"The Rules" For Plumbers & HVAC Technicians

(Very Loosely Inspired By "The Rules: Time-Tested Ways Of Capturing The Heart Of Mr. Right", by Fein & Schneider)

By
H. Kent Craig


  1. Never, never, NEVER return a customer's phone calls, until you're sure their will is nearly broken and their spirit beaten down. So what if it's just a stopped-up toilet or broken fan on their furnace, they need you a whole lot more than you need them, you're the one that has special thing that few have called a professional occupational license, so let 'em beg, it helps them grow as individuals. And, in the end, they'll be that much more thankful and grateful that you finally did give in and fix their leaky faucet or add some Freon to their A/C system.
  2. If they accuse you of playing hard-to-get, respond with a "well, if you really feel that way...I'm not playing hard-to-get, I am hard-to-get, why do you think I have a cell phone and pager and satphone and on and on, I do have so many other customers to choose from besides just you, you'll just have to wait your turn, Sweety".
  3. Make sure you tease them with that sexy view of your buttcrack as you bend down to fix their kitchen sink trap or clean their heatpump coils. There's nothing wrong with showing a little bit flesh, a tiny bit of what more might be hidden inside those stained and dirty jeans, let their imagination run wild with anticipation as you wipe the detritus from your sexily-pipe-refuse-stained hands onto the free denim near where your anal decolletage blends into infinity.
  4. Customers think spitting chewing tobacco expectorants on their prized rose bushes is so cute, and it helps kill any slugs eating on the stems, too!
  5. Don't show signs of any obvious intelligence. You know customers just don't like to be emotionally threatened by someone who speaks in complete sentences, or who knows any words over two syllables. If they had wanted a rocket scientist to clean out their septic tank or run some flexduct in the attic to a new ceiling register, they'd have hired one, not called you. Dyeing your hair blond and answering all questions posed to you with a "'way, Dude!" is acceptable.
  6. A clean service truck is the sign of a dirty and perverted mind. Make sure you keep enough floormat garbage handy so that at least some spills out every time you open the side or rear door. Having three or four empty Budweiser cans hit the customer's concrete driveway with pleasantly tinkling sounds shows your good taste both in New Age music and in fine alcoholic spirits. Your customer will also be most appreciative that you subtly reminded them to check the treaddepth for their tires when they pick up a nail in one you so thoughtfully dropped while searching for your lost roachclip inside your truck's built-in toolbox.
  7. Always leave a nice, smelly mess for your customers to clean up after you've left. Really now, do you think you work for your customers, or your customers work for you?
  8. When checking a commode for proper flushing action after you've fixed it, make sure you piss all around the commode itself and actually hit inside the bowl just a tad. When checking a furnace or A/C unit out in a basement or crawlspace, make sure you use the toxic and odoriferous outdoor coil cleaner, instead of the bearable and less noxious indoor kind. That way, if any other technicians ever come behind you, they'll smell your scent, and leave your territory immediately.
  9. Repeatedly scratching and adjusting the position of your genitals inside your pants within eyesight of your customer is just an easy, non-obvious way of signaling to your customer that "hey, Mr. or Mrs. Customer, I love you".
  10. Make sure that your handwriting on the service ticket that you leave them is undecipherable. It is a private note of affection between you and them, after all, not meant to be translated by prying eyes back at the office or even by them, if they can't read the affection pouring forth from your wanton gaze. Chicken-scratch-grade scribbling also reinforces your lack of basic intelligence, making you even more attractive in their eyes (look at physicians and their chicken-scratch ways...don't they always get the best customers?).
  11. When a customer offers you a soft drink to slake your thirst after sweating a few gallons of sweat while underneath their house, shoot them a sweetly sly, coy look, then give them a polite kiss on their cheek to show them how much you appreciate the thought. Your soot-and-dirt imprint of your lips on their rosy cheek will make them feel special, will have them thinking "hey, I just might call this guy again...he's impossible to reach, but he's worth it".
  12. Never kill a customer's pet with the .22 you keep in your ankle holster before the animal actually gets within ten feet of you, then offer not to sue for being so horribly traumatized by their vicious and possibly rabid chihuahua or American Short-Hair pet's near-attack on you, if they'll go ahead and settle up for a few hundred bucks cash on the spot. Your customer will think you're an expensive date, but worth every penny because of your good and generous heart.
  13. Never, never give the virginity of the job to your customer, until that customer puts that ring on your finger. Your customer not only expects you to hem and haw and shuffle your feet and do a couple of "gee-whiz's" and talk in the most general terms of what kind of relationship you two might could have but more importantly speak in the broadest possible terms of ranges of price, we all do have our price after all, don't we, Dearie? Only when your customers put that ring of resignation on your finger, when their shoulders droop and they get that special look of hopelessness in their eyes that tells you that you, by using these rules of engagement to get engaged, have finally won them over and they're yours now and forever or until you tire of them, when they say those magic, last words of freedom they'll ever say in your presence "okay, enough of this, bottom line, how much is this really gonna cost me?", do you smile and open your legs as you pull your scratchpad and pen from your pantspocket and pretend to figure something up before showing them that special hole into which their wallet is soon to be poured, finally giving them your virginity for that job, and helping revive them with smelling salts so they can sign on the bottom line.

    And, girls and boys, the nice thing about that kind of job virginity is that you can stay a virgin almost forever, 'just keep giving and giving and giving your job virginity away indefinitely, but of course always for a price!




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