<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10783237#post10783237 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by melev
I'm loving your stories, because you include so much color into the picture painted. Don't stop, Jersey Girl! :thumbsup:
Aw! Thank-you!!!
:love2:
I'm actually starting to run out of my more classic tales between this and the previous "Overheard in the LFS" stories, like my all time favorite, the "shark lady." Crazy customers and people in general just seem to be attracted to me like I've got a big lightning-rod-for-stupidity sticking out the back of my shirt.
*thinking cap*
Ah! I've got a good one for you. The 20G Lady.
So, I'd been working in the LFS for a while and getting pretty settled into my job. My manager had way too many maintenance accounts and was trying to get me into taking on some of his simpler and smaller clients. I finally agreed for this one woman who was a regular shopper and just seemed absolutely desperate to get her tank cleaned of cyano. The poor lady had been complaining for weeks upon weeks about a green film all over her tank and was thinking about throwing in the towel. She asked if I'd do maintenance for her, and I agreed since I felt really bad for her. I mean, she'd always been a sweet lady... in the store.
This, however, is where things all changed.
I knew her tank from description, a fairly basic 20G FOWLR setup. She said the water was a "bit low." So, at the end of work, I packed the trunk of my tiny car with 21 gallons of saltwater, 7 gallons of freshwater, and the maintenance gear. I had to make a guess, since she was so pressed for emergency maitenance that I didn't have the opportunity to do an estimate for her tank. I overpacked, figuring that my tank was almost due for a water change and my to fill up my top-off bin. I also figured that a 20G tank would only take me maybe an hour at the most to really get up to her house, do my job, and get home, with plenty of time to make dinner and putz my way through water changing my own tank.
I get there, and it IMMEDIATELY becomes quite clear that this is not the case.
Her 20G tank is missing about, oh, six to seven inches of water.
Yes. Six to seven inches. As in almost a half a foot. As in about HALF the content of the tank. The entire tank was covered in a think, green slime, classic cyano but to a level I'd NEVER seen. What little water was in the tank, I couldn't see with all the cyano everywhere! When I saw her tank, I almost dropped one of my 7 gallon jugs right on her yappy little min pin dog (who was a pain of a dog, but was an adorable pain of a dog- I would have felt really bad dropping a full jug on her, especially since the dog already had a cast). It was so low, it didn't even touch the bottom of the HOB filter, which was still plugged in like it was going to run.
When asked about it, the woman told me the same line she used in the shop.
"It's just a bit low!"
.... *sigh* I crack out my tests. The specific gravity is through the roof. The pH is through the floor. The nitrites and nitrates are off the charts. I kept finding myself startled with each test to see the water quality so god awful! I even double checked the shop test kits against the ones I'd picked up to replace my personal stash of tests, and checked them against her own test kits. Yes, I spent several moments glancing up at the tank, with its tremendously low water levels and walls that look like someone's painted them green, just to give myself a reality check. I had never seen a tank this bad, and I'd seen some pretty bad ones in my life.
I glance at the clock on my phone. This is an important thing to note, because this is where all of my plans to get in, get out, and get on with my life with some extra cash died. It was 7:00-7:15 pm ish.
See, I couldn't see what was in her tank. She told me she had fish, but she could not identify them. So, I assume the worst case scenario and plan that these fish are NOT hardy fish, but are indeed delicate fish. I know, I know, this was something that killed me. However, we all know that people who keep saltwater fish are often plagued by a wonderfully evil man named Murphy. I started slowly upping the water.
While that's going on, I take on the task of ripping apart the HOB and getting it running. When I was younger, I used to be convinced that HOBs were the worst things going. But, then, someone let me in on a few secrets to them. I now appreciate that, if you know what you're doing, throwing out a HOB should be a very rare thing. However, this does not stop me from being REALLY surprised when her filter starts up without an issue after being cleaned and replaced. Her water had obviously been really low for a long time, so I was really expecting the coils to be absolutely burnt out.
It takes me about an hour and a half to get to a point where I finally feel comfortable to water change. Up until this point, the woman has left me to my own devices. However, of course, when things get interesting, she pops up. The tank's filled, the filter's ready to go and rehung for start up after the final fill. She says she's curious to watch.
Is it just me, or does having an audience for a water change, as opposed to a beer-buddy like I had back at home suck?
Well, I start to water change, and, as I scrub down, I start to notice a few things. On the top of my mind, her FOWLR is missing an important part to the equation. That would be the WLR part of that statement. There is ZERO liverock in the tank. So, with a heavy heart, I realize that there's nothing really to get good biological filtration going. She's been relying entirely on a biowheel.
*sigh*
After that, I noticed that she's got the worst of the worst things to stick in a saltwater tank. Plastic decor in the shape of Mayan temples. NEON pink and pure white plastic plants that look like the 1980s sneezed them out. Two, tiny pre-drilled rainbow rock. Now, I was more than willing to forgive the Mayan temple, because it was pretty cool. And I was pretty willing to deal with the pink/white decor because my roommate had an unnatural obsession with pink. It was the combination of the two together, made worse my the rainbow rock that was making me twitch a little. To make it worse, my audience (-er client) wants me to perfectly, and individually clean every since piece of her decor and put it back in the EXACT same position. So, I oblidge and do so.
