Over the years I've had techs in my house for any number of reasons - installing security systems, maintaining security systems, installing furnaces and air conditioners, maintaining furnaces and air conditioners, duct cleaning, painting, inspections, repairing major appliances, and more. I would estimate that in my personal experience maybe 90-95% of these techs were male and 25-30% of these techs were obviously sexist.
I've (thankfully) experienced some wonderful techs who were not only polite and respectful, but friendly and helpful. But even one tech with a negative attitude and a disrespectful, sexist demeanour makes me forget all the nice techs I've met.
I am a woman who lives alone. I have been doing this for almost 10 years. I've owned four properties in this time and have done the vast majority of maintenance and upkeep myself. I've also done a good amount of installation and decorating myself. I'm perfectly capable of installing a light fixture or faucet. I know how to fix many minor household problems. I'm not afraid to get my hands dirty. But for some reason this minority of male techs automatically assume that because I'm a woman I'm incapable of understanding anything technical.
This past weekend is a perfect example. Last week my air conditioning got worse and worse. It's only been running about two weeks, but after about a week it stopped being able to keep the temperature it was set to. I tried resetting things on the thermostat and checked the filter and that sort of stuff but nothing helped. I decided I'd need someone to come take a look, but thankfully it's not only under warranty but it has a protection plan via Direct Energy. So I called them. It took me three days to get through! During that time, since the a/c wasn't working, I decided to just turn it off because it felt like a waste of electricity for it to be on but not actually doing anything. I didn't do this until day 5 or 6 though.
When I finally got through to Direct Energy they were able to set up a weekend appointment because it was a heat wave and apparently there were a lot of people with a/c problems. So I adjusted my schedule to be home on Saturday afternoon to meet the technician.
When he arrived I explained what I had been experiencing and one of the first things he said to me was that I shouldn't have turned it off. When I pointed out that it wasn't working and I wasn't paying to run something that was broken he argued again that I should have left it on - yet had no good reason.
Then he asked me about my vents. I have 2 in the basement, which are closed; 3 on the main floor and 2 were open; and 5 on the second floor, all open. He then informed me that that was my problem. That I should leave all my vents open at all times and that by keeping some closed I was damaging the system. When I pointed out that I'd used the same setup for the past two years without a problem his answer was that it must have built up and now caused a problem. (I don't think this guy understood the concept of logic.)
He also didn't like the filter I was using. He said it was designed for furnaces in the winter and could cause problems in the summer when the a/c was on. Again I told him I'd been using the same filter for over a year and yet the problem was recent. Again he seemed to imply that my misuse of the system had built up and caused the problems.
He then inspected the condenser and decided it needed to be cleaned. He worked on this for maybe 20 minutes. Then he came inside and opened the one closed vent on the main floor. Kept the basement vents closed and then put the "bad" filter back in, saying it was better than nothing.
Then he turned the system on and measured the pressures and claimed everything appeared to be working. He then decided to lecture me on the fact that Lennox is very strict on their warranty coverage and that I have to get the a/c maintained annually for the warranty to be valid. And when I say "lectured" I mean told me this like I was in kindergarten. I already knew this. I've been away for most of the month of June. I didn't have time before and it was on my to do list for the summer. But this didn't seem to satisfy him. He brought it up twice more while he was here.
In the end he claimed the whole problem was my fault, yet to "fix" it he changed nothing I had done or didn't do. He also seemed to think I was too stupid to understand it needed regular maintanence, so much so that he brought it up multiple times. And even though he may have had one or more good points, he insisted upon telling me each of these things with a condescending and disrespectful tone.
He was at my house for 2 hours. Thankfully the a/c now appears to be fixed, and the house is back to cool temperatures, but he managed to severely heat up my temper!
No comments:
Post a Comment