English and communication?

Gary Fereday

Oilheating! September issue. "Making a winning presentation...or how to think like a listener". By john R. Graham. It is worth the time! bigugh!

Gary Fereday

Always use

'disassemble' when talking to a customer. When you 'rip out' or 'bust up' that old boiler you may just scare the H/O into another thought. Try always, to use the least expressive language to the lay people who are listening. It shows your concern for "Their" equipment. You might say you will 'fracture it' if you are breaking up the cast iron. Smashing is another no-no word. Communication here is the thing. Getting and giving information in the least threating way will be remembered for a long time. Like being clean and neat, it is just part of the job! anyway bigugh

Unknown

Something new

Political correctness in boiler lingo ? Believe me , theyre glad to see their old mess taken away - usually after the old mess made a new mess all over the floor. When the customer hears us banging away at the sections , sees us filthy with soot and looks at the temporary disaster on the floor of the boilerroom , I dont think they have a problem hearing - ripout - or " busted the bejeezus out of it " . I kinda like telling the customer what pains we had to go through to take out their old beast and install a brand new , top of the line unit . They always appreciate the hard work done .

Steve Ebels

Point well taken \"bigugh\" (SE)

Terms that we use, phrases and slang and the other lingo of the job sometimes confuse and make customers feel "dumb". They don't want to appear naive by asking what we mean, (although "rip er out" is pretty straight forward) so they don't ask or tell us what's on their mind. We all have to be alert for that questioning/puzzled look on a costomers face. I feel like it's part of the job to explain what we are proposing until the customer quits asking questions. This is always done in as non-technical manner as possible.

We had a major appliance tech that used to do our service work in the store that was a whiz. He could troubleshoot anything that you would find in a house from a garbage disposer to a 36 cu ft Sub-Zero refrigerator. Watching him explain to a customer what was wrong with their appliance was enough to put me into hysterics though. He would launch into a hyperpolysyllabic diatribe covering everything from electromotive force to pico-farads to Ohm's law to clutch temperature. He'd go on until the customer's eyes would begin to glass over and roll back in their head or else just packed up and left him standing there. It was his assumption that everybody wanted to know this stuff. We had an awful time breaking him of this habit.

On another line, my son and a helper demonstrated in graphic detail what they meant by "rip 'er out" to an old boy they were changing a furnace out for. During the installation they had just slid the old furnace (a huge old Bard oil burner) off to the side and proceeded to install the new one. When that was done the old gent , who had been "observing" the proceedings all day, asked them how they were going to get the old furnace out of the basement. He was worried it was to big to move up the outdoor stairway and he'd be stuck with it in the cellar for the rest of his life. Andy had a plan and told him to go upstairs and watch out the window. The boys promptly backed up the pickup to the basement cellarway, strapped the old furnace on my appliance cart and connected the nylon tow strap from the truck to the handle of the cart. This done, they lined the furnace up with the stairs, started it up in the right direction and proceeded to tow it out of the basement. This went fine for about three steps and then the furnace caught on something. Andy was in the truck and the helper was down in the basement yelling at him to hold up. (Of course Andy claims to this day he couldn't hear him). Feeling the forward movement stop, Andy did what any normal, young American male would do. He gave the diesel a little more throttle. The nylon tow rope stretched, the truck went ahead, the rope stretched some more and the furnace became unstuck. The simple physics of the matter is that there was probably 4-5,000 lbs. of pull on the 600 lb. furnace. This caused the old Bard to momentarily defy the law of gravity and become airborne as it blew up the stairs and out onto the lawn in a glorious arc, spewing soot in every conceivable direction as it went. Andy said he could see the whole furnace above the tailgate of the truck at one point and described the event as "awesome". Turns out the old gent enjoyed the show too and gave the boys a $20 tip for getting it out of his basement.

I've had at least 3 other jobs come from that one because the old gentleman highly recommended us as the company that will do everything possible to remove the old equipment from your basement.

Moral of the story: Sometimes words are confusing but a 600 pound furnace flying through the air leaves a lasting impression.(G)

As someone once said, "You can't make this stuff up."

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eleft_4

temporary disaster

Ron,

Banging on that stuff makes the finest (meaning micro) black dust film all over everything and every place imaginable. It does creep up stairs, what do you answer when you get flack about that?

How do you get it cleaned up?

al

Unknown

Do you think

They would let me install boilers every day if I dusted every house with soot , eleft ? Any house ? Check out the job I posted before - an 8 section soot bomb . But we still managed to do the complete job , and leave the basement cleaner than when we first got there . No vac , no plastic coverings . Just rolls of paper and speedy dry . The soot was that hard , slimy stuff , so it didnt go airborne .

The ones that have those fine particles , we use a vac first , of course . And plastics , and tarps if needed .

Mark Hunt

HI Ron!!

Nice looking job as usual!!

I LOVE looking at the piping after a good guy gets done!!

Next time I'm in one of the Levitt style homes up here I'll send you some pics.

Best wishes!!

