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| Turning color, one drop at a time. |
When Jeff Engstrom worked those many years with Stan at the newspaper, he wore a different uniform: coat and tie. But he didn't have a nameplate, which was fine, because everyone knew him anyway, as he sold comprehensive print advertising programs to his loyal list of clientele. He was very good at it.
He didn't rely at that time on first impressions as much as long-term relationships. That's different now, no one wants an ongoing relationship with their water softener guy. There's nothing like a uniform to help create that instant impression of competence.
Jeff and Stan had a reunion of sorts when our 15-year-old water softening system showed a few signs of wear and possible problems.
Jeff was invited to the house for a beer, an overdue bull session, and an inspection and testing of our well water supply. He is, after all, now a state-tested, certified, licensed and qualified Water Conditioning Journeyman. His license number is on his business card. You could look it up.
So before we popped the cap off a couple of Sam Adams Boston Lager and talked old times, Jeff got out his handy dandy water testing kit and took copious samples of our tap water, then ran them through a series of rigorous tests with something that looked sort of like a junior high chemistry set.
We were gratified with the results. Jeff said our water was pretty good. We have "22 grains of hard, trace of iron/FE, 7.5 ph and 375 TDS."
We don't understand any of that, of course, but that's what it says on the notes. We'll just rely on Jeff to interpret it.
You can trust a man in a uniform.
