The Grimm Adventures...

I didn't think I would rant on this blog but I feel the need to clear a little writers block with a rant.

Edmonton, "the city of champions", some say the, "greatest city in the world". I must concede that when the sun is out and the temperature rises a bit it is a nice city. However, the pleasant city turns ugly when you enter a business. (broad generalization that is not always the case) Driving through Edmonton one must wear those blinders that are were popular in the days of the stagecoach and currently with sulky racers if one doesn't want to be barraged by multicolour assaults of help wanted signs. Along every road, in every mall, on every business help wanted signs blare their employment come-on. Signing bonus, full benefits for drivers, $8.50 PT $9.50 FT. There are even wage wars between fast food joints. The Saturday paper weighs 7 pounds due to the "working" section. It appears to be a job-seekers dream come true. But is it a dream for consumers?

The answer is a resounding, "no"!! With a, "make it stop" thrown in. Walk into a McDonald's and the person taking your order is the same person that cooks your food and the same person that is responsible to mop the floor and clean the toilet. Needless to say he is in a bad mood and not quite as fast as Ronald would like to see.

What brought this rant on you may ask. Well it is a funny story of good service gone bad.

After finding our van with a broken window and damage to three of the four doors, I found a nice bodyshop and received an estimate. Yada yada yada. I had to reschedule the repairs due to starting my new job, which they jumped at because they, "are understaffed in the bodyshop and could use a week to sort things out". They were very friendly, and simply provided what I thought was great service. The great service continued when I dropped the van off; they checked me in quickly and had the car rental folks on the phone to pick me up right away. I left there in a great mood and had terrific service for the car rental people too. Then it turned.

On Thursday afternoon the body shop left a message that the van was finished. I was surprised because this was only the fourth day and they had originally said it would take six. But I was happy to get it back and made arrangements to take a long lunch on Friday to pick it up and then zip to an afternoon meeting across town. I went to the car rental place and dropped off the rental, again great service. The guy that drove me back to the body shop was an older guy with a thick Irish accent and he was hilarious. We joked around during the short drive and as we pulled up he quipped, "do you want to check it out before I leave." We both laughed at this comment and I went in to get my van back as he drove off.

After signing the paper work and getting my keys (again very friendly service) I went out to get into the van. The perfectionist in me noticed immediately that there was something wrong with the paint job on the driver door. Instead of fixing the damage, they simply had painted over it. My internal dialogue couldn't figure out if this was the way it should be or if they should have done a better job. Deciding they should have done a better job, I started to head back in to get their opinion. I stopped myself took a deep breath and checked the passenger side. This was even worse, not only had they done a poor job repairing the passenger door they had not done anything to repair the rear door's damage.

They estimator and I checked out the van thoroughly and found there were a number of items that were poorly done or not touched at all. So we got the rental car driver back and again I left our van to be repaired. Needless to say the driver laughed all the way back to the rental shop and I must admit I did too.

What is the moral of the story? With so many jobs available, people do not need to take pride in what they do. Another job is waiting for them next door, down the street and in every other business within 50 Kilometers of where they are currently providing sloppy service to consumers.

by Chad