If It Ain't Broke, Don't Fix It!

Just before I left for the holidays, I noticed that the faucet in the tub in my master bathroom was starting to get a little bit stiff. By the time I returned almost two weeks later, it had ceased up completely and was impossible to turn on. (Luckily, I have a shower in my second bathroom, so I wasn't reduced to trying to conduct a sponge bath out of the sink. I don't, however, have even a shower curtain in that bathroom yet, so "showering" was still a bit of a challenge.)

I called the property manager's office on Tuesday and and filed a work order. They said they wouldn't be able to get to it that day, but Wednesday for sure. Wednesday came and went and still no fixed faucet. Wednesday night, I swung by the office and the attendant assured me that Thursday would be the day.

"Your request is right at the top of the list!"

I got home around 9:30 pm after work on Thursday and the faucet was STILL not fixed, so first thing on Friday, I called the property manager's office again.

"We're so sorry, one of our maintenance staff had a personal emergency and so we are short one person right now. We will definitely have this taken care of today for you!"

After work on Friday, I went out with a good friend of mine and stumbled home after midnight. I flipped the light on in the kitchen and... Eureka! The maintenance guy had been there! He left a copy of the work order on the kitchen counter with the word "COMPLETED" scrawled in big, bold letters. I almost skipped to the bathroom, so happy to have my shower back, but my happiness was short-lived because when I reached for the faucet control, it wouldn't budge. Ugh. For the hour and ten minutes the guy was in my apartment, was he just watching TV or something?? Because he clearly didn't even touch the ailing bathtub faucet.

I went to bed and resolved to deal with it in the morning.

This morning, on my way to the gym, I dropped into the property management office (with the copy of the "completed" work order) and explained that the faucet was just as bad as ever. The attendant immediately offered to have someone take care of it that morning and off I went to the gym.

When I came back from the gym, the plumber was just finishing up and he said, "You know what the problem was?"

Um, no.

"Yeah, the guy yesterday? He fixed the OTHER tub."

Come again?

"Yeah, he fixed the faucet in the other room -- guess he was confused about which bathroom," he said with a jovial shrug.

The fact that one faucet worked and the other did not was not a strong enough clue?