I finally got the filters changed on my well today. It was more than two months after their annual change date and everything was encrusted with dirt.
When I tried to contact the company earlier, its voice mail was full. I mentioned Monday I had gotten put off when I called again. After I didn’t hear Tuesday morning, I tried again around noon. The person had gotten the note, but hadn’t bothered to call.
It’s not that they were that busy. She scheduled the service for the next morning. When no one showed up yesterday, I called at noon. Oh, they’d had an emergency, but hadn’t bothered to let me know. She thought he could come late in the day, but called later to say he couldn’t. I spent most of the day in the house waiting for the phone to ring.
He appeared this morning. I asked if the company had stayed open, and he said it was considered an essential business. During the time when people were shopping in a panic, he said the office got so many calls the service people couldn’t keep up. Individuals were afraid they wouldn’t have water.
It was the same irrational fear that led people to buy up the bottled water supply. My local grocery still has a limit of three bottles of drinking water per customer per visit.
Then, the reign of terror set in. The number of calls declined, and the company reduced its staff. He said people treated them with fear. One person sprayed him with disinfectant before he could enter the house. Those chemicals aren’t made for use on human beings.
After that, he said the company stopped servicing filtration units in homes. It did continue to do ones in wells, garages, and other outside places. He and his co-workers had no desire to be near strangers who could be carrying the coronavirus, and whose houses were unknown environments.
We agreed people couldn’t be trusted. It wasn’t just that they could be asymptomatic carriers. There were ones who would lie about their physical condition because they didn’t want to be inconvenienced.
He reminded me Santa Fé has a lot of wealthy people who constantly fly in and out. They are the ones who are most likely to be carriers, and often the most self-centered.
When last I checked, Santa Fé had had 126 people test positive for coronavirus and three die. We were still at a total of 33 on March 19, of which nine cases had appeared after May 1.
Things have calmed down now. The customers the service people see have settled into the coronavirus routine.
Service calls are still a bit like the meeting of two dogs. Each walks around the other, deciding if it’s safe to get closer.
I had on a mask when I opened the gate, both because of the bad air and the virus. He put his on as soon as he got ready to get out of the truck. I have no idea if he wore it in the well. I was elsewhere in the yard, within shouting distance if there was a problem.
I had to sign some paper before he started. Would I trust his pen, or did I want to supply my own? I didn’t have one with me, so took the chance. It’s not something I would have thought of, but he’d seen customers with varying levels of fear.
When I realized the company had been open all along, I mentioned the full voice mail. It was purchased by an out-of-state company some years ago, and its central office tried to handle answering the phones. I gather the local office staff was part of the reduction in forces.
Then he said there were problems with the phone system, which still weren’t resolved. He wasn’t sure if it was Century Link or ComCast. Working remotely has taxed the technical knowledge of many and uncovered limitations in their hardware and software.
I haven’t talked with anyone other than my one friend who has admitted having had the virus, or knowing someone who did. However, everyone I meet is either in the at-risk group or has a family member who is. The serviceman said his mother and mother-in-law were in that pool and his wife was close. In addition, there were children in the home.
He hadn’t much like working the past few weeks, but he had few options. He was a manager, not a technician, and had been pressed into service.
In the end, I didn’t get a receipt. Supposedly, someone will email me one. I foresee more phone calls at long distance rates to get services that should be routine.
Sources:
Wikipedia. "2020 Coronavirus Pandemic in New Mexico." Checked on May 21, but last updated May 19.
No comments:
Post a Comment