Feeling Bad For Cloyce

I'm in sales, and I like sales. I particularly like to make big sales. Well, most of time, anyways. Sometimes a good sale does make me feel bad though, believe it or not.

There's this drain cleaner who comes into the old barn, I'll call him Cloyce just to give him a name, who's a genuine, purely nice guy. Indeed you can't help but like him, he's so nice. But he's had a run of awful luck lately.

A couple of weeks ago Cloyce lost nine cables in a bad sewer; the homeowner didn't have the money to dig the line up for repair. The cables Cloyce uses are $65 each. We can all say ouch at that, can't we?

A few weeks back in a flood, his power unit was covered in water for several hours. There's another two grand to replace that.

Last Friday morning Cloyce needed another eight cables, again, remember, at sixty five bucks a pop, after someone did not tell him a line they knew was broken was broken.

Suffice it say that I've made a few dollars off Cloyce recently. Yet I honestly feel bad about it. All right, yes, I took his money. Still, I do hope his, ah, fortune improves soon.

Buried Cable

Scrap steel cables are worth a few pennies now, so much so that we have a scrap man who regularly stops by the old barn to pick up what we have. Indeed if I have enough of a load I'll take a bunch in myself. Yet that wasn't always the case.

I remember when I was a small boy, perhaps 7 or 8 years old, that me Pops had accumulated a lot of old scrap cables and no scrap dealer would take them. He could not pawn them off on anyone. If I had to guess, I would say he had several thousand feet of old steel cable, the bulk of it in short lengths of  8 to 10 feet. What to do, what to do.

He hired who were then two of his younger brothers, me Uncle Mike and me Uncle Jim, to bury them. 

As I said, I was little. One morning Uncles Mike and Jim arrived in my parents back yard with spade shovels and a truck nearly overloaded with bent and gnarled cables. They worked hard, digging a trench about 12 feet long, 8 feet wide, and I think about 10 feet deep. When they had done that, they laid all that cable into it until it was nearly half full. Then they covered it all up, tamping it down as they went.

Now I ask you, what might some archaeologist at some future date think of that mess of steel? What outlandish conjectures would creep into his mind when slowly dredging through what was once 4761 Avery in Detroit? Was it as mass of communication cables from an ancient civilization? Part of a scientific experiment whose point was lost to history? The remnants of a forgotten religious ceremony?

Nah, just some iron trash buried by two teens hungry for money and paid for the task by their older brother. But future history is fun to contemplate, isn't it?

What Happens Next

Yesterday morning as I unpacked a parts order from Electric Eel (Electric Eel: for all your drain cleaning needs) I discovered that I had overordered by about 30 the number of spanner wrenches which I normally stock. A spanner in this case is used to disconnect drain snake cables from one another. I assume you want to know that.

A surplus of those tools isn't a bad thing. They're relatively inexpensive, about nine bucks a pop, and are a routine sell, so it doesn't hurt to have the extras. Opening the middle right drawer of my work desk, I dropped the bag of wrenches in. 

We know what's going to happen next, don't we?

We don't? Then let me tell us.

In the coming weeks and months, every time I open that drawer I'll shove that bag of spanners back, looking for whatever else I may have been seeking from inside my desk. In time, papers and detritus, the flotsam and jetsam of business, will begin to cover over the wrenches until they are camouflaged beyond the discovery of the most able spy.

Three years will pass, maybe four, and I'll be looking in the desk for umpteenth time for something entirely unrelated when that bag of spanners will again see the light of day. And I will ask myself in total and complete surprise, "How did those get back there?"

Anyone care to take a bet on that? I'll give you good odds.

Where Oh Where

Where's Phil isn't quite like Where's Waldo. Very like our famous picture book friend, me brother Phil can get lost in a crowd. It's his strength. Even at that, I found myself wondering just where the hell he was last Thursday.

We run the Shop fairly loosey-goosey, so I wasn't all that concerned when he was a few minutes late. I assumed he had some little chore to deal with. I'd take it out of his pay.

When he wasn't around by the time I decided to go for lunch I thought, well, maybe he's got a doctor's appointment which I forgot about. I just locked up and went home for a sandwich.

But after lunch, still no Phil. I began to go from a little miffed to a point of some worry. You know, with all the usual suspects: there was an accident, he had our brother Patrick at the doctor's and some mildly emergency tests needed to be run, that sort of thing. Yet it wasn't like him not to call or text, so part of me was upset about that.

