Work

Its that time of the year PB, the phones are ringing but I don't want a lot now, I'm cherrypicking little jobs, tomorrow I,m fitting a trv in a a house, then thats it for the day,
But first I have to get up early because my lads car has broken down, So i'm running him to work at 6.30am then i'll have to pick him up again at 5pm, If I had't booked that job in, I would have lent him my car, You try to make your life easy and there's always some one fucks it up for you,

he's just a labrador for a building firm, he served his time with me as a plumber, but he never had the 'go' in him, I tried hard to make him understand but I wasted 5 years on him and he wasted 5 years of his life, he's one of lifes drifters, he works every day but does not want responsibility, he's happy filling skips,loading and unloading wagons, he needs someone to tell him what to do always, he still lives with myself and mrs plum, he's 30 years old now, he lives for football,rugby,darts,cricket in fact any sports, he plays rugby and likes to keep fit, I keep hoping he'll find a girl to ruin his fun, I think he's too smart for that, smiley-confused002asak2

I'm getting offered 5 or 6 jobs a day, booked out til half way through next week and actually cancelling and refusing work now with the old dear being in hospital.
So just cherry picking easy stuff.
One cherry picked job I did on Saturday.
Split diaphragm in a syphon, I thought one hour max so agreed to a 3pm slot, nice timing to get home, have some food then go visiting at 6.
Got there and unfortunately it wasn't a syphon you can take apart without removing the cistern and that was going smimmingly until I got to the awkward to get at wingnut, the one a couple of inches from the wall. Rusted solid, and for some reason the fibre washer in the connection to the fill valve wasn't there, whoever fitted it used a load of PTFE to seal it.
Gets my hacksaw out and started cutting through the wingnut, 10 minutes later I'm about 2mm through, only had about an inch of blade movement so was hard going, tried the multitool but just couldn't get an angle on it and I was doing it all by touch as couldn't get my head in there. So back to the blade.  After about an hour I was almost through, left arm killing me by now - I'm not used to such repetetive movements with my left arm
Finally got it off, but I had stupidly told the customer a push button flush valve would be better because future replacements can be done from the top.  Didn't have one in stock and was in Westhoughton, which Tom may know - on a saturday from westhoughton to anywhere that sells plumbing stuff is about 10 miles on stop start roads, so took about an hour to go get a fluidmaster flush valve.
Anyway, it went on nicely, put it all back together with a new closed couple kit, job's a good un.  Reconnected the overflow, reconnected the fill valve (a delchem torbeck copy) and filled up, all working, About 5:45 now so took a lot longer than expected but hospital visit still doable if I grab a chippy tea.
Had a feel of the pipework and it's pissing out of the connection to the fill valve.  I had replaced the wedge of PTFE with a fibre washer so was a head scratcher, the thread looked fine until I got a mirror out and looked at the back of it.

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Sods law, when I first undid it I noticed it was stiff all the way off, I should have known really.

There was no way I was leaving a leak and I didn't want a call back from resealing with PTFE like the original installer, so decided to swap it for a brass shank one.  Have one of the £6 Screwfix specials in stock with a brass shank, fitted that but the shorter shank on them meant the hard pipework didn't reach and there wasn't enough exposed to alter it.
Made the decision to go to the only place open on the way to the hospital, pick up a fluidmaster pro with brass shank, do my shorter than normal visit, come back and finish off.
When I got back at 8:45 it took 5 minutes to finish off.
Was 9:15 when I was sitting down eating.

That was my quick job that I cherry picked. smiley-whacky086 fan shit

Thing is, when you're  pushed for time you always seem to get the awkward ones.
When you have other commitments the phone never stops ringing either.
What's that all about?

   We seem to have enough day to day work at the moment.

   I work for a large housing management company, in a small section that do responsive repairs.
   so we have to be "ready to go" so to speak.

   Hence, I hardly ever have any big jobs booked in and any planning is almost out of the window at anytime!

I find no problem getting work, it's just getting that work balance right, so you manage your life and fit it all in and keep everyone happy, but it proves tricky.

Shame about your boy Tom, he'll eventually realise he can't work hard in later life as that abundance of energy will be gone, then he'll wish he had of listened to your pearls of wisdom.

loved your post JC, cause some days I think is it possible so many this can go against me, but you've had it tougher, cause I've never had to risk an important hospital visit