Monday, December 04, 2006
Service or Dis-service? Part 2
Many people have asked how this all played out and how the van is now. Thanks for your concern. In this installment of Service or Dis-service (and I lean toward dis-service) you will learn the true meaning of "get it done or get it done right".
We pick up with me in a rental van and our van in the body shop to actually be fixed this time. We had a fabulous weekend, spent 4 hours in the emergency room only to find that Doctors don't really now how to examine a patient, but that's another story. I did like the rental vehicle though I had made it quite dirty with my daily commute and they didn't have time to wash it before I took it again, but what can you do.
On Tuesday afternoon the bodyshop called me to say the van was once again ready. I asked, "are you quite sure, because I don't want to waste my time picking it up only to leave it there again? Please have someone check the work." So they called back an hour or so later with an affirmative and I left work early (don't tell anyone) to grab it.
I arrived and Johnny, the manager, gave me the tour of my now "completed" van. I was pretty happy with the results and as he finished his checklist, "new reflective tape here and here, new clips to hold the door molding on and that's about it." I said, "And a full tank of gas for all my trouble!?!" He was confused and then offered me "a night at the movies for two". I was happy with that; if you think about the price of admission these days. So I took the coupons with a smile and got in the van and headed for home.
As I had to stop at a number of red lights along the way, I checked out the coupons, where were they valid, did they expire, that sort of thing. Then I realized that they were only good for a bag of popcorn and two medium fountain pops. 'Fabulous!!' I thought, 'Johnny had just bought off my bad experience with about 3 bucks!!' The thing is, when we go to the movies we pay to get in, these coupons did not cover entry. When we do see a show we stop at Safeway and pick up a couple of bottles of our favorite beverage and perhaps a bag of Twizzlers. So Johnny's gesture, while still an attempt to make up for the startling dis-service, fell WAY short in my books. But I had the van and it had paint on all the doors and all the chips, holes, and scratches were repaired so I took it home and parked in our heated garage for the first time in ten nights. I put on the Club and turned on the pseudo Alarm system and tucked it in till morning.
Wednesday morning I had to go to an all-day conference in the extreme north west of town and I, of course, thought that I was running late. So I jumped in the van and reeled back at the overpowering smell of paint. It wasn't really a bad smell, a little sweet and clean but enough to topple a rhino with just one whiff. It was about 25 below outside but rather warm in the garage so I thought I ought to air it out a bit for my long drive. I figured I should put the passenger window down for a few minutes even if it meant running with it open in the freezer outside the big door. At least the icy wind would come in the other side of the van. So I hit the power window switch to roll it down and nothing happened. Mild curse words escaped my lips. The utter inconvenience of having to lean to the other side to open the passenger window was infuriating, but I did lean over none the less. As my finger touched the switch my brain went into high gear and ran scenarios of what if's. The one that made me cease the action and lift my finger was, 'what if the window goes down but will not go up?' As I lifted my finger I laughed out loud at myself. That is pretty silly; as if that would happen. The window was now open a half an inch. I again reached to roll it down further but that 'what if' played again, and again I stopped. The argument in my head was so silly, but the silly side won out. Instead of rolling it down further I hit the switch in the UP direction. And this time not-so-mild curse words escaped my lips. But with no time to fix it myself I drove out into the arctic-esc world with the window down a crack.
As I drove I examined the door switches for the power locks as well. None of the switches were actually installed correctly. They were all at odd angles and the power lock on the passenger door was not clipped into place at all and was barely reachable through the little hole in the door handle. Due to my mounting anger many people had decided to stay off the roads that morning allowing me to make good time.
Once I neared my destination I pulled over to call Nik and tell her about the situation and have her calm me down a little. Our conversation went as you'd expect, utter awe and amazement from Nik, and afterward I took a moment to see if I could fix this little faux pas so I would not have to talk to the body shop again. I took the switch plates out of both doors and ensured the plugs were secure in each switch. As they all gave a resounding click, my anger again reduced to a simmer. I thought I had it licked. When I was finished finishing the bodyshops work I tried once again to roll the window up and, as you may have guessed, nothing happened. There was no whirr of the motor, no sound of the window moving along its lining, just the sound of steam escaping from my ears like the whistle of a kettle. You may say that this would not be a good time to call the bodyshop and explain the situation and as I sit here and type this I tend to agree.
The bodyshop's phone rang and had they known what was on the other end they would have let it ring and ring and ring some more. I showed minimal restraint in my barrage of the poor receptionist, as the manager was not in. She was quite apologetic and would have the manager call me, which of course would not work because of the all day meeting I would be in. I managed to connect with the manager, Johnny, later on and, as I had time to calm down a bit, I politely went up one side of him and down the other. (I don't really know what that means) He came and got the van and took it to the shop AGAIN. I was not optimistic that he could solve the problem. I think the track record had me a bit worried. So I made sure he would be back by 4:45 or have a rental for me to take home, at his expense!!
The all-day meeting went well. We had some hotel food and talked about the business plan. To wrap things up we did a team building activity that involved rescuing a pair of endangered Condor eggs from a nest in the Andes. It was a difficult task that took me all of 2 minutes to come up with a plan, sell the plan to my team, and build our apparatus of rescue. In the end we had the best time and to go along with my recent luck there was no prize for the winning team.
Possibly due to the fact that my team took all of 34 seconds to rescue the Condor eggs, I was in the lobby early and who should walk in but Johnny. He even had my keys. The problem was that the plug to the power window motor had not been pushed in as far as it should have been, "ha ha ha". 'No shit Johnny', I thought. 'Thanks for getting it back to me', is what came out of my mouth. Johnny said with a smile, "I put gas in it...you know, for the trouble." "That's nice, I appreciate that." I replied very sincerely.
That was it, I had the van again and it was all good. Once Johnny was in his cab I ran out to check his assumption of completion. The windows worked, the door locks worked and it all seemed good; then I looked at the gas gauge. In my estimation $5 was put in the tank. Take away the couple of bucks it cost for the round trip from north Edmonton to south and that leaves $3. Whoopee!! I was rolling in dough. That made up for their lack of attention to detail...Detail???
Well the van was back straightened, painted and the windows not only went down, they went up too.
My Dad visited a week or two later and said the paint looked a little wavy. Oh well I like surfing, so rather than subject myself to more of Johnny's dis-service I think we can live with Waves.
By Chad
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Hey! Tried to leave comments before and it wouldn't work. Glad to see that you (or the Computer God) has fixed this. It's fun to read comments, it's like a gentle critique that you know will be nice. I am loving your stories.
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