Ideal’s “Lucky” Culture – An (Almost) Diamond Disaster!

March is a month that brings an extra spotlight on the word “luck.”

My definition of luck is what happens when good fortune meets preparation.

My observation of lucky people is they are doers – they get things done.  They have a positive attitude; they don’t give up and are not easily frustrated. They innovate when a solution isn’t readily available. Being a lucky person over and over takes work.

This brings me to my point – if you want to be lucky when you are having some work done on your home, car, or anything you own, you’ll want to find a company who has a reputation for expert knowledge, skilled tradesmen, proper tools and equipment. Find a company who shows a positive optimism for the task at hand.

Your result will be what some people will refer to as “lucky.” However, I prefer to hear you got an ideal job. At Ideal we have “lucky” outcomes everyday. Here is a classic story that happened some 30 years ago – one that is part of our Ideal “lucky” culture.

Early one afternoon we got a phone call from a panicked woman. She said, “I lost my 3 diamond rings down the toilet. I was cleaning them and put them in some Kleenex to dry and I absentmindedly balled them up and tossed them in the toilet and flushed all three down the drain. HELP! I have to be at the airport in an hour and I can’t change my flight time.” Keep in mind, this incident happened decades ago, before drain line inspection cameras were available to our industry.

This job was a bit challenging because there was no access to drain lines due to a concrete slab and the sewerline throughout was buried deep. There was no good way to assess how far the 3 rings traveled when toilet was flushed and there was no exposed clean-out at property line.

Our Solution:
We removed 2 manhole covers in the city street. We installed screens on the sewer and began to flush the toilet repeatedly. To stimulate the weight of the rings we put 3 nickles in a ball of Kleenex and 3 quarters in another and flushed them down the toilet.

Our efforts the first day resulted in 1 ring retrieved. Over the next two days, Ideal returned to check our screen attachment devise and we retrieved the second and finally the third ring.

This lucky outcome was really only possible because the right mix of preparation, trust, skill, and innovation met up with luck.

“I’m a great believer in luck, I find the harder I work, the more I have of it.” -Thomas Jefferson