A Buck Ten

Remember when I said that I no longer pay my work electric bill online? Well, if not, look here. Electric Company wanted a $9-dollar monthly fee to pay that way. I decided, forget that stuff (me Grandpa Joe used to say stuff rather than the obvious, cruder word), I'll send a check and make you process it. I further would kill every electric appliance or light whenever not absolutely needed, in order to deprive Electric Company of more than my nine bucks.

I suppose you don't actually have to click that link, now that I've summarized the tale after all.

Be that as it may, I decided to see how much my electric bill has dropped since my hissy fit. Lo and behold, in looking over the bills of the last three months, I've saved about two dollars each month since getting out the checkbook. As payments by mail cost me about 90 cents per month, I'm around a buck-ten ahead every time I pay by mail. I figured it would be a wash, but how about that, as my old friend Mel Allen would say.

Yeah, I know Electric Company doesn't care. Yet I'll still call it a win.

Check, Mate

The use of checks has become a very Boomer thing in recent years, as electronic payments have come to the fore. Still, this Boomer, genuflecting to The Future, has been paying most things electronically. Yet typically, I still averaged writing a check a month, for various reasons. Now I write two.

A couple of months ago I went to pay the household bills online. While I was at it I decided to pay the electric bill for the Shop. To my surprise and dismay, though I had paid that bill online for years now, Electric Company would only allow me to do so with a $9 surcharge, apparently because I am a business. By all appearances it isn't something innocuous like a one time set up fee. It's every month I try to pay electronically.

Well, forget that. I wrote them a check and mailed it, and will continue to do so so long as that added charge is demanded. What's more, and although we have turned the power off at the old barn at closing time for as long as I can recall, I now turn it off every time I leave. For example, if running to the hardware, a chore which typically takes about a half hour, I kill the lights. All of them. Even when I'm working I only keep on the ones necessary, such as above my workbench. The far end of the Shop? I turn on those lights only for as long as I need them. The side room we have? Ditto. I've turned back into a Dad about the lights.

The Shop bill is usually around $24, so I know I'm not depriving Electric Company much with my actions. But there's a principle at stake. I ain't paying nine bucks a month, adding around thirty five percent to my bill, for the privilege of giving you my cash, and if I only save a buck turning lights on and off frequently, well, it covers the postage on a check you must now process. 

So. There.

Ready, Set, No.

The 8 foot long drain cleaning cables I sell come in barrels of 20. At just about a pound a foot, that's 160 pounds each. At 66, I appreciate help lifting them into the new old van. Indeed, it's almost a necessity, though I can manage it if I must.

Wednesday last I went to Electric Eel (Electric Eel: for all your drain cleaning needs) and was happy to have me brother Phil along. But I did learn that when you ask a question, it's really important to wait for the answer.

I rolled a barrel up to the side door of the van and leaned it backwards for us to lift. As we each bent down opposite one another and began to take hold of the barrel I asked, "Ready?" and immediately started to lift.

"No," Phil replied. Consequently, I nearly heaved myself into a hernia. Fortunately, my hands just slipped off the barrel, and I was able to regain my balance with one backward step.

Have a question for someone? Wait. For. The. Reply. Your back will appreciate it.

Trashy Cloyce

The sectional drain snake cables which I sell come in large barrels. They're maybe three feet high and about two feet wide. They make great garbage cans once I've sold the cables, as they're just about the ideal size for 33 gallon trash bags. I have a couple in the Shop set aside for that purpose.

Once a plumber, I'll call him Cloyce just to give him a name, came down from Saginaw to buy some cables. He paid me, and then grabbed a barrel. "What do you think you're doing?" I demanded.

"I'm loading my barrel, Marty," a confused and somewhat annoyed Cloyce responded.

"Well, if you really want to drive my trash to Saginaw, Cloyce, who am I to deny you the pleasure?" I then explained what he was doing, latching onto the first barrel he saw thinking it filled with sectional cables. Peals of laughter and much knee slapping then rang throughout the old barn.

Doggone It

Is it a bad sign when Senior moments begin running together?

Yesterday, I made my way up to the old barn at around 9 in the morning. Almost as soon as I got to work, I realized that I left my cell phone on the dining room table. As tempting as it was to leave it, my conscience insisted I go get it. Doggone conscience.

