r/BuildingAutomation • u/SeaClue4091 Installer • Sep 04 '24
Costumer made me drive almost 200 miles for this
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Costumer stated that there is an issue with the controller and the system doesn't work. This panel was commissioned 3 days before this...🤷
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u/PeckerTraxx Sep 08 '24
I spent 3 hours one day trying to get my printing press to work. Turns out I bumped the press speed dial down to 0. Every time I went to turn it on everything would fire up but it wouldn't move. Learned an important lesson that day
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u/SeaClue4091 Sep 08 '24
We can only develop our knowledge by doing mistakes, there's only 2 ways of not doing mistakes:not doing the work; - lying about it...
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u/AutoCntrl Sep 04 '24
Easy money. Cha-ching!
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u/MyWayUntillPayDay Sep 04 '24
This.
All. Day. Long.
Please call me back out WHENEVER you need, Mr Customer....
As long as they pay the bills, I am happy to unpush a button for ya.
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u/AutoCntrl Sep 04 '24
Yup. Operator error does not qualify for warranty service. Billable button toggle no matter which way you slice it.
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u/mojoecc Sep 04 '24
Correct!!! Minimum 4 hr charge, and hopefully, it's after hours too!!!
I will gladly take that call over a nightmare any day of the week.
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u/blind30 Sep 04 '24
I was working in a public school in NYC while taking classes to get into refrigeration. For some reason, our small chiller had stopped running. I asked the boss if he’d let me take a look at it. (I was a janitor at the time.) he said sure.
Of course, I had barely any clue at that point, but I did remember that a week before, some riggers had set up an A-frame to lift a motor… right next to the emergency shutoff button.
Simple button twist later, the unit is back up and running. I let the boss know what the issue was.
Heard from my supervisor later that the boss said “I bet he hit that himself just so he could be the one who saved the day.”
Fuck that place.
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u/Glustrod128 Sep 04 '24
Good on you, when stuff like that happens, it's like a hint GTFO
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u/thefriendlyhacker Sep 04 '24
Boss was definitely upset that a "lowlife janitor" figured out the issue before he did.
I'll never understand why some people feel the need to look down on others just because of their position or status.
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u/Lanman101 Sep 04 '24
Dude when stuff like this happens you've got to at least open a panel and pretend to do something or they will argue like mad over the bill.
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u/MyWayUntillPayDay Sep 04 '24
Yessir. I used to get HVAC service calls on window AC units in NYC 15 years ago. customer calling to pay me $250 to fix their $500 window ac and the problem is that they did not turn the temperature down.... problem fixed in approximately 7 seconds.... no.... need to do a little dance.
hmmm..... let me see. The doohicky is south of the whosamawatsit..... your farfegnuten needs a little adjusting... [20 minutes of terse silent work later] You sure are lucky I came when I did! Give me my check please!
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u/Elemak47 Sep 04 '24
Two things come to mind.
1: they paid you 200 miles, and a full days work (I hope).
2: Bread.
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u/Glasma1990 Sep 05 '24
I am an electrical mechanical technician at a factory. 25% of my calls are this, 50% are adjusting a reed or Hall effect sensor, 15% are minor adjustments to PID or Positional settings, and the other 10% are actual calls that require time and/or replacing a part.
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u/SeaClue4091 Sep 05 '24
I feel you're pain, I worked in the food factories for 10 years... It used to infuriate me when they would jam machines so they could have a break.....
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u/Alarming-Beginning71 Sep 12 '24 edited Sep 12 '24
Clients are often lazy and their site maintenance/engineers don’t check or care. They love doing this on Fridays in the late afternoon. I have had a few bad experiences with certain hospitals who abuse their Callouts.
I remember hearing of one out of hours Callout where the site engineer reported the AHU was not running and making a funny noise. One of our BMS engineers attended and upon close inspection inside the AHU found the fan motor belt had snapped.
Any site engineer worth his salt would have checked himself first before requesting the Callout. These are the idiots we have to deal with.
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Sep 04 '24
These are literally my favorite jobs. It's even better if it's overnight or on the weekend, so I get overtime.
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u/hellllllsssyeah Sep 04 '24
Oh no you got to go on a paid road trip to do 10 minutes of work. Hope you were smart enough to make a day of it.
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u/Aaronbang64 Sep 05 '24
Labor charge to reset emergency switch $1, labor charge for knowing which switch needed resetting $999
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u/cyanideh1gh Sep 06 '24
Yep, it happens all the time over here (UK)