Category: plumbing

It’s Chinese New Year, and everyone’s coming round. Don’t get me wrong- I love being part of a multicultural, diverse family that celebrates all kinds of traditions- but there are just…so many of them. For Christmas, which some members of our family don’t even celebrate, we hosted seventeen. Our home is not that big, so some were forced out into the garden.

For Chinese New Year? We’ve probably got about forty or so. Forty. I just don’t have the social energy to get around to everyone. Oh, and we just have the one bathroom. Imagine queuing for the bathroom in your own home, and you’ve got the idea.

It’s my job this year to have a Melbourne plumbing company on standby. I don’t want to name names, but…actually, I’m totally naming names. Uncle Jeng is a character, great at parties, makes everyone feel welcome and is basically the king of giving gifts. But he does tend to spend a long time in the bathroom, and sometimes the pipes just can’t take it. No more details required.

And then there’s the hot water situation. Mum had the boiling water tap installed after last year when our kettle died mid-celebration. Obviously tea is a big part of the festivities, and it becomes no fun when you’re trying to brew for two-score people with a saucepan on the stove. Except the plumber said those things are temperamental at the best of times, and I just know it’s going to be overworked. We really just need an extra house grafted onto the end of this one to properly accommodate. That’s what we get for being the most central relatives. At least there’s a park at the end of the road with a barbecue…most years, all the younger relatives filter down there while the older ones relax in the house and complain about the noise.

It’s a great celebration, really, it is! I’m just old enough now for it to be stressful. So, emergency Melbourne plumber on standby. Maybe an electrician, too. And the fire brigade, because there will be fireworks.

-Boqin

Day 22 in the game design office. It’s not exactly what I expected, though maybe I inflated my expectations somewhat…like, I had it in my head that we’d just be playing games all day, and occasionally someone would say something like ‘oh hey, we should make a game’ and someone else would be like ‘a mole with a bazooka that has to find seven sapphire gems to save the underground mole kingdom from the clutches of a crocodile with magical powers who is also evil, boom done’, and then we’d go back to playing some games.

Maybe I missed that golden hay-day, because now it’s all about the work. Work, work, all the time…

And then there are the idiots. Now, I get the role of plumbers, I really do. I think all of Melbourne’s emergency plumbers deserve some kind of medal for getting up at 4am to fix our disgusting pipe problems, and I was recently made aware of this by the fact that it happened to me. Shaving over the sink…it’ll never happen again. But then some guy today at the idea generation board meeting suggested that we make a game and have the main character as a plumber. Not a game about plumbing, mind you. Just your average adventure…starring a plumber.

Okay first, no. People want heroes who are relatable everymen, and not everyone has been to TAFE to learn how to unblock drains and replace pipes. And then it’s almost an insult to the plumbing profession. Like, how many plumbers have you seen who shoot ice-balls and slide under things to kill them? Why would you even use a plumber for that, anyway? Makes no sense. Also, there’s a very similar game concept out there right now, and NO ONE wants to get sued.

Let’s leave Melbourne’s plumbing services to their own jobs, instead of creating games with unrealistic expectations. Sort of like the ones I had regarding this job.

-Terrence

I’ve always considered myself pretty handy around the house. If an appliance or something decides to break down, I can usually fix it. I can seal windows, fix leaky taps, get the heating up and running again. My dad was a world class tinkerer and he over the years he taught me more or less everything he knows. So, the majority of the time, when something goes wrong around the house, I make it my mission to fix it. At this point, it’s a bit of a matter of pride. So when something started to go wrong with our drains, I did what I would usually do and started on them myself.

After a week or so of trawling through the interwebs and slowly coming to the conclusion that, in this matter, I was out of my depth, I went to my second point of call and gave my dad a ring. We put our heads together and spent an afternoon trying to understand the problem and work out a solution, but to no success. Here is where things got a little painful. I know that I am perfectly capable of doing the simple things on my own, I’ve never had any need to call a drain cleaning company in Melbourne, for example. I’m perfectly capable of fixing something like that. But for something bigger, like any kind of involved repair job, I have to say I don’t have confidence in my own abilities. Particularly with something like the drains, as well. I feel like, if I make a mistake, we might get into real trouble.

So, despite my wounded pride, I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m going to need to call someone about getting a drain repair job in Melbourne. There just doesn’t seem to be any other real option available to me.

Far out. How is that, even when you move interstate to escape your insane parents, they don’t get the message and just ring you for even the littlest thing? It seems completely unfair. It’s not like they don’t know how much I hate it, either. When I left home, it was because we’d had an enormous fight, but the second their air conditioning unit breaks down, they were on the phone to me, expecting me to drop everything and race over.

Sorry to break it to you, mum and dad, but that’s not really how things work anymore. Now I’m my own person, I left to get away from your tyranny, I don’t owe you any favours. Apparently, just moving out of home wasn’t enough to send a clear messages, so to push it a little further, I moved out of the state.

Okay, this decision wasn’t purely a result of overbearing parents, there were a lot of other factors at play, but their constant neediness definitely made moving that little bit more appealing. But as it happens, no.

No, moving away hasn’t meant that they stop trying to get me to solve their problems, it only means I have to do that remotely. Have you ever tried explaining to a Melbourne plumber that, although you live in Perth, your parents in Melbourne need their drain serviced? Because, apparently, neither one of them is capable of just picking up the phone themselves.

What’s even worse is that, because my parents have absolutely no boundaries and insist that I live at their beck and call, this whole conversation went on at three in the morning. To be honest, I feel sorry for the fantastic team of 24 hour plumbers in Melbourne that had to deal with me while I was that annoyed and sleep-deprived.

I love my parents, I do, but at this point, never speaking to them again would feel like a blessing.