful this Thursday for a handy husband, the Man of the House.  As annoying as he can be (and all those who have ever been married understand whereof I speak), the cost of renovations over here at Casa Lagarto would have been far greater if not for the MotH’s abilities–and willingness–to pitch in and fix things.  Plumbing, light fixtures, drywall, roof leaks–nothing seems beyond him.

The MotH is a retired Broadway stagehand–a member of the illustrious band of brothers and sisters known collectively as IATSE:  the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees.  Furthermore, he is a member of Local One, the New York local branch.  Rock on!

I’m telling you, these guys and girls are a can-do bunch.

It’s fashionable in certain quarters to complain about the theatre unions, and the stagehands come in for quite a bit of the flack.  Any actor who has been scolded for moving a chair knows what I mean.

But they keep the show running, the scenery (and sometimes the actors) flying, the props at hand, the trapdoors opening and closing, and everybody safe.

You like that chandelier in Phantom… , the spectacular skating track set of Starlight Express, the ice skating in the Radio City Music Hall Christmas show?

Thank the stagehands.

And now, one of them is spending his retirement working every bit as hard far off the stage as he ever worked on and behind it. And in far weirder conditions.

This week, he had even planned to be in a canoe under the dock running a PVC pipe to serve as a conduit for the electrician who is going to clean up the wiring down by the water.  At the mercy of tide tables and spiders and the frustratingly hilarious fact that when you hammer something from a canoe, you tend to float off from within striking distance of the nail. (We know this from previous experience.  Don’t ask.)

He’d have done it, too, if it had not turned out to be possible to pull up some of the boards.

He’s saved us a lot of money.  The house is prettier, safer, and more efficient.

I can hammer a nail myself, and I could probably figure out the other stuff if necessary.  I am very glad it isn’t necessary, however.

 

* MotH:  Man of the House

Weeding sorties

The value of incremental progress

I am not a champion gardener.  If you’ve been following this blog, this will not come as a big shock to you.

And I believe I mentioned before how I live in a sub-tropical climate.  Plant life has a tendency toward the over-exuberant.  Unless it’s dropping dead from heat stroke or complications due to my lack of green-thumbness.  Mostly, however, it is over-exuberant.   There’s a vine thing, for example. . .well, let’s just say, it won’t surprise me if it creeps in the window and strangles me in my sleep one night.

Anyhow, it must follow as the night the day *(I knew I could get Shakespeare in here somewhere!), that Weeding 101 would become a required course.

The problem is it is also extremely hot down here.  Extremely hot.  Hotter than hell, eggs frying on the sidewalk, where’s a cooling shelter hot.

I am a person who likes to finish what she starts.  Preferably within minutes.

Back when I was doing a lot more programming than I do now, working on large and complex projects with shifting requirements and ‘scope creep’ of epic proportions, I was most often hired by Tony Coretto, the CEO of PNT Marketing Services, Inc.  Tony is a most excellent boss.  In the midst of chaos and looming deadlines, he would talk with unfailing optimism about “incremental progress.”

I’m sorry to say that I never totally appreciated the value of that way of looking at things until it came to weeding the flower beds in a hot, humid July in Florida.  It is not possible–unless you have greater masochistic tendencies than I do–to eliminate all weeds in one marathon session.  A person can, however, make incremental progress.

Going out before the sun is high enough to beat down on the flower bed, you can work for a half hour or so in the shade.  Taking out the weed whacker in the late evening, around 7, there might be a breeze coming off the water.

It will never all be done at once in one shining example of impeccable landscaping.  The campaign is not one of shock and awe.  It’s guerilla warfare with intermittent weeding sorties.

Incremental progress.

And you know what?

It turns out that’s the only way to finish any piece of writing.  A little at a time.

So this Tuesday’s Tip is to make a sortie.  Set a timer and write for five minutes.  Ten minutes.  One minute.  Any increment at all leads to incremental progress.

 

* Hamlet, Act I, sc.3

Honored Guest

The missing Chinese proverb—and a stroke of luck

Once upon a time, in a galaxy far, far away…No!

It wasn’t a galaxy far away.  It was just something lost in the mists of my mind.

I think it was a Chinese proverb.  But it might have been Japanese.  Or something somebody made up.  (Some days the mists are foggier than others.)  I just don’t really remember, and I’m sorry about that…because I like to give credit where it is due.

However, the proverb—whatever its origin—was something to the effect that you should treat your house as if an honored guest were about to visit.

We all know what that means, right?

Impending guests, honored or not, tend to jump start the housework.

Suddenly, we look around, and we see things with new eyes.  Truth be told, they are probably far sharper eyes than any guest is likely to bring.  And, honestly, my most honored guests are the ones I can trust to turn a blind eye to some of my less-than-perfect housekeeping.  Nonetheless, a guest on the horizon is a definite motivator.

I’ve had a stroke of luck recently along those lines.

I was expecting an especially honored guest around the end of May.  Much cleaning and polishing occurred.  (And some actual decorating, because, see, the guest room was not actually ready at the point the invitation was issued and accepted.)  And then my honored guest was unable to come for the anticipated visit.

But my house was clean, and my guest room ready, so I figured I was ahead of the game.  Plus, it wasn’t a straight-out cancellation, but rather a postponement.  So, now, whenever housework weighs heavily—and you know it does, because there is always something more interesting to do—but whenever it weighs heavily, I remember that the honored guest is still pending.

And I gather up my dust cloths and my vacuum attachments and I get to work.  There are still a few months to go before the rescheduled arrival, but I figure it will be easier to keep the house clean on an ongoing basis than to launch a massive recovery effort closer to time.

And you know what?

I like having a clean house.

It’s okay if I turn out to be the honored guest.

Lizards are letting me down

Friday Finding

The lizards over here at Casa Lagarto are not holding up their end of the bargain.

See, we have a lot of lizards here at the Casa.  Chameleons and geckos and skinks…and a truly shivery nekkid-looking thing that bears more of a resemblance to a snake than one would think would be quite safe for a lizard.  Other than the nekkid-looking thing, I am quite happy for the lizards to hang out here. (As long as they stay outside.  That’s part of the deal.)

Lizards are good for eating bugs.  And bugs…well, you know.

Oh, sure.  There’s that cycle of life thing and the food chain and all that.  But bugs, to me, are kind of like the garbage dump.  We all know we have to have them, “but not in my backyard.”  (And the garbage dump doesn’t generally display the vampire tendencies of the mosquitoes.  So there’s that.)

But lately, we’ve had an awful lot of grasshoppers.  And not just any grasshoppers, mind you, but the Eastern Lubber Grasshoppers–otherwise known as the Georgia Thumper.  These things are huge.

You want to see a picture?  Click here for a shot taken by Scattergun UK and posted on Flickr.

That shot doesn’t provide any reference point as to size, but take it from me.  They are HUGE.  Like, I’m not sure a fight between Godzilla and a Grasshopper in a Japanese horror movie would end with Godzilla taking home the title.

(Okay, okay.  They are not that huge.  But they are bugs!  It adds a certain ick factor.)

And they are decimating the plants.  The leaves on my canna lilies are all raggedy-looking.  I think they’ve started in on the hydrangea, and I knocked one out of the camphor tree yesterday.

There doesn’t seem to be anything you can spray to control them.  You’ve got to take them out one at a time. My husband is on grasshopper patrol.  But, you know, you can’t spend all day lying in wait for insects.

And I would have thought that the lizards would have done more to prevent this problem.

I’m disappointed in them.

 

 

 

 

 

 


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