07 February 2009

Trickle-Down Theory?

The company I work for, though it has a fabrication component, is primarily a roofing company. So it was to my great surprise that I came in to work a few weeks ago and found a puddle next to my table, being fed by a regular drip from the ceiling. The first thing I did was to ask our janitor/handyman/fetcher-of-stuff for a bucket so I'd at least remember not to walk under the leak. The second thing I did was tell one of the bosses that the roof was leaking.

Five minutes later, she was back with a status report. "Well, in spite of us being a roofing company, there are no actual roofers around right now. As soon as a crew gets back, I'll send them over."

The next day, I introduced the roofers to the leak, and they climbed up to the roof to see if they could find it. After half an hour of stomping and poking noises from up there, they re-appeared to inform me that they couldn't find anything, but they said they'd rig something up so I didn't keep getting rained on. I was out the next day because of a snowstorm, but when I came back the following day, I found this hanging over my table:



Yes, that's a tarp secured to the rafters with twine, and screwed into the center of it is a garden hose that goes down to a bucket. Really high-tech, isn't it? That thing stayed up for a good two or three weeks before they had to move the crane hoist from one end of the shop to the other, and since the tarp-hose dealie was in the way, I'm back to just a bucket.

The roof has since sprung another leak, ten feet away in my neighbor's booth. He doesn't even bother with a bucket, but he also doesn't seem to mind getting wet.

I'm sure the roofs we install don't leak like our own does... at least, I hope they don't.