Right around 2:30 I decided that I might lock up and stop by his house. Patrick lives there too and if they weren't out together, maybe he knew what was up. 

It was then that Phil pulled up by the Shop door. He walked around to the side and opened the sliding door of his van to remove the drains snakes he had picked up. That's when I remembered that I had sent him to Toledo to do some running around for the business. I had instructed him the night before not to bother coming up to the old barn but to head to Ohio when he was ready. 

He might have told me he was actually going to do that, though.

Me Pops Attitude Shines Through

Just to establish it clearly, the customer I am about to lament had an appointment with me at the Shop on Friday, December 16 at 10 AM. He was coming in (supposedly) for 15 cables, which I had at the time in reserve for him. He didn't show, nor call and tell me he wouldn't make it, nor respond to my calls over whether he still wanted the cables. That's the necessary background.

As luck would have it, we had a great run of business between Christmas and New Year's. I sold all of my cables. My cables.

The man in question called around two yesterday afternoon. "I'm on my way to get those cables, Cosgriff."

"I sold out. I won't have more until next week," I explained without the least hint of regret.

"You sold my cables?" he demanded incredulously.

"No!" I responded emphatically. "I sold my cables."

"All right, all right," he vaguely conceded. "Could you call me please when you have more?" I told him I would. 

The thing is, I heard me Pops tell several folks that over the years: I sold MY cables. They're mine until they're paid for. Then, and only then, are they yours.

Not your cable

As I've said before, and quite contrary to his father (me Grandpa Joe) little could set off me Pops. But what did set him off, set him off.

We sell things, drain snakes and drain snake parts and accessories, as many of you know. So we have often fielded calls about this or that. 'Cosgriff, do you have a 3/4 cable?' and the like. If when taking such a call we did in fact have one, me Pops would of course answer that yes, we did. "Cool, Cosgriff. I'll be down soon to get it."

When, as happened with some regularity, they didn't come down soon to get it (and this was before credit cards were used to hold things) Pops would sell the cable to someone else. Invariably, sometimes several weeks to a month after vowing to quickly get it, the original caller would arrive.

"I'm here to get that cable, Cosgriff."

"I sold it," me Pops would plainly say.

Incredulously, late customer would snort, "Aw man, you sold my cable?"

"No, I sold MY cable!" the old man would snort right back at them, except with deeper emphasis. It was his until it was sold, not some latecomer's, who would then get a lecture on how me Pops owned it until HE sold it, because that that was how sales worked.

Such attitudes irritated me Dad, and I'm with him on that.

The long and winding (wrong) road

I suppose this post should go under they don't listen or pay attention. I will try not to be long winded about it.

Yesterday (we're open because we're in the supply chain for water and wastewater businesses) I had a customer call me and ask about sectional cables. I said that 8 ft. cables were $52 and 10 ft. were $60 and that we had both in stock. I told him those numbers explicitly, and I emphasize that because you, dear reader, will need to know it. Then he asked where we were, a quite logical question as he had never been to our Shop before. I told him 4850 Rosa Parks, between Hancock and Warren. "If you get to Warren you've gone too far," I advised him. Rosa Parks is a one way heading north around the old barn, so you come to Hancock before Warren unless you're going the wrong way. He repeated, "So you're between Hancock and Rosa Parks?"

You got all that?

So an hour later as I'm headed to the bank he calls. "I'm at Warren and Rosa Parks but I can't see you," he explains.

"You should from there. Look over your right shoulder for a big gray building." Our Shop is clearly visible from the corner of Warren and Rosa Parks.

"All I see is big plastic house like where they grow plants."

This didn't help me know where he was other than that I knew he was not where he said he was. There is no greenhouse at Warren and Rosa Parks. I'm sorry, there is no big plastic house like where they grow plants at Warren and Rosa Parks. "I'm driving but I'll swing around to Rosa Parks and look for you. What are you driving?"

"A maroon van."

So I swung around to where I would turn onto Rosa Parks well below my Shop. And I see a maroon van sitting at Forest and Rosa Parks, south of Hancock, right next to a greenhouse. I had forgotten one was there, but the key thing is he was not at Warren and Rosa Parks as he claimed. "You're at Forest and Rosa Parks," I said, trying not to sound like I was talking down to him. I had kept our conversation open as the phone lay on the seat next to me.

"Yeah, Forest and Rosa Parks, right." Whaddaya mean right? You quite definitely told me you were at Warren and Rosa Parks.

