war stories

It’s 6am on Monday and the delightful peal of the Nokia ring tone, makes me cringe as to the reason for it, “ what friggin now” I think. I grit my teeth…
“Yo brooksy, listen, I ain’t coming in today, my kid got bit by the ****in dog and I was at the hospital till 3”
I ask, “who‘s this“?
It’s Jimmy!
I plead, “can’t your old lady take care of him“?
Jimmy retorts, “she gotta go get her hair done in Havertown“.

Now at this point I want to scream because I have jimmy scheduled to go to Bryn Mawr to meet the cabinet delivery and all the other guys MUST,MUST,MUST be where they are going…. ,

Beeeeep, it’s the other line , %$##$^^&$##@@@@!!!! I look at the caller id, it’s Steve, I tell Jimmy to hold on a sec.
I half jokingly scream WHAT!!!! into the phone.
Steve mumbles, “something’s wrong with my truck, it won’t start and I can’t use the old ladies car, she’s gotta lunch thing“.
”hold on” I grumble
Back to Jimmy, I lightly growl, “yo Jimmy what the hell, I told you on Friday I needed you to meet the cabinets in bryn mawr”
Jimmy unflinchingly , “what can I do, I gotta watch the kid”
Steve, holding for 10 seconds, hangs up.
( expletive deleted) I’ll call you back, I yell.

I redial Steve; no answer; I try again, no answer, ten more times, no answer. @#$%$%%####$%$%^%$###$%[email protected]@!!! I take a deep breath.

I have to cover for jimmy now, and I have no idea what Steve is doing; doloolooloo dooloolooloo dooloolooloo,-It’s Steve.
“ Sorry dude my phone was upstairs getting charged“ he explains, “wait a second it’s jimmy” he blurts.




STE….!!! I scream.
I wait.
Then I wait some more
I continue to wait
The waiting starts to be painful;------ my head begins to throb;----- my pulse is increasing; I think I may die……………… and ……………… Steve hangs up on me.


I can’t scream at these guys because if I even raise my tone a little bit, they’ll just say, “%$#@ you” I have worked with these guys for most of our working lives and I need to understand that , **** happens.

One of my guys is a former union tile installer; unfortunately he hates Mondays. Sometimes he’ll work 10 Mondays in a row, but when I have an extremely important job to do, scheduled for a Monday, he will, for some bizarre reason be nowhere to be found.
Now of course, this happens to be one of those Mondays. I start calling him at 7, no answer, I try at 7:30, still no answer, I leave a message; 8:00, still no answer.

I beat my cat mercilessly. ; )

I start calling every 5 minutes, letting it ring until the answering machine comes on and hanging up. I may as well be trying telepathy, it would probably get better results.

Now I still need to cover the cabinets at 10:00; I have to call the client with the tile job and make up some inane excuse as to why their bathroom that I promised will be tiled today, won’t.

I have two appointments at 10 and 11:30, of course they are miles from the cabinet delivery.

Again the nokia rears its’ ugly head; It’s the cabinet company, “ Robert”?
“Yes“, I reply.
“ We are down two trucks today, and we won’t be able to make the delivery” they inform me.
I wonder to myself if the dispatcher can hear me crying, I bite my tongue and ask “so I can pick them up, right“? I beg.
“sure” they gleefully reply.

Oh God, please in the name of all that is holy, I beg of You, send an asteroid to destroy the earth and all its inhabitants; I look up to the sky, no such luck!

God I love this business….