Getting roped into favours

Everyone else get this as well?

Month or so ago the missus says.... can you pop round to my manager's house after work, shes lost all power, yeah fine, later on, get told its sorted, they have unplugged the pond pump and reset the RCD.

This week... can you go round there and test the pond pump, her husband is looking at it and cant work out what bit is faulty, little confused go there, pump is pulled out and on the table, megger that, its fine, "it must be the filter bit" he says, go outside and find the filter unit wired into one of those adaptable boxes with rubber membranes, sealed up with silicon... start to think about turning round and running... but no, pull it apart, filter unit is about 200meg. Its the leg from the plugtop to the ****ty joint box thats down. about 0.03 meg on an combination of cores, look a little further, it disappears under the lawn in a hosepipe ("to protect it" he says) appears at the dwarf garden wall, out the hosepipe up the wall a little  under the copeing stone, out the other side, back downm, under teh ground in another hosepipe and comes up under a plant pot near the IP rated socket. I seriously start to weigh up how fast I can grab the megger and toolbag and be out the door before the missus grabs hold of me... its a no go-eer. Why do I end up saying "If you pay for materials, dig a trench, lift the paving;  I''ll put you an IP rated fused spur round the other side of the conservatory back to back with the socket and put a bit of armoured to an IP socket near to where the pump is"

The missus will have to start telling people that ask that I am a dustman!....

What a good little husband you are! 

Question is will this best behaviour gain the missus a promotion? 

But you know you will get there, find the SWA already buried and the trench filled in, and when you check, it will be only 3" deep.......

Run away, run away now!

if it looks like dog faeces, smells like dog faeces, taste like dog faeces DONT stand in it because your first 3 instincts were correct

I act stupid, of course in my day job I can wire three phase motors etc. But how to wire a cooker isolator, I would have no idea.

I was taught that by a fitter. He was the top maintenance guy in the factory able to fix anything in the factory, asked to do something at home and he would pretend he was a dummy, his wife used to rope her brothers into her silly errands.

rapparee said:

I act stupid, of course in my day job I can wire three phase motors etc. But how to wire a cooker isolator, I would have no idea.

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Just like me, I fain no knowledge of domestic things.

In my home village I did some unpaid work for both the CE church and Methodist chapel, it’s my civic duty to do so. Next thing I’m getting phone calls from all over the village for domestic jobs because I didn’t charge. The vicar and minister were giving my phone number out to all the pensioners. A very ungodly conversation ensued with both reverend gentlemen.

I don't do that kind of work - I'm not Part P.

Tony S said:

In my home village I did some unpaid work for both the CE church and Methodist chapel, it’s my civic duty to do so. Next thing I’m getting phone calls from all over the village for domestic jobs because I didn’t charge. The vicar and minister were giving my phone number out to all the pensioners. A very ungodly conversation ensued with both reverend gentlemen.

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I used to do discount rates to churchs, but discovered they seem quite happy to pay other 'specialist church contractors' stupid prices, and I always get roped into 'can you just have a look at this whilst you are here' scenario. I still keep prices reasonable, but not cheap like I used to do.