Right around Noon I went home for lunch. The instant I walked in the door, I reached for my pocket to grab my phone. Of course, I had left it on a workbench. 'I won't be long', I told myself. Yet also, of course, within 90 seconds I was headed back. The most important call in the world was certain to come in if I did not.

I'd love say I didn't do that again. But we all know the truth, and we all know I couldn't leave it at the Shop all night. 

Doggone conscience. Hopefully today goes better.

Laying the money down

They're always in a hurry until it's time to lay the money down. That's an old saw of me Pops, and it holds true as much now as whenever he first said it. Yet it still amazes me that it happens, that people will hold off on paying for things which, theoretically at least, pay for their living, their food and trucks and houses and such.

For larger projects and orders, except from well established customers, we get significant down payments. Even then, with as much as half down, we'll have folks leave things hanging for weeks, or even months. Yet there are repairs which we simply do and trust that they guy will return. Generally that involves things which we can easily sell to someone else if it comes down to it.

A good example is repaired sectional drain cables. If a fella doesn't return after awhile we just sell them. I won't bore you with the details, but we can make it up to the original customer if it comes down to it. Why, I would even honor our oldest obligation on that count.

We have a man, I'll call him Cloyce just to give him a name, whom we owe six cables from 1983. We called him several times back then until the old man decided it was no longer worth his trouble. Yet if he comes in today I will give him the cables he's owed. I will even sell them to him at the price we charged back then, nine bucks a cable (they're $35 each now) just for the novelty of it. And out of an odd respect for the chutzpah it would take to try and claim them 43 years later.

Hey, it may even make good PR, right?

Woodbridge Nature

Nature is resilient. It adapts. That's the main reason why environmental issues aren't at the forefront of my worries. Yes, we should be good stewards. But Nature rules its own sphere.

Over the years in Woodbridge, my local Detroit neighborhood, I've seen wildlife come back in abundance. I've observed pheasants, hawks, rabbit, beavers, and opossum. Feral cats are everywhere; there aren't near the rats there once were, and perhaps that's why. 

In the last year there have been two deer sighted, one right by the old barn. And this very day while on my morning constitutional, I saw a wild turkey. No, not an empty bottle of the famous rotgut. A wild turkey, with a baby in tow. 

Nature rebounds, it answers all challenges. My own Detroit environs prove it.

Blatant Industrial Espionage

This morning I received a call from a customer, I'll call him Cloyce just to give him a name, where I'm not sure what he hoped to accomplish but he wasn't getting any cooperation from me regardless.

He needed some cables repaired and I told him to bring them in Monday or Tuesday but expect a two week return time because we're busy. "Why don't you teach me how to do repairs, Cosgriff? I might could help you out."

"I'm don't know that I can do that, Cloyce. I'd have to stay right with you at first and it would really just slow me down." Let me establish, quite bluntly, you don't want Cloyce fixing your stuff. Trust me.

"Well let me ask you this: what does it cost you to fix a cable? What's your actual cost?" 

I have to admit that I was a bit taken aback by such a question. It's, oh, what would you call it, impertinent, maybe? Still, it was Cloyce, something of a dingbat, and I held my temper. My response was rather pointed nonetheless. "I'm afraid that's privileged information, Cloyce."

He responded indignantly, "Man, you just don't want any competition do you, Cosgriff?"

Well, I won't lie. I don't really want competition, no. But I would accept it if it arose naturally because that's part of the working world. And it occurs to me this second that Cloyce competition might actually help me in the long run, once folks see what kind of work he does. Still, I ain't helping anyone learn to compete with me, and I'm especially not telling him my margins. What did he expect?

We'll see if he brings his cables by.

Drain Snake Methodology

The other day I found myself talking to myself while I installed a new reverse switch on an Electric Eel Model C (Electric Eel: for all your drain cleaning needs). Only thing was, the customer was standing right by me as I worked. Only other thing was, I didn't care.

At one time I would have been embarrassed by that. Yet this time around I even remarked to the guy, "A fella's getting pretty comfortable with who he is and what he's doing when he can carry on a conversation with himself and another man standing there."

He just smiled and replied, "I ain't sayin' nuthin, Cosgriff. I don't want to interfere with your method."