Mark H

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keith

presentation

is the key. It took awhile for me to figure out that a customers personality should be considered when presenting your proposal. Customers have different responces to presentations depending on their personalities. Some want to be over loaded with information some just want you to hit the high points, depends on how they make their decisions. Sometimes their occupation may give you a clue in how they process info.

Unknown

Thank you Mark

I really appreciate it . And I would love to see some Levitt style houses in other areas . Take care .

PJO

Tears of laughter!

Steve,

As they flow down my cheek, I am typing this....great story on the old Bard! I can picture the whole scenario.

Reminds me of when I was putting my boiler in my basement. My brother in law, a former college wrestler and pretty strong guy, was helping me bring the boiler down the stairs. I wanted to wait for my brother to show up, but he was in a hurry. I reminded him the thing wieghed 470 pounds.

So we start one step at a time. We get to the halfway mark as I am on the bottom end and he is holding it back with ropes from the top end. He starts to get a little weak (IMHO - he said the rope was slipping), and I feel 80% of the weight and more.

Since I'm no superman, I held it for about half a second and then proceeded to get my body out from underneath. Picture a guy riding/surfing/slippin' and slidin' on that baby the last seven steps. To use Dan's words, the 'ol sphincter got a little tight! The boiler smacked the concrete floor and I thought: 1) Broken sections? 2) Broken floor? 3) Broken leg? 4) All of the above? Luckily, none of the above happened.

Take care, PJO

eleft_4

Do you think

Ron,

I didn't think that.

Just changing out a chamber, I find that the real fine stuff gets away from the area. It also penetrates thru my clothes.


I asked the question thinking you might be doing something new and different.



al

Gary Fereday

I love it!

SEE comunication is just as I said it was. Getting and giving information! This post went from the original thought to a very funny story! What is brought to mind is that we all are reading the same thing; however there are as many different thoughts as readers. Its no wonder Congress, the President, and AARP have a tough time. Not to mention other countrys and different languages. I never intended for us to use technical words, just be careful and tell the Old man to go upstairs and watch out the window! And he even paid extra for the show! Now that is how it should be done! anyway bigugh

Unknown

Our trick

Well , it probably aint a trick - but whenever we disasseble a boiler , and it has no bottom , we tip it to the wall and clean out the chamber while its still in the boiler . With a vac going above it , the soot doesnt travel far . When its clean we rock it back and forth to drop the remaining cling-ons , then put a garbage bag over it .

That nasty soot goes right through my clothes too. It goes through my pants and onto my legs . Gives me boiler pimples wherever it sits for a long time . Ever get the big old pimple right on your kneecap ? Hurts when you kneel on it - till you cant take it anymore and wind up lancing it with a rusty screwdriver.

eleft_4

G trick

Thanks Ron,


My legs get real black too, but I think there to skinny to have pimples. But I do get'em higher on the other side.


I like the G bag, it's like taking the tree out around the 15th of January.



al

Mad Dog

C'mon Ron!!!!!!!!

you are gettin me excited....nothin' better than excising a carbuncle or lancing a boil...hee hee....in my prior life I believe I was a dermatolgist Mad Dog

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Mad Dog

exactlt what I was thinkin' keith

You have to know your audience and then speak on their level.....the average Blue collar Joe enjoys and identifies with the rough terminolgy and the yuppies want to be dazzled with jingoistic lingo...you gotta wear all hats Mad Dog

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J.C.A.

Terminology.....

16 years working for an oil company . The hardest thing I had to do in all those years was to break the secretaries habit of scheduling "CLEANINGS" (her word , not mine)I tried nicely at first and got more and more mad everytime she used that word to decribe annual service .
Doesn't it sound so much better that you are coming to "service the heating system" as opposed "clean the heater" ? It makes the equipment sound like it's dirty and gives the impression that oil itself is a dirty choice of fuels .Communications... something so simple yet SO important! ... Chris

Steve Ebels

Other Stories

Of mechanical mayhem or horrific hydronic happenings?

I need a good laugh!!

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Frank_5

So you want to hear a story?

> Of mechanical mayhem or horrific hydronic

> happenings?

>

> I need a good laugh!!

>

> _A

> HREF="http://www.heatinghelp.com/getListed.cfm?id=

> 175&Step=30"_To Learn More About This Contractor,

> Click Here to Visit Their Ad in "Find A

> Contractor"_/A_

Frank_5

So you want to hear a story?

We were going to replace an old HB Smith pork chop with a WM1288 at a "Y" in Brooklyn. The asbestos abatement contractor ( not my contractor !) Shut down the boiler switch outside the boiler room door, and went to work. At the end of the day the switch went on, and by night time, the excretement hit the rotary cooling device. There was a low temp. sprinker head right over the uninsulated old boiler. Pop went that weasel, signal alarm to fire dept., 10 pieces of apparatus responded ( that was a resedency "Y" that was all full up. ) Over 100 men were turned out of their beds that winter night. Not to mention a 2AM call to me. "Put in a new one from the rack.' I'll see ya in a few hours."