I arrived at work late. I had to stop by the school for my daughter’s matters. The sun was already up, and in the fields lay dazed cows, overwhelmed by the amount of food. They could no longer chew.
First client: A private house. On the right is the living area, on the left — the workspace. The workspace is for doctors. A father and daughter. Several offices. Everything is white, of course. The air conditioner is leaking. I check — it’s not leaking. So, I noted in the report that I flushed the drain. Well, I really did rinse it with water while checking if it was working.
Second client. Some factory that makes large metal things. The workshops. There’s a smell of burning metal in the air. They’re assembling some giant beams, probably for bridges. But my job is in the office. I made it to the office. Water is leaking, they say. I’m figuring it out. There’s a shower of water. The previous guy forgot to screw all the bolts back in, and the tray fell off at the wrong time. I cleaned up the water. I cleaned the tray. A hose is coming straight from the tray. There’s no float switch anywhere. I climbed up to the roof to check the pump. Aha, there’s the problem — the hose, made of clear plastic, has completely deteriorated in the sun and just split in half. I should replace the whole hose, but the previous workers made everything so hard to repair. Everything is sealed and taped up — well, to keep the rain from pouring into the office. I somehow connected the ends together with some makeshift solution. I noted that down, just in more formal terms, in the report. I checked the other pumps. One is installed in such a way that the hose is pinched. It probably never worked at all. Aha, exactly, that air conditioner was rarely turned on, so the water never had a chance to rise above the tank level. The pump says “cannot operate continuously.” I’m looking for a float again. No luck. Hmm. It turns out the pump is activated by the air conditioner and runs all the time while the air conditioner is on. That’s not right. But it’s not my problem. I packed everything up, cleaned the area, submitted the report for signature, and said hello!
A regular customer. A jewelry shop. Diamonds and all that. “Our people.” But it turned out there was a leak in the neighboring hotel, even though the air conditioning was from that shop. While I was waiting for the hotel administrator, I chatted with the jeweler and his neighbor in our native language. The administrator arrived. A nice-looking girl, around 30-35 years old. She was chirping away, trying to lure me into the basement. The basement was straight out of Harry Potter. It looked exactly like a basement in a Jewish quarter under a street lined with jewelry shops. Huge old cobwebs with spiders, dim light, dampness, some pipes, sewage, and old brickwork illuminated by my headlamp. Oh, look, a brand new Daikin outdoor unit. Hmm, and there’s the drainage pipe. Right on the basement floor. Nice job… And then they wonder, “Why are we so unpopular?” They install an air conditioner but run the drainage into the neighbor’s basement. There was so much water that they were actually scooping it out. When they put a bucket under it, they had to change it every hour. The basement is old and abandoned, but at the same level, there’s a fully operational basement piled high with accounting documents. I realized what needed to be done—I had to tap into the drainage of another air conditioner installed on the other side of the wall—in another shop. But I didn’t have a siphon, pipes, or a connector from the flexible hose to polypropylene. The girl was very interested, crawling around where I had been. I had to shake her hand and hold her at the waist. What a romance. She walked with me to the truck, checking to see if I had the necessary parts. Even if I did, it was 6 PM—there wouldn’t be enough time to finish the job anyway.