Papa Plumbing has been loyal listeners of the Kid Carson show for several years now. Kid’s show is usually on during our morning commute to various job sites. Often in the morning’s the techs are racing to get to suppliers and then to the sites. If anyone lives in the Lower Mainland, you will know that every morning is usually chaos on the roads ! I came to realize how much Kid Carson actually meant to us when a few years ago I asked all the technicians to tune into “The Beat” for this frantic commuting time.. well once a somewhat grumpy technician became a happier one ! Kid’s occasional parodies and discussions kept everyone happy and upbeat. I work many long hours, especially when The Big P is out of town. There were many times I would be up so late working on paper work or invoices but I knew in the morning I would have to get up.. have to listen to Kid & laugh .. and have a happy start to the day. From here our company goal was set: one day Papa would be sponsoring the Kid Carson show ! So out came a Papa Van:

Every morning/evening I would visualize Kid saying our name on air and people smiling ! I sometimes wonder if Kid even realizes how many smiles he puts on every listener in the morning. How many people does he make laugh when they are facing stressful days ?

One day in particular Papa Dale’s van skidded off the road during winter. While he was waiting for his tow truck, he listened to the show..it sure kept him smiling through out !

March 11,2010 I decided to work up the courage and ask Kid to give a shout out for the first ever “World Plumbing Day“.

I knew it would be a neglected day, but I know how hard all the Papa’s work.. and how hard everyone in the service industry works, I just really wanted someone to acknowledge this day for us. Out of all the media outlets I contacted.. Kid Carson was the ONLY one who wished us a HAPPY WORLD PLUMBING DAY on air !! That alone meant the world to us ! I focused on our goal again, we knew the companies who advertised were pretty big companies. I just knew one day this goal would be reached !

I have always loved tweeting the hosts of the show, and during the Canucks season, we brought almost our whole fleet to the Canucks Playoff Payoff.. as Jasmina describes it in the attached clip, we all got out and met Kid.. but what is so amazing about Kid is that he actually wants to meet you, he genuinely wants to shake your hand and meet his fans. His team is also like this as well. – . they were all very welcoming towards us.

After we put up our vision board (which is called a “painted picture” taken from Cameron Herold’s book Double Double) in the office, I also put up the Papa van with our goal on it. One day, out the blue I emailed the show right away .. I thought I got nothing to lose, let me try..of course from there the universe took over.. everything fell into place. Jasmina responded to my e-mail within the hour, and she put us in contact with our rep Devon. I would e-mail her updates and even in the evening time.. when I knew she wasn’t working, she would still take that extra time to e-mail me back. Those e-mails meant so much to me, she actually cared !! We met with Devon (who was very honest and upfront with us which we really needed) and everything was arranged.

Aug 8th was our first ad on the show. I was so nervous and excited, I kept waking up every hour.. afraid I was going to sleep in and miss it (and I never sleep in !!.. up by 4:30 am). So our ad aired..I immediately tweeted Jasmina, and she replied that “we are going to give you a shout out in a bit”.. well what came for us was a dream come true. It was better then I could have ever imagined it.. Kid actually talked about Papa .. like talked about us  – our company that we all work hard everyday in ! No words I type will give it justice so I am uploading the audio clip for you all, which Devon kindly emailed without me even asking for it! Kid talked about small businesses and that really touched our hearts. A few of us were listening in the office, – I cried.. and the techs got emotional because you could feel in Kid’s voice how much it meant to him. An amazing feeling that I will never forget ! I know the Big P will never forget as well ! I didn’t even know that anyone was ever reading the tweets I would post.. but I would just always post them because this was someone who was making our days into happy days !

THANK YOU KID & YOUR MORNING TEAM: JASMINA, MANDY, NIRA, AMY, ANDREW THE INTERN & DEVON (who made this all possible) !

Papa does have one request. When the Big P started in 1996, his first PAPA van was stolen. He was pretty choked, he had earned that van by working many nights and many hours. His 2nd Papa Van is still in the company, it is kind of a clunker.. but every Papa drives it before they are promoted to a newer van. Our request is that if Kid could put a Beat sticker on the back of this very van that has been with Papa since the beginning. We hope he accepts our request !

Very Proud Papa’s we are:

TWITTER: Hey Kid – where’s the follow? How come no follow?? where’s the love for Papa?? hehehe

That’s okay a few other’s of the team aren’t following either.. hehehe

Even Andrew The Intern – shocking !!

But we still love you all !!

Wait a second.. we have A WINNER BABY !!! Yaaayy Jasmina

We look forward to an amazing journey with the Kid Carson show and Papa is going to cherish every moment of it !!

P.S. In case you dont know: My name is Joy and I have been the operations manager of Papa Plumbing for the last 4 years.  My boss, or the Big P (P for Papa) as we call him, is Kal. Kal started Papa Plumbing in 1996. His work ethic is profound and in our company we all respect how he built this business from scratch. Thank you Kid and Team for honoring that work ethic in your show !