I have a lot of patience for a lot of things.
I don’t get angry in traffic jams, I don’t mind queuing for things, I’m happy with rain, and generally I am very tolerant, possibly a little too tolerant, of rude and selfish men.
(I’m not referring here of course to New Boyfriend. He is lovely and not at all selfish. Rude about my cooking sometimes maybe, but only because he is jealous of my outstanding culinary abilities.)
One thing though, one thing I cannot abide, is stupidity. It may be cruel, but I can’t help it, I have no patience for idiocy. “I do not suffer fools gladly” as my Gran used to say, as she cracked open her thermos of gin. (My Gran did actually take me as a child on an outing to the beach and take a thermos of gin and tonic. She also once drove up and along the pavement for quite some time, narrowly missing several pedestrians, but I can’t remember if these two incidents were related.)
This week I had an ‘engineer’* come out to fix my fridge, which was distinctly underperforming in the cooling stakes.
“It says three degrees on the front,” I told him, “but the thermometer I bought and put inside says twelve.”
“Well,” he said, making the word last about eight seconds, “the thermometer on the door isn’t always completely accurate, and the temperature does vary. We have to make them say a constant temperature otherwise we’d get loads of calls from people saying the temperature was going up and down too much.”
(Really? Would they really? Are all people this stupid?)
“I appreciate that,” I said, “but if you notice, items in the fridge are distinctly warm…”
Well, he did his bit, taking things apart, frowning at them, and putting them back together, and I stayed out of the way, not wanting to get frustrated at the amount of time it was taking him to open and close his tool box.
“I’m all done,” he said, three weeks later. “I had to change a part, but we’re not allowed to take the old parts away with us, so you’ll have to dispose of them.”
“Right ho,”
“I’ve left all the bits for you in that cardboard box on the kitchen table. You can just take them to the tip sometime.”
“Ok,” I say, thinking I could just pop the box under the table for a week or so. Being the nosy parker that I am though, I thought I’d have a rummage in the box first, see what was in there.
Ice.
That’s what was in there.
Sure, there were a few fridge parts too, but mainly it was ice.
“Hmmm…” I began, wondering if I was missing something. “This looks like mainly ice, do you not think it might melt, and maybe leak through the cardboard?”
“Oh right,” he replied, looking genuinely like the thought had not occurred to him, “I suppose it might. Maybe you should put it outside?”
You think??
*Note heavy sarcasm
*bursts out laughing*
Ahem. Oh dear.
Oh dear indeed :-(
Oh. Erm. Not the sharpest pencil in the box was he?? *snigger*
He was definitely not the sharpest chisel in the toolbox…
My sister had an engineer cone out to look at her satellite box and he looked, stood up and with not a hint of humour announced his diagnosis – ‘Aye, it’s had a brain fart and it’s gubbins have fallen out.’ No joke.
Ah yes, the ‘brain fart’. It is clearly a very technical term than as mere women we would never be able to understand…
What’s the betting it only needed a tighten up on the fridge sensor wires or somesuch job, and I bet he overcharged you for the job!
I have had similar situations with all from plumbers to car mechanics, all assuming as I am female and asked THEM, that I must be clueless ( ex engineer here lol) rather than just couldn’t be bothered!
It takes me a whole lot longer sometimes to find and fix a problem, BUT the cost saving and the proud feeling is well worth it EVENTUALLY!
I get it all the time with mechanics too and it’s so frustrating. I went into Halfords a while ago to buy new headlight bulbs and had the most patronising man ever come over and say ‘oh dear, you look confused, do you need some help?’
NO! I do not need help from someone who talks to me as if I’m a lost toddler thank you. And then of course I had to turn down the offer of having them fitted and do that myself to prove the point. Very satisfying it was too!
Brilliant. That is all.
oh dear! what a plonker! x
Ha! I had a plumber come to fix a dripping tap once. It’s still dripping a year later. Plonkers, the lot of them.
Are they really that bad stupid plonkers asgarvega