small town woes

Most of the time, I do not mind living in a small town. I have adapted to the fact that everyone knows everyone else and that they still rehash what Shane did to get himself kicked out of high school or the stir that the Wendell triplets caused. I have adapted to the fact of, if wal-mart doesn't carry it, you're better off planning ahead to mail order it. I've adapted to the fact of cultural events being few and far between (and often scheduled in such a way that they conflict with the times I'm doing volunteer work somewhere).

But: I have not adapted to the sheer flakiness of service people. It is profoundly frustrating. It is as if they all operate in 1950s mode, where every household in the town has the husband who takes the only car to go to work in the morning, and the housewife who can stay home all the time save for her weekly trips to the beauty parlor and the grocery store.

The assumption being, that someone will ALWAYS be home and it is in no way an imposition on "madame's" daily schedule if they fail to show up one day, they can always come the next. Or the next.

Unfortunately, not all of us are trophy wives. Or independently wealthy layabouts who need not work. And even in married couples, most that I know, both members work. So it is a major imposition for someone to have to be home "sometime between 8 and 5 Thursday, or if not that, before noon Friday." I've had to cancel classes in the past for workmen in emergency situations - simply because they couldn't give me a time when I was normally home. And I don't like to impose on my few retired friends: "Hey...could you come over to my house a little before 8 and housesit there until I get home at 5, just in case the plumber happens to show up? There's cold cuts in the fridge and I have cable, help yourself!"

My furnace is on the fritz. This has happened before. Back in 2004, it went out altogether and I had to go through a string of flaky repair-people before I hit on a company that KEPT their appointments and actually FIXED the dang thing.

Well, it's some kind of a problem with the switching this time, apparently. The ignition will go on for a short period of time, run, shut off, and then almost immediately re-ignite. This morning I woke to a 62* house and a furnace that had turned on its "lockout switch" because something was wrong with the flame switch.

I reset it which got it running again for now. But I cannot hit the reset button in the middle of the night and I especially cannot hit it just over a week from now when I am gone on a 2 week plus vacation. If it gets down into the twenties/teens here for an extended period of time while I'm gone, my pipes will freeze if there's no heat in the house.

So anyway. I called the best furnace place in town and explained the problem. Probably made the mistake of admitting I had heat for now. The woman said she'd make me an appointment, but "It will be for this afternoon." I asked her for a time and she said she'd call me.

She hasn't called and it's been 2 hours.

So - do I just go home when my 12:15 class lets out, and risk them not coming because they "couldn't reach me" at my work phone (they have both my numbers but this is where I said I'd be). Do I call them again, risk pissing off the receptionist (it's happened before) and maybe have her put me to the bottom of the list? Do I just sit at home and stew knowing I have a 6:30 commitment this evening and if they're not there and done by then, I have to miss my commitment on the slim chance they'd be working after hours?

It frustrates me because this is the best company in town - the one that doesn't send you incompetent people who tell you your house is miswired and that's why your furnace won't work (an expensive electrician's visit later disproved that idea), or people who never show up for any of their appointments, or people who mysteriously stop in the middle of a job and say "they'll be back" only to return DAYS later as you are running out the door for somewhere. Or people who speak in that backwoods mumble you hear 'round here and smell vaguely of corn liquor.

So I don't know. Yes, I do know. It's that the company I use is the ONLY GOOD COMPANY in town and they are probably booked up with calls from businesses or other situations where there will be more than the cost of a simple service call involved.

But it frustrates me. This is a growing town - it is claimed to be one of the most economically active areas of our state now - and we can't get service companies that are any good. Or if we do, it's just one, and they're booked up beyond belief.

And when I complain about it, the long-timers here just laugh. And shrug. And go, "That's how it is."

No. You can make good money in plumbing or electrical or HVAC. Furthermore, you can work a job where you are usually only involved from 8 am to 5 pm. And in fact, with a good staff, you could rotate who was on-call for emergencies so you'd only have to be on-call maybe one day out of seven. And those kind of home-repair jobs will never be outsourced - you can't fix a clogged drain over a phone from India. So. Why is it that we get so many people with zero work ethics?

I swan, some days I wonder why I didn't go to a trade school.