TECHNICAL
Tell me why you became a plumbing contractor – Leon Tobias
33
By
David Smith
This month we chatted to Leon Tobias of Jazzman Plumbing to find out more about being a plumbing contractor .
David : Hi Leon , please tell us why you became a plumbing contractor .
Leon : Hi David . So you want to know how it all began ? Well , I finished school in 1982 . I then went to university , where I studied a BA-LLB . After the first year , all my friends went to the army straight after school and I would follow them soon after when I had completed my first year of studies . I found myself employed in the law office while I was at the army and because I had wanted to go into a law career I continued my studies throughout my national service and went back to complete them when I was finished . However , just one year before completing my LLB I realised that it was not for me . I had always been an entrepreneur at heart , even while in the army I had a knack for hustling and selling various things so I decided that I wanted to eventually own a business . My father said to me – and I won ’ t repeat the actual words he used – that I had to either finish a degree or go into a trade . I told him that I would become a tradesman then .
I had not worked with my hands very much up until that point but I think I was fairly intelligent and at the same time I maintained an interest in sport and after being in the army I was in good shape so I started entering triathlons and Iron-Man competitions . Through this avenue I met several people , including a man whom I am still friends with today . I asked him if I could join his electrician business and his reply was that he did not have a position available at that time but he said I should try his friend who was looking for a plumber . So , I served my apprenticeship and being quite clever I often found myself to be ahead of the other guys at the technical college - you only had to show me something once and then I could do it . More than that , I could often improve on that method , sometimes even finding a different or better way of doing it . Once I completed my apprenticeship I qualified as a plumber in March 1989 .
Well that was how it started , there is a question you haven ’ t asked me yet though , which is how I got the name Jazzman Plumbing .
David : That was my very next question , please do tell us how the name came about .
Leon : A lot of people tend to ask me if I play any musical instruments or if I listen to a lot of jazz music , but in truth it ’ s quite the contrary . Many years ago I was at the Carlton hotel with some friends and we were planning on seeing a movie nearby . One of my friends stood up and said “ I ' m just going to the jazz , I ' m coming back now .” That was a slang term for going to the bathroom in those days and I was suddenly inspired to come up with the name Jazzman Plumbing – the man who fixes the jazz is the jazzman , and that ’ s where the name comes from . Soon after I started my business and it ’ s been over 30 years since then .
David : That ’ s a really fascinating backstory . What else can you tell our readers about the business you run ?
Leon : Well , my business revolves around my staff . I ’ m a facilitator , my background has assisted me in being able to facilitate , communicate and be who I am and where I am . Without my staff , I don ’ t know where I would be . I would say that around 70 percent of my staff have been with us for 25 years or more .
David : 25 years , I can imagine how that builds up a lot of familiarity and trust .
Leon : Yes . So we built the business up through facilitating good working relationships with some great people . Our motto from those early days , was ‘ get the job first , and then worry about how you ' re going to do it later .’ Around 1991 there was a new block of flats going up just across from the golf course in Houghton . We were lucky enough to land that job with minimal experience in high rise buildings . In effect , we were actually just maintenance plumbers . At the time there were only six of us but we managed to get the building ’ s plumbing up and running and the building is still there to this day . And that was the start , it just snowballed from there and over the years we got to where we are now .
Another early job from those days was the Woodmead Retail park , just next to the Makro . At that stage our staff complement was approximately 110 . In those days there were no EFTs and everyone got paid in cash weekly so visualise my dining room table on a Thursday night with over 100 wage packets laid out across it – we ’ ve come a long way since then .
David : One of the other contractors I was interviewing was saying that , for him , the hardest part is actually just the admin and the paperwork .
Leon : Well , so as we move forward , with the way plumbing is moving towards now , any plumbing contract these days is more admin than plumbing . There is more red tape than actual plumbing work . Safety – which is very important – becomes super strict , and then it ’ s just more paper trails and reports and the commissioning and documents and manuals and ultimately we have to employ someone just to take care of all that admin .
Leon Tobias
Leon Tobias of Jazzman Plumbing
September 2022 Volume 28 I Number 7 www . plumbingafrica . co . za