Its what is done by people who take this lifestyle seriously. It is not easy on spouses and family when we are gone for training and especially hard during deployments.
I have a pretty diverse background and am a DIY guy, that and my brother is a licensed HVAC/plumber. So if I encounter anything out of my realm its easy to get some advice. The A/C quit at one house and the HVAC place was busy and couldn’t get out for 2 days. I have a small portable A/C unit I use in the garage so we set that up in her house to help keep it bearable for her and the dogs. Took a quick look at her A/C unit and found the capacitor had gone bad and shorted out a portion of the motherboard. Once I diagnosed it and got the parts it literally took me 20 minutes to fix and cost was under $100. Sure beats the $250 show-up fee, plus parts, plus labor from HVAC company.
Simple stuff like that goes a LONG way for someone already under stress. It didn’t cost me anything but a little sweat and that was quickly replaced with a couple beers. What I fail to understand is why more people don’t help out neighbors. Yes, I know some people are just tried and true asshats who truly don’t deserve some help, but not everyone is.