There's A Hole In The Hot Water Heater, Dear Flunky, A Hole

Backstory: Yesterday I got a note from Kirby, my HVAC guy, former property manager and real estate agent (and mind you, one of the few people in Birmingham who is not allergic to work). Anyhoo... he heard from Flunky the Asshat--the maintenance manager of MY CURRENT property management company. Flunky didn't call me. He called Kirby.

It appears there is some sort of water issue at the Waterford home and Flunky, the genius he is, sends an HVAC guy out to see why--and I am not making this up--water is leaking from the hot water heater. To be fair, I am no rocket scientist, but I can pretty much guarantee if I hear water is leaking from the hot water heater the person I would contact (after telling the owner) would be a plumber. But that's just me. Apparently Flunky understands the subtle nuances of property management maintenance about this better than I do. Why else would he send an air conditioner repair person out to fix a hot water heater?

Kirby, bless him, wrote a very nice e-mail to both Flunky and myself saying that he concurs with the tenant: it appears in his professional estimation the issue is with the hot water heater. And because he is a gentleman, he thanked Flunky for the opportunity to help, but in this case this issue is just not in the scope of what he does for a living, so he will have to pass.

And Flunky? What did he do? Flunky followed up with me in a short, yet terse, e-mail and said if there was something I needed, to let him know. Yeppers. There was no, "I will call a plumber immediately and get this fixed," or anything of that nature. Nope. Nothing. The the rest of the correspondence with Flunky went something like this.

At any rate, in the end, I sent I highly-edited e-mail to Flunky asking him (after an insane back and forth) to please call a plumber. Because it appeared Flunky just wasn't going to think of this all by himself.