First blunder at a client's house

[Kujacker]

Today I flooded the side yard of a client’s house. A new client at that.

I turned the water on last night to water the garden (as requested)… and I just totally forgot about it after being occupied with the dog and cat. Thing is… even when I sat down on the bed last night, I thought to myself “Did I turn the water off? … yeah I did.” Obviously not.
The hose was on from about 8pm to 1pm the next day. The entire side yard was flooded. I freaked. Freaked out. Called my dad, texted my best friend and just otherwise ran around like I didn’t have a head… trying to get this water up and redistributed so it would dry up. Dad said (it’s just water) to just find a push broom and push it around. Of course this house didn’t have a push broom… just a tiny normal broom (which did nothing). Ryan (friend) said that it was just water, and it probably wasn’t anything to freak about… but otherwise kept texting me thru out to see how I was doing. He still thought it wasn’t a big deal, but that I freaked out and cared so much about it meant that I was a good person.
But the thing was, it wasn’t “just water”. It was water that at one point, was past ankle deep. It was also probably the size of 20 feet “long” of just water. That wasn’t going to evaporate in 2 hours.
The dog loved it though 😐

A different client of mine (which I was due to have lunch with today… now moved to Monday… the client with the pitbull for those that have read some of my posts) came out to help me since she lives just down the way. It’s actually against the “rules” of my job to have people at the houses. Obviously understandable… but I know her well enough and just having her there calmed me a bit. She also helped with the water.

Eventually I just had to call my boss about it. I had been working for over an hour on this and it really wasn’t going anywhere. Not to mention I felt like vomiting because it was 105 degrees out, and I had pants, a tight-woven cotton shirt, a hat and a hooded JACKET on… all the while running around like mad.
My boss, Linda, said it didn’t sound like a big deal… but I still asked that she come over and look. She came over and said the same thing as everyone else did. It’s just water. It looked like they had a heavy rain. She said “The dog and cat are safe. You’re okay, the actual house is okay. That’s all that really matters!” She called the owners and apparently they also said it probably wasn’t a big deal.

I was so flustered that apparently, I left one of the garage doors half open. I KNOW I closed it… or at least hit the button. I suppose it just didn’t register… maybe I hit it too fast before the machine could react. So while the owners didn’t have a problem with the water, they did with the garage door. I really screwed up with this one -__-

I’m pretty sure I burned my feet as well. I wasn’t wearing socks or shoes (since they were soaked anyway) the whole time. 105 degree weather while walking on concrete. My feet are bright red, and are very painful to walk on.

As my dad said, you learn from your mistakes though. And while this is the first mistake I have EVER made at a client’s house, I’ve definitely learned from it. For sure, I’m never walking away from a hose again -___-

Amazingly, they want me to come back next week for another 6 days of pet sitting. I’m just… still very flustered about the whole thing. What a stupid mistake! How could I have let this happen? If it was my yard I wouldn’t have given it 2 minutes of my time. But this wasn’t my house. This was, essentially, a strangers house. It’s not my property to eff up.

[Andrea]

Aw. I’m sorry you had such a rough time. Just remember they are normal people and sound reasonable. You’ll always be harder on yourself then they will.

Also don’t fall into the trap of overthinking yourself so you make even more mistakes. Just be calm and rational. When you see them the next time apologize politely and move on. 🙂

[Carolyn]

What a story . Wow that much water would freak out most people . Hugs .

[Kalandra]

🙂 Awwwww your being way to hard on yourself!

Kalandra

[Hannah]

Well they certainly seem like reasonable people! Just remind yourself that even though you made a mistake with the water and the garage door that they are still inviting you back! That tells me that they understand that things happen, people make mistakes, and you were working as hard as you could to fix it! I think they may have felt differently if you didn’t try to make it better. Your friend is right, it says a lot about you that you were running around trying to fix things when everyone else was telling you “it’s just water”. You obviously care about these people’s homes, even if you ARE a stranger! That speaks volumes.

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[Katherine]

The fact that you cared so much about what you did, made the owners believe you were worth keeping. 🙂 If you screwed up and were shady about it, or sloppy out of laziness, they wouldn;t have liked that…but because you were apologetic, and you tried everythig you could to correct it, they saw some merit in you, and that is why they want you back. 🙂 Take deep breathes!! 🙂

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