Thank you sir. That's what we'll call it: my method. It sounds a far sight better than going crazy.

Unnerved

My Shop is right by the corner of Rosa Parks Boulevard and West Warren in Detroit. There was one bad accident at it yesterday, I tell you what.

I didn't see it but I heard the braking and the impact from inside the old barn. The sounds alone told me it was bad. A Chrysler 300 was speeding and struck a Jeep, sending it into a telephone pole so hard it broke off the pole about three feet above its base, leaving the rest hanging over the intersection held up by the phone wires. This was no old pole either: it was only recently put up and was still green from the waterproofing applied to it. I was told by an eyewitness that the two young men driving the Chrysler jumped out and ran off, leaving that car blocking Warren. Clearly they were fleeing something.

The elderly gentleman driving the Jeep was badly shaken up, but thankfully not hurt. He was walking around and talking to the police almost immediately, and the EMS techs seemed to think he was fine. His Jeep was hit so hard that it broke off the passenger's rear tire when the vehicle hit the curb: it had spun off the telephone pole and struck the curb hard enough to do that. The tire was laying flat on the sidewalk supporting that side of the Jeep.

I don't mind saying that I was a bit unnerved. Not only because of the sound and the fury, but in thinking about how often myself, family members and friends have driven through that intersection. Life is scary sometimes, you know?

Pretend you're right here!

Me Grandpa Joe had a way about throwing himself into his work. Sometimes he literally threw himself into it. Or among it, between it; I'm not exactly sure how to describe what I'm about to describe.

I remember a day when I was just 16 and he decided I needed to learn how to back up a trailer. That was fair enough so far as it went. As I worked with him delivering welding equipment and we often delivered smaller machines with a two-wheeled trailer, it was a good idea. Yet his teaching methods left a few things to be desired.

Quiet and tact come immediately to mind. I love that old man and I miss him every day, but he truly subscribed to the concept that the louder he was the better you'd remember and the quicker you'd learn. Higher decibels equaled greater understanding.

The loudness of his screaming instructions did not seem to help me initially. Neither did his insistence on visual examples: I cannot tell you how many times he would jump right in between car and trailer as I vainly tried backing the trailer into place, each time yelling, "Pretend you're right here! Right here!" But you're right there Joe! Right where you're telling me to be!

As I recall, me Pops returned from wherever he was at that point and calmly took over. I soon mastered it, and I do mean mastered it. I could back up that old trailer perfectly into a space with four inches of clearance to each side. And I do wonder if maybe, just maybe, Joe's intensity actually helped.

I do know me Pops calm certainly didn't hurt.

Not Hot

Me Grandpa Joe had a good work ethic and a good moral code. He also liked deals on tools, but they had to be on the level.

One day a guy came by the Shop, I'll call him Cloyce just to give him a name, who was known to be shady. He was trying to sell Joe an acetylene torch. Grandpa was skeptical.

Sensing the dilemma, Cloyce sought to reassure me Grandpa. "It ain't hot here, Joe, I stole it in Baltimore!"

Joe didn't buy it. I suspect he invited Cloyce off the property in his own genteel manner.

Enough is Enough

Me Pops had this old friend, I'll call him Cloyce just to give him a name, who apparently did not have the best marriage.

A couple of years after Cloyce lost his wife, the woman's sister's husband passed away. Awhile after the funeral, Cloyce got a call from his former in-law. She suggested that, with their respected spouses gone, perhaps they could get together.

"What did you say?" Pops asked on being told the story.

"I told her no," Cloyce responded. "I said I spent 40 years with your sister, and that was enough."

"Ouch," Dad said. "That even hurt me."

Reminiscing

This old boy turned 66 today. I suppose technically I'm not there until 4:30 this afternoon, the time I came into this world in 1960. A few more hours of 65 won't hurt.

I can't say that I've always been happy with my life choices. If in looking back you can't find at least some regrets you're probably not looking hard enough. Yet on the whole I'm all right with what I've done. 

Staying in the family business may have been the most critical decision in my life. Financially, I could have done better for myself and my family, and that does prick at my conscience a bit. But it's one of those choices which, overall, I think has been good.

