For farmers it’s harvest season and for retic blokes it’s late spring or early summer where life ramps up and you just run hard. It’s partly about ‘making hay’ and partly about trying to help the people you’ve come to know over a long period time.
Here’s what my Wednesday looked like:
6.00 hazy prayer and I think I read a Psalm
6.30 on the road to the first job
7.00 bang on the door and a sleepy owner answers looking like he may have forgotten our appointment. I begin to swap his retic controller out and at 7.05 the first phone call comes in. ‘Am I coming today?…’ Its from someone who called last week but never did get back to me, so unlikely… I tell him to text the address and if the day goes well maybe I will squeeze it in. I change a couple of nozzles and keep moving.
7.40 arrive Mindarie to fix a seized solenoid. The owner is running late but when he arrives it seems the solenoid has unseized… nice… for me… he looks puzzled… I do a couple of small repairs and hit the road. An hour job becomes 10 minutes. I’m glad because my hands have been sore and the less work I have to do today the better.
7.55 also in Mindarie, apparently a solenoid that has stuck open this time, but when I get there it is working fine. I call the owner – a regular – who says he didn’t really check it out that closely so maybe I’m right. Another few nozzles changed and I’m on the road by 8.20 and driving past the school to pick up some pipe I had left at home and that Sam was going to bring down… except he forgot… bugger…
8.30 Ridgewood – a ‘fuse’ message – a typical issue for Irritrol controllers, but in keeping with the day it won’t misbehave with me present. I advise the owner we can either do nothing and I will just charge a call out or we can change the controller over because it will recur… so he does. I mount a new controller while discussing with him his marriage, history of mental illness, bad experience with church and Christians and then discover the controller is DOA. So I start again… that’s annoying. (The controller not the conversation)
9.15 Heading south to Kinross to do some work for a real estate agent. I know what the problem is so should be an easy fix. Another controller swap over, a few sprinklers and I’m on my way to Currambine to hunt for solenoids.
10.10 Currambine now… Five jobs knocked over and it’s only 10am – it’s a good feeling to be running ahead as it’s heating up. I arrive to finish a job I started the week before. It’s for a new real estate agency who have signed me up. It’s a pain in the butt job but it’s a foot in the door with a new crew. There are logical places to locate solenoids and then there are real dumbarse places – like right next to the kerb where they can get driven over. After 20 minutes of tracing and wondering I finally realise what has happened. My solenoid detector does its thing and I find them and fix them. There are a few little glitches that get wearying in the pre-seabreeze heat but I’m done by 11.30 and ready to have some lunch.
11.30 Maccas in Currambine – Classic Angus meal (small) while I catch my breath, send some invoices, clear emails and read the paper. The coke goes down well…
12.00 Padbury – another controller swap out that takes all of 15 minutes in the shade of a patio. A nice bloke and an easy job. I keep waiting for the day to turn to excrement… inevitably the next job will be a broken wire that I have to dig up the entire yard to find, or a solenoid deep in tree roots… That’s usually how it rolls.
12.45 Carine – I remember the morning phone call, so figure I can squeeze this bloke in. Its a bit out of my normal area, but an older man is having trouble with his controller so I figure it could be another easy job. I arrive and he begins to point out where every solenoid and sprinkler is in his entire system… I just want to know what’s wrong! Anyway I listen patiently – and then I eventually tell him I don’t need to know this stuff and we look at his controller. It’s fine – he just didn’t know how to set it. I set it then try to escape.
1.15 I’m running out of control boxes so I drop in at Total Eden in Joondalup to see the guys and pick up some supplies. I’d like to hang around and chat, but I have a couple more jobs to squeeze in. The manager gives me an early Christmas present – a Milwaukee impact driver – not something I have a lot of use for but I’m sure Gumtree will help out!
1.45 Kinross – a call came in while I was on the road – a riser stuck in a fitting – please help. I can spare 5 minutes for a regular. And a backyard retic quote please?… established yard with lots of paving to lift… this isn’t going to be a pretty quote. And yet I win the job anyway…
2.00 Iluka – an elderly man is concerned about this lawn not looking good. I laid it 5 years ago and he wants me to drop in and check it out. I want to keep moving both but I promised him I would check it out, so I do. Black beetle – just like I told him on the phone. I don’t stop to talk to him because I will be there for half an hour easily. Its funny how as some people get older their world gets smaller and the tiniest things become major issues for discussion.
2.30 Mindarie again – a controller swap out – yet again. It’s an easy day and this one is a quick job.
3.00 Off to Ocean Drive Quinns Rocks – to see a lady with another dodgy controller. As I drive along the beach front I recognise the car in front. Its Chucky my larrikin, carpenter mate from just around the corner. He pulls over and pull up alongside. We chat for a while until I need to get off the road. A 15 minute interlude ends with me off to do more work and him going for a swim.
I’m glad I restocked on controllers because another one gets swapped out. While I’m there Susan calls and tells me her retic I fixed last week isn’t fixed after all… (and I’m an idiot) ok.. I will be back. I’d been back once and she was wrong about the issue. I think she is wrong again, but her tone tells me she isn’t convinced. Sometimes people are right – I do get stuff wrong – and sometimes it’s another issue entirely. But those who default to ‘blame the retic bloke’ in the first instance go to the bottom of the queue.
3.30 heading home and one job left in Eglinton. That’ll be my 13th job for the day. ‘My sprinklers won’t pop up’. so I get there and discover one broken sprinkler affecting the rest. I fix it and I’m now really ready to head home, but I notice the other sprinklers are all dodgy… What to do… I want to bale, but I let the owner know as I can’t look away, so I’m there a bit longer changing them out. By this point I am over it…
4.00 Now I’m driving home… and trying to clear voicemail that has accumulated as I drive. it’s been a good day and a pretty easy one all things considered. The ugly job didn’t turn up and I managed to get everything done.
4.15 home for a couple of frosty fruits, a coffee, and an hour of invoicing, returning calls and writing quotes.
On days like these I remember why I love autumn, when work start at 8.00am and the cool breeze makes being outside a pleasure.
The phone rarely rings and it’s just a few jobs for the day before trundling home about 2 to go for a surf or walk the dog. I get to stop and linger with people, have that cup of tea, look them in the eye.
But for now it’s psycho season and I will run hard… and sleep well.