On Craftsmen

I have been remiss in my blogging lately because I have been assigned temporary duties at work which generally leave me too frazzed to write anything even mildly interesting, and because very little has happened in the past week that is of any interest to anyone, even me.  Except one thing.


Plumbing.

Now, before you picture me being washed off the edge of my balcony by a raging flood of backed-up dishwater (or worse), allow me to clarify: the only thing at issue is my kitchen sink, and the problem appears to be not that it won't drain, but that it won't drain all the way, which I discovered Tuesday night after doing my dishes.  Running the disposal somehow allows the water to drain from the sink, but not from the chamber directly under the basin which houses the disposal blades.  I tried to unplug whatever's plugging the sink (if that's even the problem) with some drain cleaner, but even after leaving it in over Tuesday night, it didn't help.  So, on my landlady's advice, I called the front desk after lunch today and asked them to send someone up to look at it.

I didn't expect that they would have accomplished this by the time I got home, but indeed they did.  The only sign that someone was here was this note, scrawled in marker on a bit of paper towel:

I'm not sure who exactly wrote this note (a "Kay," perhaps?  Or is it "Kg"?) but I find it oddly comforting.  There is something comforting about having someone promptly attend to your problem and have a solution prepared  all before you get home from work, rather than drawing things out for days or even weeks at a time (that's right, U.S. federal government, I'm looking at you).  That, I think, may be the primary difference between craftsmen and bureaucrats - the one has a practical solution which can be implemented relatively quickly, while the other has six reams of paperwork to go through (half of which will contain errors) before he or she can do anything.  This is why a good craftsman is a good thing to find indeed, and as anal as my complex may be about other things, I am grateful for their promptness in this matter.  If this afternoon is any indication, all I need to do is clean out the cabinet under the sink tonight, and by the time I get home from work tomorrow my sink should be successfully snaked (that's a verb now) and back in working order.  Thanks be for good craftsmen!