The Joys of Being a Plumber

Thanks for returning. You're a very smart person.

For those of you who follow along, you know that I haven’t been posting much of late.

To be honest with you, there hasn’t been much in the VoIP industry that has truly inspired me to write. Sure I had fits of passion here are there, stringing you along with a post here, a post there.  Something seemed to be missing though, about the way I felt about the VoIP industry.

It wasn’t that VoIP was now thought of as just plumbing or that VoIP was dead, it was that my inspiration was a sailboat with no wind - stranded in the middle of a lake of thought.

I’ve read on as the great debate raged and everyone (including me) had their say in deciding the fate of the VoIP industry. A plumber myself, I knew VoIP wasn’t going away. After all new pipe is laid everyday and pipes break, so there will always be a need for people who can install and fix them.

But for some reason I didn’t really understand this fact. Until a few days ago, that is. It was then that I finally understood what had caused my inspiration for writing about VoIP to sit motionlessly afloat  - At some point I started thinking something was wrong with plumbing and being a plumber.

Oddly enough, it was an unexpected twenty minutes that put this all in perspective (and renewed my inspiration).

This past weekend was my Grandmother’s 76 birthday (she is the coolest lady ever). After dinner, my whole family was crammed into my parents dining room gossiping, telling war stories and or one another off <smirk> .

I was in the middle of a diatribe about some random topic when I heard my Grandmother echo the word, “VoIP.” It seems Grams had just signed-up for digital home phone service from her cable provider that uses that “new telecommunications plumbing,” VoIP (she was psyched about doing something new technology wise).

“Isn’t that what you do honey?” quipped Grams.

And in that instance, the wind started to pick up. With that one question a conversation about VoIP, how it works, what I do and even this blog engulfed my entire immediate family. The conversation was so vigorous that it raised my sails and pushed the conversation along into topics like video calls, cell phones and all sorts of technophile talk. I couldn’t believe it, but it made me smile.

On the ride home that night, I thought a lot about the twenty minutes of plumber’s glory had that night. The look on my Grandmother’s face - the joy of discovery and the new connection she had made with her family - it was priceless. I then thought about the number of people that night who had just discovered VoIP. How many others had felt the joy of something new and the new connection that was made with someone else they knew who had recently gotten VoIP that night?

That’s when it came to me - Plumbing is pretty amazing stuff if you’re use to an outhouse.

With that in mind, for the first time in months I am sailing along, powered by a little joy that comes with being a plumber every now and then. I know that hardware might be boring. I get that the minutes that flow cheaply through them don’t taste as well as their packaged counterparts. But at the end of the day, I like plumbing and I’m okay with being a plumber (not to mention the little joys that come with it).

So, VoIP is not dead and neither is this blog. I’m excited to resume passionately writing about the pipes, fittings and water that compose the VoIP plumbing system (and others who are making it all happen everyday).

Aah. The joys of being a plumber.