"I'm in a black van. I'll come around you and lead you in." This I did.

So now that he's finally at my Shop I ask, "So which do you prefer: 8 or 10 foot cables?"

"Uh, I need the 15 foot cables," he stammered.

15 foot cables are made by a competitor. "I don't have those. Our cables are not compatible; I'm sorry," I replied.

"Oh, okay. I'll go somewhere else. Sorry to bother you,"

"No problem," I responded. It didn't bother so much as it left me stupefied. I told him expressly what we had and exactly where we were and neither point registered with him. It wasted his efforts more than mine. But what are you gonna do?

He didn't really mean anything but...

He didn't mean anything by it. I could tell by the sound of his voice and the vaguely horrified look on his face. He meant well; his intention was to be helpful and considerate. He meant well. But still...
I met a customer in Toledo yesterday, to deliver a couple barrels of cable and a set of smaller cables. I grabbed both baskets of small cables and set them in the back of his truck. Then I went back to get one of the large barrels with the large cables. As I reached for them the young man, I'm guessing he is indeed about 30 years younger than I am, raced over and cut in front of me. "Let me get those, sir! I'm a lot younger than you!" he explained hurriedly.
I beg your pardon?
As I say, I know he meant well. And as too many people these days aren't considerate enough, I don't want to disparage an honest and real concern. But it was an unusual way to express it.
I had to be careful not to let the old geezer in me respond. "Now, lookee here, young feller, I been liftin' heavy loads out o'the back of trucks well nigh on 40 year. I know somethin' 'bout liftin' heavy things without hurtin' meself!" But I held geezer in check. I stammered something like, "Uh, okay, thanks."
It's funnier now than at 6 o'clock last night. Yet there is that part of me that's still a bit insulted.

Alternate universes

You see some odd things in my world. Let me see if I can paint you enough of a picture to understand a recent instance.
A customer brought in three eight foot lengths of drain cable to be repaired. No surprises there: we fix drain snakes. Yet instead of bringing them in singly or in a box, he had connected them together, so that they were in a circle with a twenty-four foot circumference. Oh-kay.
But he went farther than that. He twist looped that large circle into a figure eight, then folded that figure eight into itself to form a smaller circle. He tied that circle together with wire. After that, he looped that second circle into another figure eight, folded it into a still smaller circle, tied that one up with wire, and wrapped it up in four places with duct tape.
Of course, we didn't know all that until we went to fix the cables. The truth spread itself before us on the shop floor as we made what might be described as an archaeological dismantling of the circled cables. We wondered why this guy would go to such bizarre extremes. My brother Phil asked it best: "In what universe did he think this made sense?"
Indeed.

Jake Redux

While we nowadays do most of our own pickup and delivery for the Shop, at one time we had most things shipped. This meant that our large orders came truck freight. One day as we unloaded a shipment out of the trailer of a semi, the driver asked me Pops, "What are these things?"

Dad answered, "Drain snakes, parts and accessories. What people use to open drains."

"Oh." the man replied. After a pause he asked, "Know a guy they call Jake the Snake?"

Dad answered questioningly, "Yeah?"

"Ya like him?"

Pops figured by then the fella must know old Jake. Still, he responded tactfully, "I don't care for his company."

"Neither do I. None of the family does. I'm Ron; I'm Jake's brother." Ron went on to explain the family excluded Jake from all and any functions because all he would do is disrupt them in any way he could.

Blood runs thick, but apparently has its limits too.

The customer is always shocked

One of the fascinating things about repairing drain cables and equipment are the the laments which I hear along the way. At times I wonder if people ever actually think about what they say.
Broken cables always just break. The operator never ever put too much pressure on it. Never ever. They were simply feeding it into the drain line and it broke. One fella even claimed, I am not making this up, that he just looked at his machine and the cable snapped. Of course, he was kinda ugly...but the point is that most cable breakages supposedly occur though absolutely no fault of the operator. Right.
A favorite of mine is the question, why did my machine break? It is often asked with incredulity. My answer is, I think, obvious. Everything is subject to break. Nothing made by human hands lasts forever. Your equipment, your cars, your refrigerator; they all break, and sometimes we just don't know why. How can you be shocked by that?
Then there's the equally incredulous, it was working and then it just stopped! Again, why are you surprised? Everything works until it doesn't. Sometimes I just sigh about it. Other times I blog about it. Today is your lucky day.