It's Not Personal
Well, it has been another one of those weeks which prove that even hiding inside your house doesn't protect you from the vicissitudes of life. After two months of struggling to get the computer working again, now my telephone is full of mysterious static which the phone company is having difficulty finding a source for. That cost me another three days of gainful employment. Frustrating, but it seems to be resolving itself now. Phew.
Then there's the story of the new boiler, the landlord, the boiler repair people, and the landlord's secretary. I woke up with my adrenaline pumping last Sunday morning. There was the smell of hot metal in the air. I went downstairs to find heat pouring out of the radiators. While it was nice to be warm, I was concerned because I had not turned the heat on and the thermostat was turned all the way down - yet there was lots of heat being generated. So... I called the landlord's answering service and said that the heat was coming up without the boiler being turned on. The boiler guy called very quickly and I explained the situation to him. He thought maybe there was an electrical short and sent someone to the house. The guy arrived and said that it was normal for the boiler to go on when the temperature got below a certain point, even if the thermostat was turned off. I did not know this. According to my landlord's office I am the only person on earth unaware of this fact. Small children, his secretary explained to me, know that heat comes on when the temperature drops, even if the thermostat is off. I missed that class when I was a kid. So, it seems did the first boiler guy. When I asked her why, if it was such wide-ranging knowledge, the boiler guy didn't suggest to me that it was normal, she replied that he doesn't live in Narrowsburg and couldn't know what the temperature here is. At this point, I forgot all about spirituality, staying above the fray and I lost my temper completely. She did not much care. She continued to tell me that I owed the landlord $60.00 for my frivolous call regarding the boiler. There's more to the story but I've probably already written too much.
Besides a strong and pretty cranky need to complain, I wanted to share this experience because - as my nephew wisely pointed out to me - I was "taking it all very personally." And I was. For the landlord's office it is just business. They do not give a hoot about me one way or the other. They just don't want to spend $60. I don't either because I don't think I owe it to them.
Latest Articles