Top Three Excuses a Narcissistic Plumber Pulls Out of His Ass

Noah's Ark with Pink Unicorns 15-16th century

Top Three Excuses a Narcissistic Plumber Pulls Out of His Ass:

Excuse number one: "You turned on the outside faucet and forgot to turn it off!"

Excuse number two: "Your nephew turned on the outside faucet and forgot to turn it off!"

Excuse number three: "Your outside faucet turned itself on!" 

We had a water problem last week which prompted me to consider the symbolism and meaning of water since four times already in this house, water percolated through ceilings and trickled down walls. Two times our family room was flooded when an outside faucet froze in the icy winds glazing the southeast corner of our home.

Three years in this house and my bedroom looked like a zen waterfall when rain gushed from roof spouts faster than gutters offloaded the autumn deluge, subsequently rippling across hand-plastered hand-painted walls. You know those Japanese slab fountains at Costco? That was my bedroom. Then last week, water seeped through the basement carpeting, threatening to turn my office into a floating book pond. I had been writing on my computer when deciding to play a CD that was in a box in the corner in my office in time. The bottom of the box was damp and that is how we caught flood #4 in a house that's only eight years old and assumed to be safe for families. The four of us are now suffering debilitating symptoms of para-Noah. Yea, bad joke but kinda funny if you've studied trauma cry-teria. Okay okay, I'll stop with the sn-ARKS. Unicorns. Seriously? If you love this painting, leave a comment. Please leave two comments side-by-side because one comment won't multiply and replenish my self-esteem.

Imagine my shame calling plumbers four times to a house that cost my life savings yet can't do what four sticks and a tarp accomplish: keep my feet dry. I don't understand if there's a spiritual message in repetitive floodings or a lawsuit against my builder which would never succeed in a state that supports capitalists, not divorced women who hate marriage more than zen waterfalls in bedrooms. Just kidding about hating marriage. I love marriage but hate divorce and you'd best like both if you're making vows these days.

Two days prior to the office flood, plumbers had installed a whole-house water purification system. They had also installed a new water heater since the former was springing a leak. Because the afore-mentioned builder had walled over the shut-off valve for our house, the plumber had to go outside to a manhole next to the street in order to close the main waterline. No problem. Lots of people have homes without indoor shut-off valves. I can picture the plumber in my mind's eye as I type: walking confidently to the street; figuring out where the water line enters our home; spying an outside faucet that if left open, would relieve pressure when he turned the water back on. And so he did. He wrenched the handle six times and left it open, thus sayeth me. I did not see him do this when he did-eth it, only in my mind's eye after the emergency phone call two days later.

Same Company, Different Plumber

As soon as I felt the office carpeting squishing under my feet, I called the same company who sent a different plumber who showed up in less than ten minutes. He was on his way home. He lived nearby. And he loved my living room draperies which would have been perfect in his theater room he said. Musta cost a pretty penny he said. We went downstairs to my office so he could hear the squishy carpet and see the streaming knotty alder baseboards. He speculated that maybe the extensive plumbing work had messed with the pressure regulator, inconveniently located somewhere behind the wall in my office. He didn't know exactly where for sure but in order to stop the tsunami, he needed permission to cut holes in my sheet-rock, destroy my wallpaper of which I have no extra, and install a new regulator and permanent access panel for the shut-off valve. I'm thinking ugly access panel. I'm thinking 'whack-a-mole' hole punches across my wallpaper. I'm thinking squishy carpeting isn't so bad.

After describing what "might" be the problem and triggering my naturally-catastrophic-imagination, he asked, "Did you know the faucet by your front door is running?"

On our way back up the stairs, he questioned who in our house might have left the front faucet running and had it been running all winter because he'd noticed a wisteria tree floating down the street, was it ours? He was sure the flood in my office had been caused by Vinca Minor run-off. We went outside to close the water faucet which took six wrenches of the handle before he stopped Niagara Falls. "I really think this is your problem," he said, his boots now mired in mud. "I would suggest making a notation the next time you turn on an outdoor faucet so this never happens again." Stern eye. Like my Dad's. Feeling ashamed of myself now.

We went back in the house and back downstairs to stare at the wall and talk about it being against building code to sheet-rock over regulators and shut-off valves which upset me even more because it triggered my divorced-woman-vulnerability to unethical contractors and how inept I am on my own. Another thought comes to mind, "Find builder. Send hate mail."

What I wanted to explain in telling this story is how stupid we can be when the unexpected happens. How hard it is to think clearly when running back and forth with precious books in hand because they'd been piled in the corner because you spent your time writing instead of organizing. And the whole time you're stacking books in a dry family room thank God, you're kicking yourself for procrastination and sloth. I wanted to explain how trusting we are when someone speaks with authority about something we know nothing about when what we do know is that antique curios can't sit on soggy carpeting without ruining their clawed feet. They must be rescued even while plumbers call buddies with thermal devices operating like X-ray vision for walls.

