March 8th

THE $806 PLUMBING WEEK

I had to get a new water heater. The old one was leaking so badly from a big corroded hole in the top (yes, the top!) that I could no longer even get enough hot water for a bath without flooding the garage. With installation, permit fee (WHY do I need a permit to replace something?), and a new 40 gallon heater it came to $741. As soon as the water got hot I washed my hair, and then I ran the dishwasher. In the meantime my main sewer line got clogged, probably because I wasn't running enough water down it; the clog was mostly toilet paper packed into a big sogging mess. The poor guy who came to clean it had a hard time, but he stuck to it-and it only cost me $65. (Anyone in the San Diego area, if you need a drain cleaned call Baird's Drain Service.) So, after he was gone I flushed my toilet. Many times, just to hear it flush. As long as I'm spending money I don't really have, I think that next week I'll have a real plumber come in and fix the kitchen sink. I'll have to come up with a new excuse for not cleaning my kitchen, but have faith-I'll come up with something.

THE COUNTY JOB

I mentioned a week or so ago about going to the County Administration building to get a job application. I knew that I could do the job (Tax Payment Enforcement Officer), but my past job title didn't fit what they had listed as being required. I made a nice bulleted list of the job duties I had as a Quality Control Officer, which actually fit very closely to the description of the duties of the TPEO job, and hoped that my application would fall into the hands of someone who could actually read and think, who would see that I was qualified.

When I got home today I found a message from the County HR department in the mailbox. It was one of those tear the end off and open up flimsy official things, so I was pretty sure that it was a notice telling me that I was completely insane for ever imagining that I was qualified for that job. I opened it anyway.

I passed the evaluation with a score of 88. Now I just have to hope that there weren't 3,000 people with a score of 89 or higher.