Standing just inside the door of the old barn this morning, I could see Joe holding court, cigarette in hand, from his seat by the coffee table. There was Uncle John whom we call Zeke atop his perch of steel parts boxes, reading the morning Free Press. Me Pops was on the phone handling a customer while me brother Phil toiled at a bench vise, hitting a cable fitting a few too many times in showing it who was boss. Both my sons were there doing whatever as Uncle Patrick pushed a broom. And I haven't even gotten to all the other characters, welders and sewer cleaners and various employees who came and went. They all made the Shop memorable.

Not only did I get a lot of time with family, but so did my brothers and my sons. Would my boys have known Paw Paw as well if I had not stayed? Would I know Joe and Zeke and Craig and Price and old Arthur Williams and Stanley, Willie Deal and his boys and Chuck Bias, as well? I can't say enough about late Fridays at the Shop when Dad would decide to call it a day at 3 PM and we'd nurse coffees and simply talk to each other until the more formal quitting time arrived. I wouldn't get that in an office or classroom.

You can't prove a negative, so who knows what friendships and opportunities I may have missed. But you know what? Life was just fine as it was. I wouldn't do it different.

The staring contest

Old Amos was tight. He was a good man yet he was very careful with his money. Consequently, me Grandpa Joe would often send Amos out to buy this or that for the welding business. He knew Amos would get him the best deal. One story me Pops liked to tell involved such an event.

I can't remember now what it was Joe wanted, but he sent Dad and Amos after it because it would take two people to handle whatever contraption he wanted to buy. Dad drove, and then simply stood back to watch Amos at work.

Amos tried every way in the world to get the seller to back down on price. He begged, he pleaded, he pointed out flaws in the machine. The guy wouldn't budge. It reached the point where Amos stopped talking and began pacing. He would pace a few steps beyond the man and then return. On his return, Dad said, Amos would stop abruptly right in front of the guy and spend a few seconds just glaring at him. Then he'd walk on, return, and do the same thing. He must have been trying to intimidate him, was all Pops could think.

After as few minutes of this, during which the seller did exchange a quizzical look at the old man, the guy finally said, "Look, just give me my price. But I'll put a lower one on the bill of sale to help you out on the sales tax."

Amos would have none of that. "Now, listen here. I want to get the best price I can out of you," he explained to the seller. "But what goes on paper is going to be right no matter what we agree to." Amos then resumed his pacing tactic.

As I recall (I wish I'd have listened more closely to Pops' stories) they eventually agreed on a price and Dad and Amos took the thing to the Shop because Joe had to have it. But I sure would have liked to have seen that battle of wills, that staring contest.

Two By Two

I've mentioned before about the unusual cash payments we've sometimes taken at the old barn. We are truly nondenominational when it comes to currency. We've been paid in all fives, all tens, and even all singles (almost $1900 of them). Religiously, I believe that all roads lead to Rome. But business is business.

Still, I thought I had saw it all with methods of payment. I was wrong. Yesterday, for a small, fifty dollar repair, I was given 25 two dollar bills. They were crisp, new Jeffersons at that.

Maybe twos are the more out there of the denominations, perhaps like Charismatics or Presbyterians, but they do spend. Indeed, I'm keeping a few on me just to see where they're accepted. It's a silly thing, but I'm kind of looking forward to trying them in a vending machine, or self-service checkout at Wal-Mart. I'll let you know how that goes.

Counting the Days

Am I stupid? Don't answer the question: it's rhetorical, no matter what witty repartee that invites. But to the point: Am I stupid or is that other guy?

That other guy - I'll call him Cloyce just to give him a name - called me yesterday about dropping his machine off for repair. If you haven't already heard, it's been extremely busy at the old barn lately. 11 repairs came in on Friday alone, followed by 3 on Monday as well as some cables to fix. I'm back to where I can't walk around the Shop again. I decided I would take no new work for a few weeks until I could catch up.

Cloyce then calls about his unit. "I'm sorry, Cloyce, I'm too blocked up. I'm not taking any new work until May 1st."

"Okay, Marty, I understand," Cloyce answers.

Two hours later he arrives at the old barn, with his machine. "I know it'll be awhile, Marty, but I figured I'd drop it off to you."

Could I have explained it any better than I did? How could anyone interpret I'm not taking any new work until May 1st as I'd better drop my machine off to Marty today?  By my calendar yesterday was March 31st, a few days ahead of May 1st. Hell, a few weeks ahead of it. 