While rescuing my signed Robert Sapolsky and checking for heart-breaking book damage, I hear the plumber say, "Yes, I'll let her know. $150 for a house call and $300 an hour for labor," and my mind preoccupied itself with another impending disaster calculating the balance in my checking account, the limit on my Visa. The whole time I'm doing five things at once and hoping sciatica doesn't crimp me over like a paper staple, the plumber waits like an elementary school principal calling wayward students to task. I wanted to write about how hard it is to reason in unreasonable situations.

While the plumber phoned his buddy, my nephew and I rescued files that should have been put away but were't for the same reason my books were on the floor. "I don't know how long she left that faucet on," we hear him tell Wally X-ray. "Her water must have been running a long LONG time. Definitely longer than two days." His face expresses deep concern now, appearing a little too fake for a woman who divorced a rat bazturd.

"I didn't turn the faucet on," I insisted, facing my nephew who was getting the plumber's evil eye as the second most likely culprit. He insisted he hadn't either. Then my nephew's analytic Aspergers kicked in: "We aren't even watering our lawn this early in the season Aunt Tatie, and the hoses are still in the garage," he said. A moment of clarity for me.

"Why would we wrench the faucet six times," I proposed, "letting it run full-blast without a hose?" The plumber stiffened his face to look as authoritarian as any boomer's father worth-his-WWII-medals and said, "The only plausible explanation is that the pressure built up and your faucet turned on by itself!"

Now I don't know why any woman in her right mind would believe him, but I did. Momentarily. Momentarily, while my racing mind was trying to make sense of shut-off valves and regulators, water pressure and people who pull excuses out of their asses. And that is something else I wanted to write about. We suspend disbelief when we're stressed and anxious, trusting that someone with more expertise than ourselves will resolve the crisis. When questioning their certainty takes too much time and energy, we yield to their competence. We need to save our furniture. We need to save our books. Who cares why they're floating. Just stop the water, rescue the valuables and sort everything out later when the furniture's safe. We focus on the immediate problem; we aren't focused on assigning blame. The narcissist focuses on blame and takes advantage of confusion.

We climbed the stairs to the front door. "Since I live nearby and was on my way home," the plumber paused to smile generously, "I won't charge you for the service call. It's my pleasure to serve our loyal customers."

Keep your feet dry! Even IF you're a curio cabinet!

By the time we had climbed the stairs to say goodbye, my Inner Autodidact had wised up to the plumber's pseudo-magnanimity. I felt an overwhelming urge to spit in his eye but didn't because my little sister tried that with Dad and the consequences landed her in therapy.

Suddenly I knew, just KNEW the plumber had noticed the open faucet when he first rang our door bell. When he saw that running faucet and knew his company had been there two days prior, his clean-up job changed to assigning blame & avoiding responsibility; exaggerating costs & increasing my fear (how relieved I was when all it took was six wrenches of the handle); watching my reactions and gauging how well he was doing protecting the company from restoration costs. He was likely proud of having saved carpet cleaning fees, refinishing baseboards and paying for water-logged books worth at least five cents each. (Except for my signed Monkey Luv which must be worth a fortune because my daughter gave it to me as a gift. She finds it utterly hilarious that her Mom thinks Robert Sapolsky  is hot).

Moral of the story

When it comes to business, company profits encourage people to trespass ethical boundaries without shame, yea even moral boundaries considering the plumber is my neighbor and a church goer. The message to employees in a narcissistic society is to never admit culpability. Never take responsibility if you can confuse a client into blaming herself or her nephew. Be honest with the client and get fired. Never feel bad about lying because you're doing the right thing for the good of the company. 

Personal relationships have been tainted by contemporary business practices say I, reducing human relationships to a cost benefit analysis. When society's highest value IS the bottom line, the love boat sustaining all our lives is most assuredly destined to sink. 

Hugs,

CZ

Resources 

Commerce (Business) Without Morality (Ethics) "I once met a man who for five years served as the "ethics director" for a major aerospace company. He finally resigned the post in protest and considered leaving the company, even though he would lose a big salary and benefit package. He said that the executive team had their own separate set of business ethics and that they were deep into rationalization and justification. Wealth and power were big on their agendas, and they made no excuse for it anymore. They were divorced from reality even inside their own organization..." ~Stephen Covey 

Narcissism Impairs Ethical Judgement Even Among the Highly Religious 2012. "Although high levels of narcissism can impair ethical judgment regardless of one's religious orientation or orthodox beliefs, narcissism is more harmful in those who might be expected to be more ethical, according to a Baylor University study published online in the Journal of Business Ethics."

An interesting research study on narcissism: 2013 "Many believe that enhanced levels of materialism may be disproportionately present in university business students, and some have gone so far as to argue that this is, at least partly, the result of business schools advocating materialistic greed, profit, and the acquisition of wealth over all other goals." ~Narcissism, Materialism, and Environmental Ethics in Business Students by Bergman et al.