I finally found the fish. One fish. A pajama cardinal. I felt SOOOO bad for him. I take extra special care to mix everything really, really well before dosing, as well as getting a touch of New Life Spectrum from my car for the poor thing. He looked like he hadn't been fed in months! I've never seen a sadder looking pj cardinal! I left her with detailed, standing instructions for day to day and weekly maintenance for in between my visits to help take care of the poor little guy and get both the tank and the fish in better shape.
By the time I'm FINALLY ready to go, it's 9:45. 2 and a half hours.
I get home to find my manager's chilling at the house.
Turns out, his client wasn't that great either.... to the point where it made me fell BETTER about my client. Only
his client had a 180 african cichlid tank with perhaps 200lbs or more of rock, and demanded that EVERY single rock get syphoned underneath and that my manager somehow manage to put EVERY single rock back in EXACTLY the same spot.
I felt a LOT better about my first client after hearing that.
This particular client insisted she only wanted maintenance once a month, so I got into the habit of calling two weeks later to schedule the next appointment. Three days before the maintenance, I would call to confirm (because we all know things come up). This goes on for two months before everything starts to derail.
I had her scheduled one early morning for a morning maintenance when she said that was the only time I could come up one week. I get to the gate to her complex and dial her number like usual, and NO ONE answers. The phone rings for a bloody fifteen minutes, but no one answers. I had to pull away from the gate to give her a call as other cars were honking to get in. It takes her a half an hour to decide to answer her phone after that. She informs me that the phone that her gate dials is broken and needs to be fixed. I'm told to follow another car in. Of course, when you WANT a car to be there, no one comes up to the gate for another fifteen minutes. It was awful, but I was willing to forgive her since she was my first client- despite ending up late for work since this wasted the hour window I had for working on her tank.
Right about here, I'd like to point something out about this gate nonsense. Her apartment complex's gate is insanely fast. It really and truly only lets one car through at a time, so I have to floor it to get my little Nissan through the gate without getting it hit by the gate. All this time I had been spending sitting out front, I had plenty of time to study both the stuff the back of my vanity mirror as well as the sign on the gate saying that drivers are responsible for any damage to their car or to the gate. I figured, however, this was a one time only deal, since she had a month between appointments.
Everything's a go for the next maintenance, and I confirmed with her for a rare second time the night before I was due out, so I packed my gear after work one night and get ready to go up, when I get a call from her. We had a 7:00 pm appointment. I get a call as I'm filling up the jugs that she can't meet with me that night. She needed to push it back to the next day. The next day, she calls while I'm on the way up to reschedule. She demands a maintenance the very next morning, citing that company would be arriving later in the day. I half-heartedly agree, but, since I have to open, the previous incident fresh in my mind.
Me: "Okay, so I'll see in the morning."
Lady: "Yep- see you then!"
Me: "Oh, wait! I almost forgot! Did you get your phone fixed?"
Lady: "No."
Me: "Uh.... is there another number or a gate code I can dial to get in?"
Lady: "No, just follow another car in like last time."
.... grr.
So, I go the next morning for my early morning maintenance, and there are no cars to be seen anywhere. I call her phone, repeatedly, but no one answers. After an hour of waiting, I decide that enough is enough and truck over to the local Waffle House to kill some time until she decides to call me. She never calls. I slowly savor three cups of coffee before giving up and heading to work. I call later that afternoon, thinking that maybe, just maybe, I could squeak her in after work before her company arrived. No answer. I call the next morning. No answer. Same thing the next day.
At this point, I'm starting to get concerned. Yeah, she's a terrible client, but it's been three days. I mean, yeah, I'm a Jersey Girl with a select list of a few people I wouldn't mind seeing dead, but this lady didn't yet warrant getting on that list.
She finally calls me back, apologizes profusely and asks me to reschedule. I say sure.
However, I have a small catch after the two previous incidents.
Me: "Is your phone fixed yet?"
Lady: "No..."
Me: "Do you have any intention of fixing it?"
Lady: "Not really. I don't use that phone anyway."
Me: "Have you had your complex switch your gate number to this number?"
Lady: "No."
Me: "Is there an access code?"
Lady: "No."
Me: "So, how am I supposed to get in?"
Lady: *happily* "Just follow another car in!"
Me: "No, that's not happening."
Lady: "But you've done it before."
Me: "Once, and I almost got hit by the gate! How about this? How about you meet me at the gate and let me in?"
Lady: *eeriely mockingly* "That's not happening."
Something snapped in me right about there. I couldn't control it. The Jersey came out again, and I was powerless to stop it! I understood the Mean Girls
"word vomit" concept all too well.
Me: "So, if my car gets hit by your gate one day, who's going to pay for that? Who's responsible? I mean, your complex signs clearly say that I'll be responsible for damages to the car and to the gate, but are you going to help me pay for that should something happen."
Lady: "Well, no. That would be your fault."
Me: "Because you're too lazy to walk to your gate, fix your phone, or, oh heavens no, call your leasing office to change the number that your gate access is referencing? Oh nos! It's all too difficult! You could die of exhaustion and dehydration in the less than 1/4 mile from your apartment to gate! The people at the cell phone store could, oh no, speak harshly to you! Or, oh, horrors, you could break all of your fingers dialing your leasing office!"
.... I recognize now that I probably have some anger management issues that I'm just politely calling my "Jersey Moments."
