One large company would only call Joe Cosgriff Welding Machine Rentals on weekends, and I mean late on weekends. They'd call at, oh, 11 PM on a Saturday night, all in a dither over some presumed emergency. Joe would grumble, but dutifully take the order and fill it, delivering whatever in the wee hours of a Sunday.
He happened to be out of town one weekend. That company called, and me Pops answered. He refused the rental. "You call somebody else during regular hours but us at off hours. We're not doing business that way," Dad blithely explained to the company rep.
Pops worried a bit what Joe would think, but grandfather sided with his son. Say what you want about Joe, and much can and has been said, when he delegated authority to Pops he never questioned what Dad did. Joe figured, "I told him to run it, so I gotta let him run it."
Another time we were in a recession, and business was bad. That wouldn't stop Joe from taking his trips, so he decided one day to go off on an adventure. Dad, of course, took over.
He took a call from a very large company (you would recognize it but I won't tell you, just for safety's sake, discretion being the better part of valor) who were notorious for being slow to pay. Me Pops did not like dealing with them. Yet they wanted ten machines asap and there wasn't much other work. Dad opted to take the chance and fill the order, which ballooned into almost every one of the welders Joe owned at the time. At the height of the job, they had 210 units rented.
And, they paid promptly. "I'm glad I took that call!" Dad would say in telling the story. I know Joe did not question his decision on that one.
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