We get a quarterly newsletter from the Soos Creek Water & Sewer District. Mostly, I view this as junk mail and don’t give it a second glance as it travels from our mailbox to the recycle bin. Honestly, how much breaking news does one’s sewer company generate, after all?
But one headline this time caught my attention. “Soos Creek employees go the extra mile for customer”. Thinking that I’ve been deprived of really positive stories of late, I paused to actually read this one. Can’t we all use some good news to warm our wintry hearts? Because of that, I’ve decided to share this story with you. (I did attempt to contact them for permission, but have gotten no reply to date, so if they decide that they don’t want to have this awesome story shouted from the rooftops, I’ll willingly retract this post.)
“Jason and Reggie are responsible for the maintenance of the sanitary system, including the sewer mains, manholes and stub services within the district. Soos Creek Water & Sewer District has over 519 miles of sewer pipe ranging from 6” to 42” in diameter.
“We received a phone call from a customer telling us an amazing story about Jason and Reggie. On Tuesday November 24, 2020, one of our customer’s young sons accidentally flushed both of his cochlear processors down the toilet. The devices cost thousands of dollars. After hearing this from his son, he shut the water off to the house, pulled out the toilet and took it apart. He couldn’t find them. He called a plumber who ran a video camera in the pipe from the house to the sewer main. The plumber couldn’t find them, either.
“The customer called Soos Creek Water & Sewer District, and Jason and Reggie reported to the site. The crew went through 8 manholes and 1415 feet of sewer main runs. They finally found the devices stuck to the access ladder in the manhole (the devices are magnetic). Jason and Reggie ‘worked their butts off in the pouring rain’, said the happy customer. Because our crew went the extra mile and showed an extraordinary measure of diligence and hard work, a boy will be able to hear his family again.
“’We have great employees at the district, and they are the most valuable assets of our organization. Thank you Jason and Reggie for going above and beyond your normal job duties’, said General Manager Ron Speer.”
I must say, this blogger is very impressed with this crew. They could have given up, as is often the case in bureaucracies, but they didn’t. They cared. They showed their humanity. They found what is effectively a needle in a very disgusting haystack. And the fact that that was not only acknowledged but also lauded by their employer is really remarkable in this day and age.
Every time I think of this I’m going to smile. And I’ll also wonder how badly that parent wanted to strangle that child.
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The View from a Drawbridge 