Many years ago I had a boyfriend who was a plumber. I assumed he knew what he was doing. After all, he got a paycheck for it week after week, year after year. So when friends needed plumbing, I’d recommend him. If he did it as a side job, they’d save money and he’d earn a little extra. Sounded like a win/win situation to me.
But last week I was talking to a friend who had taken my recommendation and allowed my ex to completely repipe his house several years ago. Things seemed fine for a while, but then all hell broke loose. He experienced several problems at once, including raw sewage coming up in his bathtub. Ick.
So he called my ex and asked him to come out and fix it, and was told he’d try to fit it in sometime this week. My friend said, “Dude, you don’t understand. There’s raw sewage. I need you to come right away.” My ex said he’d call him back, but he never did, and he never replied to my friend’s subsequent messages. This demonstrates the distinct lack of integrity that led to our break up in the first place. As far as I’m concerned, if you take someone’s money, you should stand by your work.
So my friend called another plumber, and $4,000.00 later, his problem was solved. But the guy showed him pictures of what my ex had done. Nothing was in compliance. Pipes that were supposed to be strapped down to joists, for example, were simply resting on cinder blocks. Pipes were inadequately glued together and were leaking. And some things that he did made absolutely no sense at all. This plumber had never seen anything like it.
I was mortified. I felt responsible for getting him into this mess. He would never have gone with my ex if it weren’t for my recommendation. He told me not to worry about it. He said, “We both learned a very valuable lesson.”
My lesson, above all, is that from now on I will only make a recommendation if I’m 1000 percent certain about that person’s work quality and integrity, because you never know when it will come back to haunt you.
[Image credit: dailymail.co.uk]
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