It's always SOMETHING...

I got up at 8:30 today because the ceiling fan in Mike's room, having been repaired, was supposed to be delivered and reinstalled at 9:00. At 9:15 I called the shop (where I'd dropped off the motor a couple of weeks ago) to ask when I could expect the technician.

A receptionist, sounding incredibly bored, said, "Owwww, Ah dunno, he's owt, onna 'nuther job that he dint finish up yesturday; Ah really dunno what tahm he maht git thahr."

"Will you check?" I asked crisply. I was put on hold for a couple of minutes; eventually, she came back on the line.

"Looks lahk he'll be thahr sometahm 'tween ten an 'leven" she said.

"OK," I said, and then I added, "Can you tell me why no one called to tell me he'd be running at least an hour late?"

"Well, tuh tell the trooth, Ah jist dint think a doin' that!" she said, sounding surprised.

Uh-huh.

I cleaned up the kitchen and made myself a couple of cappuccinos while I waited; then I went online and wrote a review of the place, briefly describing my experience.

I'm turning into such a curmudgeon.

The tech, when he finally arrived, did a good job. It's a fairly new (4 years old) top of the line ceiling fan that hasn't had a lot of use, so I was disappointed and puzzled when it suddenly stopped working. Getting that ceiling fan fixed was on a list of things I've wanted to get done before summer. I also wanted wiring run to a ceiling light in the new upstairs closet that I had built after the fire. I'm quite capable of doing little bits of electrical work like that myself, however, the idea of crawling around in the attic and running wire is not my idea of a good time, so about a month ago I had an electrician come in to wire the closet light fixture. While he was here, I asked him to look at the non-functional ceiling fan in the other upstairs bedroom. He spent some time on it, and then told me he thought the motor was gone, and if that was the case, I'd have to send it back to the manufacturer, as the motor has a lifetime warranty. Since he was here, I had him remove the fan for me, but in doing so he somehow managed to disconnect the ceiling light on the stair landing. Not only is that light nowhere near the ceiling fan, it's also on a completely different circuit - I've mapped all the circuits in my house, and I checked. Unfortunately, I didn't discover the problem with the light on the stair landing until after the electrician had left, at which time I called his company and explained the problem and said I expect him back out to fix it, gratis.

His boss said he'd have him do it on the trip to reinstall the fan. OK. But when I called the fan manufacturer and described the problem, the manufacturer tech immediately said it wasn't the motor, and suggested I take the fan to an authorized dealer to have the problem properly diagnosed.

Which I did. And the tech there took one look and said, "The motor's fine, the board's gone and will have to be replaced." Because the dealer was fixing the problem, I decided to have the dealer reinstall the fan, reasoning that if I run into any additional problems, the dealer, who did the repair, can't say the fan wasn't installed properly, etc.

Soooooooo...after my initial wait this morning, the dealer tech showed, and reinstalled the repaired fan, which is running like a top...however, that means I now have to get the electrician to make a special trip to fix the non-working light on the stair landing, a problem he created trying to fix the fan last time he was here...

As Roseanna Roseannadanna used to say..."It's always something..."