Is It a Southern Thing?
One thing I've noticed after living here in Florida for the past five years is that people just don't do their jobs. I know that goes on to some degree everywhere. I've lived in every region of the US except for the upper Midwest, and yes, one always runs across people who, for whatever reasons, don't do their jobs or at least don't do them well. Nowhere, however, have I found it to be as prevalent as I have here. It's nearly everyone I do any sort of business with.
Just today, our toilet stopped working. It won't flush (it's not clogged; something's mechanically wrong with it). We've been having problems with it for some time, and our landlord sent someone here a couple of months ago to fix it after we'd hounded him about it for a few days. The plumber he sent didn't really fix it, though, so we've continued having trouble with it and now it's not working. This is in the same bathroom where there was a leak in the roof this past winter and it took more than a month for the landlord to get someone out to fix it. By the time they'd shown up, there was enough water damage done to the bathroom ceiling that part of it feel down, leaving a foot-long set of holes and cracks. We tried in vain for a couple of months to get that damage fixed, but it never got done. Our deck is falling apart; we've been trying to get that fixed for more than a year with no luck. We get promises, but the job never actually gets done. Oh, and those roofers? They didn't clean up after themselves when they'd finished. Our driveway has lots of nails and such in it now. Not that we use it, anyhow, since last summer when an eight foot long tree branch snapped off a pine and landed across the hood of my car. We were promised then that our trees would be trimmed and the area above the driveway cleared... but branches still fall regularly, so it's safer to park the car on the street. Luckily, my insurance paid for the damage last time.
I'm using the landlord as an example because I deal with him more than anyone else, but don't get the impression that this is an isolated case. My wife and I have had the same problems with everyone from auto mechanics to university bureaucrats to x-ray technicians. It's also not a syndrome localized to Tallahassee. We faced the exact same problems when we lived in Tampa, and as I type this I have a buyer on eBay from Alabama who still hasn't paid me more than $1000 he owes despite repeated promises to do so, including one I received just last night that he would pay off his debt by first thing this morning. It's 2:45 PM my time, 1:45 PM his, as I write this. He's already 10 days late paying me and has received three reminders (payment was due when the auction closed). I don't think it's just a Florida thing, either. Maybe it's just the Gulf Coast?
Another classic example is the local cable company. We've had problems with our service over and over again almost since we got it. After three years of repeated service calls, a repairman finally told us that the whole cable, from the box at the corner of our street all the way to our TV, had been installed incorrectly and would have to be replaced. He did some kind of quick fix, but apparently never told the local office about the bigger problem. It still hasn't been corrected, and we're moving in less than three weeks.
It's been like this for five years, ever since we moved here. I won't speculate on what causes it, but it's so commonplace that I have come to assume in every instance that nobody who promises to do anything, no matter ow small nor how much they stand to get paid, will actually get around to doing it and, if they do, will do it poorly. It's just the way life is here. I'm not sure how anything ever gets done.
Meanwhile, I'm waiting to at least hear from a plumber who'll tell me that he's on his way to fix our toilet. I spoke to the landlord at 8:00 this morning. I'm going to call him again. I'd be willing to bet that he hasn't found a plumber yet. If he hasn't, I'll be going to his house to urinate in a few minutes.
I have lived in New York, California, Texas, Kansas and Pennsylvania at various times in my life. I've lived in big cities and small towns. I've never seen this problem to this extent anywhere else I've been, and I can't wait to not have to deal with it anymore. I'd call the Better Business Bureau or the local housing code enforcement, but I already know they don't do their jobs either.
