One outside of MOPT, even.

For instance, I live in an apartment. This apartment rarely requires maintenance, but upon occasion it's necessary.

One of the major benefits of renting is that when something breaks, they have to Send A Little Man to fix it. Generally once said maintenance has been performed, I'm gushingly grateful. (I consider that the LM is part of what I'm paying for each month, but that doesn't stop me from being happy to see him.)

It's also true, though, that getting them to SALM can be tricky. In my experience, it requires 2-3 increasingly insistent calls before a LM actually materializes. The office staff is always very nice. They always promise to send someone right over. And they're always regretful when we call back five or six days later and repeat our request. But we always have to call twice. Or three times.

They always send us links to a survey so we can give them feedback on our Maintenance Request Experience, but I usually delete them. I don't care that much.

Two or three weeks ago we started seeing little black bugs in the kitchen. Not all the time, but once or twice a day.

So, the R.C. gives them a call and says, "We have little black bugs! Many things we are willing to tolerate, but not bugs! SALM!"

And they say, as they always do, "We'll get right on it!"

And a week goes by and we see no LM but we do see more LBB. So, the R.C. calls them again.

In the meantime, I get a survey link for how we liked our Maintenance Request Experience for the first call we made.

You see where this one is going yet?

Being, as sometimes happens to me, in something of a cranky mood that day, I followed the link and said we were highly dissatisfied and I wrote that our request had not been handled and to please SALM.

ALM shows up the next day and spritzes bugkillerjuice on the kitchen floor and says to let it "soak in" for a couple of days before we clean it. He does not spritz bugkillerjuice up on the counters around the sink, which is the actually place we saw the LBB, but he assures us that our problem is handled.

(And it was, by the way. Not a LBB to be seen since then.)

And then, Wednesday of this week, MollyManager calls from the office. She is in charge in and it is to her that the surveys are forwarded. MollyManager is very sorry to hear that we always have to call two or three times to get anything handled.

I assure her that we don't really care that much, that we don't really call that often ("I know that," she assures me) and that we're usually pretty tolerant about such matters.

"However," I confess. "I could have been in a bad mood that day. There are days when it's a little annoying to have to write ourselves reminders to make three calls because we need a maintenance request handled. Frequently, we just live with whatever it is. I might have been in a bad mood and I probably shouldn't have complained."

(I am not a doormat. I am Setting Her Up.)

"No, no!" she exclaims. "It is Not Right! This is Not How It Should Be! I want to know if you have a problem. This is what I am here for! Call me directly if you need anything. "

"We don't need anything most of the time," I repeat. "We're really not that demanding."

"This I know," she weeps. "But if you have a need! Call me!"

"Well, now that you mention it," I say slyly. "Your guys put a new sink in my bathroom five or six months ago. It's lovely! It's all clean and fresh! Thank you! I should have asked for one years ago!"

Expectant silence from MollyManager.

"But," I say. "Since you ask. Would it be too much trouble to have them come back and finish hooking it up?"

Appalled silence from MollyManager.

"It's the plug-thing," I say, tossing technical jargonese into the conversation with ease. "They didn't hook it up, so if I want to use the stopper, I have to crawl under the sink to push it up and down. It's kind of a nuisance."

"You mean the drain?" She asks in an odd tone of voice that I never did identify.

"Yes," I say. "The drain. So you can fill the sink with water. It's not that I can't crawl under the sink, but it's sort of annoying, so if you could send someone one of these days...."

My plug-thing was working when I got home yesterday. It was lovely.

I have a life. It's just not a very interesting one.

I'll bet that right now you're all looking back fondly to the days when I used to complain about psychotic co-workers all the time, aren't you?