The ceiling fan dilemma

Over a month ago, I broke the pullchain off of my ceiling fan. I pulled it to change speeds, and it came off. And I mean completely off. As in, it was completely separated from the mechanism. The fan was effectively stuck on its current speed.

Try as I might, I could not repair the fan. I tried feeding the chain back into the fan to see if it would catch, no luck. I even took the bottom off the fan to see if anything could be done from the inside; still no luck. It was beyond my repair skills. So, I gave in and called the leasing office and put in a repair request. They said there were some people's ACs that needed fixing, but they would get to the fan ASAP.

In the meantime, I had to figure out a way to turn the fan off. The fan had gotten stuck on its highest speed, and was making a lot of noise, too much to sleep. So, I was able to get the fan turned off by switching the "blow downward"/"blow upward" switch to halfway inbetween the two directions. I left the bottom of the fan along with the pullchain on the counter for use by the maintenance guy when he had the chance to stop by...

A week passed, and he didn't stop by. I checked with the office, and they said the delay was because of the broken ACs, and that my repair wasn't "priority," but they'd try to get it done by the end of the week. Another week passed, still nothing, and was told essentially the same thing when I checked with the office again.

I waited longer... a lot longer than I should have. Until finally, a month after my request was submitted, my fan wasn't fixed and I'd had enough. I called the office again and a very nice, very sympathetic woman told me that she'd get maintenance to come by "first thing Monday."

Monday rolled around, and I started the day like every day. Before I left, I turned the fan "off." When I returned home, I was pleased to see a note on my door, indicating maintenance had indeed come by. I walked up to my door, and looked at the note, left at 1:30pm ("first thing"?). The note described the "fix" as, "turned fan on, switched directions." A feeling of dread passed over me. He didn't just turn the switch down to turn the fan back on and call it a "fix"... did he?

Sure enough, I enter my apartment to see the parts and pullchain still lying on the counter, the wires still hanging out of the fan, and the fan was churning away at full speed. The maintenance guy obviously thought that I was too stupid to think of his "fix" after a whole month. And that the wires hanging out, the chain off to the side, and the parts lying around were there for decoration.

I angrily walked over to the leasing office, note in hand, and waited for someone to talk to me. When they had the chance, I took a deep breath and handed them the note. "He didn't fix it," I said. "Maybe you can get him to come by again and fix it for real?" I then got the usual apologies, and that they'd "try to get (the maintenance guy) out again" and that they would "really push it." I was back to where I started.

But, things ended happily. I returned home the next day to another note, and a brand new ceiling fan (complete with a light that the other one didn't have). A nice gesture, but its unfortunate that it took over a month.

What's the point of all this? None, really. It does remind me of a quote from The Simpsons, which went something like this: "It just goes to show that if you don't like something, you should complain and complain till all your dreams come true."