Prevent The Need For A 24 Hr Plumber
Last night, we had the unfortunate task of having to call a plumber over to fix our drain. Water and gunk had overflowed from the bathtub drain and our toilet was also leaking water from the back, causing a mini flood in the bathroom.
We’d noticed some signs of a problem before (occasionally the bathtub would drain slowly, etc.), but it always seemed to clear up on its own. So we let it be, thinking we’d need to eventually get a plumber to come out and check out our pipes. Looking back now, I wish we’d called someone out at the first sign of a problem. Then we could have saved ourselves a lot of headache. It would have also been easier on our wallet - plumbing services after hours often have a 50-60% surcharge (or more).
Life often works that way, doesn’t it? Until something becomes a huge problem and increases in urgency, we aren’t motivated to take action. “It’s probably nothing to worry about”… “I’ll take care of it later”. We procrastinate, we de-prioritize the problem, we convince ourselves it’s not really a problem, or we stick our head in the sand and don’t want to deal it. It’s only in hindsight after the sh*t hits the fan that we regret not having taken action sooner. It may have been painful back then, but the worse the problem gets, the more painful and daunting it becomes to address it.
Granted, things don’t always blow up because people avoid dealing with it. Sometimes you just don’t realize something bad is brewing. Sometimes all the signs are there, but we fail to put the pieces together - especially when our lives are so busy and we have so many things to worry about.
I don’t have a great answer to this, but it seems that one way to mitigate molehills actually turning into mountains is to address and fix problems as soon as they come up, rather than passively waiting. Don’t put off until tomorrow what you can do today. Especially in the startup world, time is of the essence. When your team is small and you’re operating on a limited amount of capital, you can’t afford to let problems fester (whether they be product-related, customer-related, investor-related, or staff/employee-related).
One other area you should NEVER put off - your health. Better to be conservative and be a worrywart than to let things be. Your health is by far your greatest wealth.
I have never felt more adamant about all this than since Brendan was born. Partly because now my life is even busier than before and I can’t afford to put things off, and also because I want to set a good example for him and make sure he doesn’t procrastinate. Regardless, it doesn’t take a baby to realize that it’s much easier to fix small problems than to fix ginormous problems.
And if you find your drain is backing up, call up a plumber ASAP. Just hope it isn’t after hours!
