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It is 7 pm on a Wednesday.
Justin is outside on the phone, I can hear his end of a focused conversation through the open window while I write. The passenger side door to his work van is open. He had just started to clean out his truck when his phone rang; his phone is always ringing. His truck is never clean.
If Justin knew I told you that his truck is never clean he would be upset. So don’t tell him I told you!
He’d say, “Why do you have to be like that. I’m doing the best I can.” Then he’d call me by his little pet name for me. No, I’m not going to tell you that part.
Ug. Now I feel bad for telling you that the inside of his truck is always so f*cking messy. And the outside isn’t too pretty either. And don’t even get me started on the tool shed… I digress.
The point is not that Justin’s van is messy. The purpose of this post is to tell you how proud I am of my plumb boss boyfriend.
Justin owns a plumbing company called Yogi’s Plumbing and Drain Service. (Justin is also a yogi. But that’s another story.) Over the past five years, Justin has built a business, from one self-taught SoCal dude with his plumbing license to a team of technicians, a fleet of trucks, and office staff.
That sentence makes it sounds easy. It wasn’t easy. It isn’t easy. Over the past five years, Justin has worked his ass off — In the field all day. On Facebook groups and plumbing blogs all night (or at least until he passed out on the couch, sometimes at 7pm after a long day.)
In the beginning, he had a partner. Someone older and wiser who was supposed to run the “business” side of things. I won’t go into details. But that guy turned out to be an alcoholic and a selfish jerk (as many alcoholics are). He drove the company into debt. He owned forty-nine percent.
Reclaiming full ownership of Yogi’s cost Justin $50,000 to buy out his so-called partner, plus the assumption of all debt (let’s just say it was more than the company’s worth).
Covid helped. I know that’s not a popular option, that covid actually saved someone’s business. But it did. The PPP money lifted Justin out of debt and into control.
***
His phone is always ringing. Customers who call him directly instead of the company number. General Contractors with new projects. His employees, on a job who need authorization and/or advice. Other plumbers just looking to shoot the sh*t.
Everybody wants to talk to Justin!
It used to annoy me. The constant phone calls. “It’s work.” He’d say, reaching for the remote. I’d roll my eyes. As if “it’s work” made it not annoying to pause LOST for the third time that lazy Sunday morning.
Maybe I’ve changed. Maybe now that we live together, it’s different.
But now it’s pretty sexy, his phone ringing all the time. My boyfriend is a Plumb Boss.
Nothing is sexier than a man in demand.
