Compasssion or Annoyance Round #3
On the first day the work on our kitchen started, a team of two guys came to dismantle our kitchen and perform the mold removal. I heard a lot of banging around and after they removed our gas powered oven, I smelled gas almost immediately. The workers had wrapped that part of the kitchen in plastic and were spraying chemicals to kill the mold. When I told the workers I smelled gas, they looked at me like I was crazy then told me it was just the scent of the chemicals. They made no attempt to check the gas line. The kitchen was sealed off from the rest of the house for 48 hours until we could get an independent environmental tester to come in and check that the mold was gone. We were still staying in the house and I kept smelling the gas. I should point out that my husband also didn't smell the gas I smelled, even though he lives here with me and heard me say I SMELL GAS about five thousand times. When the environmental tester guy came, he unzipped the plastic bags our kitchen was in and we stepped inside. It REEKED of gas! So of course, I say IT SMELLS LIKE GAS! The guy who specializes in AIR QUALITY says no, it doesn't then zips himself back into the bagged up kitchen for ten minutes to conduct his test. If you are counting, that is four people (MEN) who have not smelled flammable and poisonous gas that I have pointed out. I opened the windows and kept them open.
Two days later, two different workers came to start putting our kitchen back together. As they took all the plastic down, I saw that they were getting out power tools. I told them I smelled gas. They looked at me funny and said they didn't smell gas and kept on going. I opened more windows. Two days later, two different workers with power tools came to work on the kitchen. Before they plugged in their tools, I told them about smelling gas. Again, they said they smelled nothing. This puts the total at EIGHT men who I told about gas, right before they could've caused my house to explode, and none of them even went over to the gas line and sniffed around.
The last time I smelled gas when nobody else did, we had a major gas leak in our wall. I was sure this was the same smell and I was going to take matters into my own hands before our house exploded or we died of carbon monoxide poisoning (or whatever that is when that type of gas kills you in your sleep). Unlike the eight men who have been disrespecting my finely tuned nose, yo, I sprayed the gas line where the oven was with soapy water and it bubbled up like a bubble machine on a hot summer day. Oh My Buddha! I was right. There was a gas leak.
I was pissed off and I was so happy to be right. And I was terrified. Gas was pouring into my house, nobody listened to me about it, and damnit, someone was gonna hear about this!
Or, should I just be compassionate about each of the EIGHT men who did nothing to check out the gas I warned them about? Was not even going to the gas line and smelling closer not disrespect but just dumb? Was looking at me like I'm crazy when there really IS gas leaking not disrespectful? Did I threaten the manhood of every man by sensing danger when they did not?
My husband fixed the broken valve over the weekend and none of us exploded. Whew!
Annoyance won this round.
On Monday afternoon, one of the women from the office at the mold place called to see how things were going and I told her about the 8 disrespectful men and the gas leak (I told her all the good stuff they did, too). She was horrified, apologetic, and compassionate. This wonderful office worker was why I hired this company in the first place. As a result of my experience, the company is instituting a new training program to teach the workers how to smell and deal with gas leaks better. I'm glad I chose to speak up about feeling disrespected, yo, instead of letting it go. Perhaps another woman who smells her house about to explode will be treated better.
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