True story.
Background: I used to work as a live-in maintenance man for a medium sized apartment complex. My rent was included and actually it was a pretty nice job. The apartments were eventually bought by an investor from Jordan. He was definitely was not accustomed to the american way of life. His name was Wajih. I pronounced it "wah-jee".
He bought the apartments.. I was not included with the business transaction. I tried to "sell" myself to him, trying to convince him that I had a lot of knowledge about the building and that I would be a great asset to his firm. It took 6 long months of pestering before I eventually landed my old job back. He was impressed and I eventually became his "right hand man". I was not impressed by him though.
He had this idea to remodel the building. With no permits and working "under the radar" of the city. In no time the city inspectors came for an inspection and shut him down. A fire broke out and caused so much damage that the building was condemned. We both continued to live in the few apartments that had minimal damage "under the radar" of the city. We were both basically homeless even though his back account continued to be in the 6 figures. This man was "as tight as a banjo string" with money.
The city eventually noticed two occupants staying in a condemned building and forced us (him) to move. He finally broke down and rented a cheap, roach infested house in the middle of crack-town.
It took 2 days for the electric company to turn on the power. He decided to turn it on himself. He did that in Jordan all the time. That caused problems between him and the utility. I couldn't tell him a thing. Here in America, you better wait on the utility to come out.
Now the funny part.
This house had a gas furnace that hadn't been used in forever. I tried to light the pilot light but it was dirty and all it would do is just puff out a blast of fire out of the inspection hole with a loud bang and about a 6 inch blast of fire. It wouldn't light, I knew what was wrong but again, I couldn't tell him nothing about lighting a furnace. Here is what he done.
He bent down on his knees, peering through the hole with a long piece of paper that is on fire in an attempt to light the pilot. The gas had been on for quite some time inside this dirty furnace and I was sure it was building up a charge! I could smell it. I warned him to get away from it, turn the gas off and call the repair man. About this time he stuck the lit paper back in the hole and BANG!. It knocked him flat on his ass. He was stunned looking up in the air as if he was looking at the angel of death. He had no eyebrows. His hair was singed and smoking. I panicked. I rushed over to check him out yelling, "u ok? u ok?".. He replied "Yea, I think so."... That is when I started falling over laughing. I soon moved on from this person and still search his name on google from time to time. Recently I found a violation where he was doing electrical work without a licence. If you could have only been there to witness the expression on his face.
Hope you enjoyed this read.
Background: I used to work as a live-in maintenance man for a medium sized apartment complex. My rent was included and actually it was a pretty nice job. The apartments were eventually bought by an investor from Jordan. He was definitely was not accustomed to the american way of life. His name was Wajih. I pronounced it "wah-jee".
He bought the apartments.. I was not included with the business transaction. I tried to "sell" myself to him, trying to convince him that I had a lot of knowledge about the building and that I would be a great asset to his firm. It took 6 long months of pestering before I eventually landed my old job back. He was impressed and I eventually became his "right hand man". I was not impressed by him though.
He had this idea to remodel the building. With no permits and working "under the radar" of the city. In no time the city inspectors came for an inspection and shut him down. A fire broke out and caused so much damage that the building was condemned. We both continued to live in the few apartments that had minimal damage "under the radar" of the city. We were both basically homeless even though his back account continued to be in the 6 figures. This man was "as tight as a banjo string" with money.
The city eventually noticed two occupants staying in a condemned building and forced us (him) to move. He finally broke down and rented a cheap, roach infested house in the middle of crack-town.
It took 2 days for the electric company to turn on the power. He decided to turn it on himself. He did that in Jordan all the time. That caused problems between him and the utility. I couldn't tell him a thing. Here in America, you better wait on the utility to come out.
Now the funny part.
This house had a gas furnace that hadn't been used in forever. I tried to light the pilot light but it was dirty and all it would do is just puff out a blast of fire out of the inspection hole with a loud bang and about a 6 inch blast of fire. It wouldn't light, I knew what was wrong but again, I couldn't tell him nothing about lighting a furnace. Here is what he done.
He bent down on his knees, peering through the hole with a long piece of paper that is on fire in an attempt to light the pilot. The gas had been on for quite some time inside this dirty furnace and I was sure it was building up a charge! I could smell it. I warned him to get away from it, turn the gas off and call the repair man. About this time he stuck the lit paper back in the hole and BANG!. It knocked him flat on his ass. He was stunned looking up in the air as if he was looking at the angel of death. He had no eyebrows. His hair was singed and smoking. I panicked. I rushed over to check him out yelling, "u ok? u ok?".. He replied "Yea, I think so."... That is when I started falling over laughing. I soon moved on from this person and still search his name on google from time to time. Recently I found a violation where he was doing electrical work without a licence. If you could have only been there to witness the expression on his face.
Hope you enjoyed this read.
