Back to Complaining

I was awakened to the sound of heavy rain this morning, and it took me a while to figure out that it's not rain, but a broken pipe -- luckily OUTSIDE my building. This is a pipe that leads from the basement to my garden and I guess the super never turned off the water. I can't find the super's number, but I remembered that the management company had an emergency number on their voice mail so I called that -- no such luck. No emergency number, just an annoying phone tree. I even tried pressing the code for "operator" and what I heard was pitiful... you know how you hear in the person's voice "JOE BLOW isn't available right now." and the name is in the guy's voice and "isn't available now" in the operator;s voice"?

Well, with this voice mail, it said GENERAL MAILBOX isn't available... Maybe General Mailbox is a retired military man???

So I went to the website for the management company and the "contact us" has no emergency number and the only way you can contact them is to fill out one of those annoying forms. I looked at the FAQ and lo and behold there's an emergency number. Tried it three times -- two times it rings and rings and then just stops, one time it rings and rings and then gives a busy signal.

 Back to the telephone number, and I pressed #3 for property managers, then pressed whatever number for the guy who is mine. Left him a voice mail about the spewing water as well as telling him that evidently the emergency number needs to be updated. I hate the waste of water but I feel I have now done my bit and that's all I can do.


15 minutes later: OK, I'm impressed. The water has been turned off. No more spewing water. Either he called his voice mail just at the right moment or it's sent to his smart phone. At one of my clients where I have an extension, they upgraded the system and now rather than having to check that voice mail box, the voice mail goes to my computer. Great system.