No, this is not an April Fools joke. It simply feels like one.

Hold Thy Tongue Marty

As a general rule, it really is best to hold your tongue. But, hell, sometimes that can be hard.

I sent an order UPS to a customer. Okay, I sent my brother out with the package to UPS it to a customer, but potato, pa-tat-o. After he had left the old barn, and as they had prepaid, I sent an email explaining that the order was on its way and that I would be snail mailing a paid invoice later that day. That's a standard business practice, right?

The next day I received an email from said customer wondering why, as they received the parcel, there was not an invoice enclosed. They enquired, would I be sending one by the regular mail?

I might not have been quite so upset with the question except that they asked it in a reply to the original email informing them that a paid invoice was forthcoming in the regular mail. 

Bite. Thy. Tongue. Marty. 

I cannot tell you how badly I wanted to reply to the email by asking if they actually read their emails. I cannot tell you how seriously I considered a smarmy, snide response. Something along the lines of, 'What? You didn't get an invoice? I will overnight air one to you immediately!' or some such. But no, I calmly replied that one was already in the mail, and to let me know if they didn't get it soon. 

I'm easing my anger by writing this blog entry. But I'll bet you know the feelings I'm dealing with, eh?

Organization Hurts

I have too much of a lazy streak, and I'm perfectly aware of it. Still, there are times where the cleaning bug hits. Or, more truthfully, forces my hand.

It's been incredibly busy at the old barn these last few weeks. For that I am truly thankful; it means the bills get paid and there's some left over to save and squander. I'm better at the latter than the former, although I am improving at putting money back, and even at avoiding impulse buys. At Meijer the other day I actually returned a baseball magazine to the shelf. Why read projections for the upcoming season which will almost certainly be wrong when I can read tons of baseball articles online, if not for free at least already paid for through internet and cell phone fees. 

But I digress.

As a consequence of the flush of work (heh, heh, flush, from a guy who sells drain snakes) the Shop has gotten very crowded. It reached the point where I was cautiously stepping over and around machines to get to my work spaces. I often had to move two to four units to get to the one I wanted to fix, then doing it again an hour later on the next repair. That won't do for the long haul. So I spent Saturday and Sunday organizing. 

I did a good job of it too, if I may say so myself. I created easy access to my tools and my main work areas. I could by the end of Sunday afternoon actually walk into what goes for my office and readily get to the shelves at the back of it, where I stock small parts and cutters. There were - try to wrap your head around this - aisles I could walk through from the front to the back of the old barn. It was still crowded. But getting from A to B was doable without risking accidental death or disfigurement.

Monday morning when I opened, around six AM to hit the work week running, the Shop was dark. I kill the lights at night, you see. As I reached into my pocket for my cell to use its flashlight function to illuminate my way to the fuse box (yes, the Shop still has fuses) I thought, "Marty, you don't need to do that. You created a path!" So I boldly went forth with no fear, not a care in the world...and knocked the wind out of me, striding smack into the handle of a drain machine which stuck out into the aisle. I sucker punched myself in the gut. Pride goeth before the fall indeed.

All Wrong

When me Pops was trying to get his drain snake repair business off the ground he was willing to go above and beyond the call of duty, to show customers he was serious and, hopefully, have good word spread around fishing for more. But you better not have taken advantage of that.

One former customer, I'll call him Cloyce just to give him a name, called around 8:30 on a Saturday night asking if Dad could meet him at 8 Sunday morning for a machine repair. Pops reluctantly said yes. As I said, he was trying to get set up and wanted to show goodwill and effort.

Dad was at the old barn at 7:45. Cloyce wasn't there at 8.

Or 8:15.

Or 8:30.

When he still wasn't there by 8:45 Dad went home. At the time he liked to go to 9:30 Sunday Mass at old St. Dominic and needed time to get ready.

At 9 there was a loud knocking at the front door of the house. It was Cloyce, demanding, "Where you been Bill? I been waiting at your Shop for an hour!" 

Now, me Pops was generally mild mannered. But Cloyce went and said the wrong thing to the wrong man at the wrong time. The old man let him have it. 

And now you know why I said former customer a few lines back.