AwardsScratching the Porcelain: Table 23 at the National Plumbing

AdMedia, Feb 20, 2004 by Peter Vegas

I've never worked in an industry so obsessed with winning awards. But that's because I've never been a plumber.

My brother-in-law is a plumber, and after a fight with his wife a few weeks ago that climaxed with her telling him he could "take my ticket to your special night and jam it", I had a rare opportunity to get a glimpse inside the very private, closed and exclusive world of plumbing.

The aim of the NZ Plumbing Awards is to celebrate industry excellence, and it was only after sitting through the seven-hour ceremony that I got a true idea of how seriously these professionals take their special night.

Unlike advertising, the plumbing business is going through a bit of a boom time. While some of our clients might argue that advertising is just money down the drain, with plumbing that's exactly what the clients want. If stuff isn't going down the drain they're happy to throw money at the plumber until it does.

Judging by the visual extravaganza I witnessed at the marquee- covered Waikaraka Park Speedway, there are a lot of drains being unblocked in this country.

The awards opened with a giant hot air balloon in the shape of a toilet bowl landing on the stage. Moments before it touched down the evening's host, Tom Bradley, blasted out of the bowl wearing a jet pack made up to look like a giant toilet duck. At 300 feet a parachute opened and Tom floated gracefully down to the stage and into the arms of a six-foot 15-stone Samoan transvestite who carried Tom to the podium.

At this point you would have been forgiven for thinking the work itself was going to struggle to match the flashy show. But you would have been wrong. The plumbing industry has struggled in recent years to find the right mix of categories. This year they opted for a simpler streamlined system:

* Best Bathroom Fitout (in less than 15

days, in 30 days and 60 days and over).

* Best Commercial Bathroom (in under 15

days, in 30 days and 60 days and over).

* Best Cinema Complex Bathroom Fitout.

* Best 24-Hour Callout.

* Best Burst Main Repair.

There were also a few other more specialised sections. The plumbing business has changed a lot over the last couple of decades and that's been reflected in the award categories.

According to my brother-in-law a lot of young plumbers have realised that winning plumbing awards is the key to getting ahead in their industry. It's not enough to just be an effective plumber with a strong track record of good solid work. The fact is, if they aspire to driving their own four-wheel plumbing truck, working for the flash firms, on the best jobs, then they need to win awards.

In the '80s they introduced a Waterbed category after complaints that waterbed entries were far more glamorous than blocked toilets and leaking hot-water cylinders and therefore had an unfair advantage when they came up against each other in judging.

One of the new catagories is the Guerrilla Plumbing Award. This year it went to a plumbing company that installed a primate-friendly bathroom in the guerrilla enclosure at Auckland Zoo.

The rapid increase in the number of smaller avant-garde jobs winning awards has also led to the introduction of a special category for 'charity clients'.

For example, when the SAS wanted a portaloo installed on their Zodiac that could be used with night vision goggles and had a special smell-absorption device to prevent the enemy detecting their presence, they were inundated with plumbing firms eager to do the job. Why? Because of the cash? Not likely. The SAS only has two Zodiacs big enough for a portaloo and only one pair of night-vision goggles. The plumbers smelled an award.

Any decent plumber will tell you that humour is as important a tool in the job as the monkey wrench or plunger. There's nothing like a quick knock-knock joke to take the edge off a tense moment with a client when you're in their lounge standing ankle deep in sewage.

The Humour section or 'Plumbers Crack Up' is a biggie and this year it went to a young chap who dresses his plunger up as a teddy bear and does a ventriloquist act when he presents his bill.

A deserving winner? Well I thought so, until someone explained to me that the plumber had ripped the act off a well-know American standup comedian. This led to an argument that divided my table, with some plumbers saying the winner should give back his award and others maintaining that 'Plunger Man' deserved to win because he was the first plumber to use the idea.

At this point I should mention the awards themselves. They're 100% porcelain and each one comes with a three-year flush warranty. Stunning, and certainly a fine addition to the reception area of any plumbing firm.

But the awards weren't all about rewarding creativity for creativity's sake. Plumbers are very conscious that they exist to perform an important function. In recognition of this the plumbers have introduced an effectiveness section. The Leafies - an award for the best system for preventing leaves blocking drains.

After seven hours and 732 categories, the ceremony came to a close with a rousing performance of the Ream Hot Water Cylinder jingle sung by the Manawatu Tabernacle Choir. As if that wasn't stunning in its own right, during the encore 35,000 gold-painted rubber tap-washers rained from the ceiling creating a golden shower that prompted an elderly plumber beside me to begin reminiscing about his trip to Thailand in the early '90s.