UPDATE to the folks using this post to "advertise" their HVAC services: I am categorizing all such posts as spam and deleting them on sight. Stop wasting your time and mine.
My conversation with the facilities guy today, regarding a problem with the aged heating/cooling unit in my office:
FG: Someone called in a problem with the wall unit?
ME: Yeah. The cooling isn't working. It was working yesterday, but today it's only blowing hot air, even when it's supposed to be cool.
FG: That's what I thought the call down to us said. But I checked with my boss, and he tells me that there isn't actually air conditioning in this building.
ME: Yes, there is. I mean, there isn't any right now. But it was working yesterday.
FG: No -- this building only has pipes for heating, and a fan that circulates the regular air. You just thought it was air conditioning.
ME: I've been in this office 10 years. There's always been cooling. Including yesterday.
FG: My boss and four other guys told me there wasn't.
ME: But look: there's this dial right here that has two settings: one for heating and one for cooling. There are occasional problems with either one, but generally, they both do what they say they do.
FG: Let me get on the phone to my boss. [calls, confirms, puts boss and other Guys In Room on speaker phone, who also insist that there is not now, nor has there ever been, air conditioning of any kind in FO-2]
ME: Hang on here a minute. [walking next door to office] Coleague, is your AC working?
Martha: It was yesterday. Let me check. [turns on AC] Yep.
FG: [sets thermometer to measure temperature from wall unit next door]. Huh. 70 degrees. So there is air conditioning in this building. Let me see if I can fix yours.
finis.
To be fair, the guy in my office was very nice and apologetic about it once he realized his error. And I was equally gracious, assuring him that I understood he was only working with the information he had. And my cooling now works. But still.
2 comments:
One of the smartest things I ever did when I started working at my institution was get friendly with the top HVAC dude on campus. Whenever I am too hot or too cold--which is frequent, since I have a narrow range of bodily comfort--he hooks me up. And every couple of months, I host him in my office for a glass of bourbon.
Like CPP above, I too have become good friends with all the maintenance folks so that I can call upon them in an hour of need. It's not totally Machiavellian -- I genuinely do like them -- but it certainly is helpful to know and be friends with them.
I had a furnace issue at my house recently, actually, and a HVAC company said it would cost 600+ dollars to fix it. We declined because we didn't have enough money, and they wouldn't give us a payment play. I told one of the guys at my school about it, and he said he'd be willing to look at it. He did, and he fixed it for 100 dollars. Bargain! Now the furnace works perfectly, and we're very happy. It's good to know people!
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