Unexpected Problems (or This Is Why I’m Glad I Rent)

Again, this is not a blog I expected to write. But things happen in life that make you think about how you react to them and this is one of those situations.

It’s the middle of another heat wave here in LA, and I’m definitely cranky again. It’s a combination of the heat, lack of sleep, and bad nutrition (because I know I’m making bad food choices while it’s triple digits here).

So I wasn’t in the best mood yesterday morning when an employee from the gas company came to my door to let me know that they had to turn off my gas. What he told me was a pipe was old and it cracked. Later, I found out that the gas company was attaching a new meter and they cracked a pipe. And it was just over the boundary that makes it my (or my landlord’s) responsibility and not the gas company’s responsibility.

Of course this happened before I had a chance to take a shower in the morning. And while a cold shower does sound refreshing, I prefer it to be cool with a bit of warm water. Not ice cold. There was no way to get the gas turned back on until the pipe was repaired and the gas company man left me with some paperwork explaining what needs to happen next as well as a citation saying what needs to be fixed.

Fortunately, I was working from home with my recruiting job until 2pm yesterday so I was able to call my landlord and leave a voicemail saying that this needed to be fixed ASAP. And since sometimes they don’t get my messages, I also emailed him.

This is where my attitude could have been adjusted. I was so mad that I got a voicemail for my landlord. The house I live in now is the first place I’ve lived where I didn’t have on-site management. I’m not used to being able to reach people immediately to fix things. I tried calling my landlord every 30 minutes until I got through to someone. Finally, I got through and they said that they were sending the plumber to fix things.

I really didn’t have patience yesterday for any of this. I know that I wasn’t a pleasant person to deal with, and I regret that I didn’t take a breath and try to deal with things with a better attitude.

Right before I had to leave for day job #2 in the box office (where I’m so happy they have air conditioning), the plumber as well as my landlord got to my place. They promised that it would be fixed by the time I got home from work, so I left and they worked on it.

While I was at work, I called the gas company to figure out how to get the gas turned back on, and the gas company was at my door a few minutes after I walked in.

I’m glad that somehow this all got done in a day. I really wasn’t that inconvenienced even though it felt that way. And I’m super happy that I didn’t have to pay for any of the repairs done to the gas line. I don’t have that type of money to spare and if I had to pay for it myself, I don’t know what I would have done.

Hopefully, this type of situation won’t happen again in the future, but if it does, I’m really going to work on my patience and having a better attitude about it. Having a nasty attitude really didn’t help anything get done quicker and it made my day kind of stink.

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