Fire in the Hole! And Other Stories
It is 12:11 a.m. I just got home from work about half an hour ago. Why? Because there was an electrical fire Wednesday night on the 10th floor of the building where I work, and it was closed today. I work on the sixth floor, but the whole building was unusable because of smoke. Arrangements were made to move several departments (including mine) to the company's other offices in Queensbury, but my computer was not set up until about 6 p.m. So I put in a little over four hours and will return early tomorrow morning to finish up the week's work.
This would not be such a huge problem if I weren't already behind, for a variety of reasons:
A couple of weeks ago our British freelancer was mugged and suffered some major injuries, and I had to do his work. I was doing the British product for a while last year until we hired him and it was a major pain. This time around it wasn't. But last week I was told he was recovered and eager to resume working. Then I find out Monday he can't do it after all, so I had to crank out British product on extremely short notice, which put me in a minor behind situation. Then ...
I took a sick day on Tuesday. I was technically not sick, but my car was. The transmission died as I was leaving NiiceDuude's Monday night. He brought me home and I was able to arrange a loaner from friends, but getting that took up a big chunk of Tuesday. Then ...
I took Wednesday morning off (this was prearranged) to accompany NiiceDuude to a medical appointment. Without going into detail, he was having one of those procedures that you can't drive after, because they give you REALLY good drugs! It went beautifully, we ate a huge breakfast afterward (he had to fast beforehand), and I discovered the loaner car (which is old enough to get served in a bar) no longer went into reverse. This I can work around. Then ...
Wednesday night I find out about the fire and spend Thursday waiting around for further instruction. Also shopping for another car and enduring my dealer's invective for wanting to get my money back and work with someone else. He initially refused but eventually relented, but not after throwing some nasty words my way.
Look, dude, it's like this. I work at Stewart's one day a week. It's the only day I have available. My manager is thrilled to have me for that one day a week. But if something were to change, and she wanted to replace me with someone who has better availability, then I would accept that and not take it personally. Nobody's in the wrong; the situation is just no longer satisfactory.
No such luck with Asshole Car Dealer. Who was late getting back into town Wednesday night for our appointment, which meant I would have been (a) looking at replacement cars in the dark, and (b) driving an ancient Rabbit with a shitty gearshift (and no reverse) home in the dark. I did that tonight - not fun. So I canceled. Which makes ME the irresponsible one.
I chose to do business with a guy who runs a one-man shop and operates by appointment. But I made that choice on the assumption that this would be a simple transaction: make deal, get insurance, go to DMV, attach plates, drive away. But because the title on the vehicle he sold me turned out not to be valid, this was anything but simple. His wholesaler spent WEEKS trying to find the guy he got it from so he could get the valid title. Didn't happen. That car was going back to him, drivable or not. And I would miss more work for ANOTHER round of shopping, insurance office run, DMV run, etc., etc. Does this make me a bad person for wanting to work with a dealer who won't put me through all this?
He kept saying, "The title is not the issue!" Hello? I would have had the tranny checked out when it was just a little problem that could have been resolved with an adjustment or two, but HE said, "don't do that until we get this title thing resolved." So if you ask me, the title IS the issue. Duh.
OK, enough rant. I have to get some sleep if I'm going to go back into work in the a.m. And get out in time to go to Ilion and Syracuse with ND for the weekend.
Argh.
This would not be such a huge problem if I weren't already behind, for a variety of reasons:
A couple of weeks ago our British freelancer was mugged and suffered some major injuries, and I had to do his work. I was doing the British product for a while last year until we hired him and it was a major pain. This time around it wasn't. But last week I was told he was recovered and eager to resume working. Then I find out Monday he can't do it after all, so I had to crank out British product on extremely short notice, which put me in a minor behind situation. Then ...
I took a sick day on Tuesday. I was technically not sick, but my car was. The transmission died as I was leaving NiiceDuude's Monday night. He brought me home and I was able to arrange a loaner from friends, but getting that took up a big chunk of Tuesday. Then ...
I took Wednesday morning off (this was prearranged) to accompany NiiceDuude to a medical appointment. Without going into detail, he was having one of those procedures that you can't drive after, because they give you REALLY good drugs! It went beautifully, we ate a huge breakfast afterward (he had to fast beforehand), and I discovered the loaner car (which is old enough to get served in a bar) no longer went into reverse. This I can work around. Then ...
Wednesday night I find out about the fire and spend Thursday waiting around for further instruction. Also shopping for another car and enduring my dealer's invective for wanting to get my money back and work with someone else. He initially refused but eventually relented, but not after throwing some nasty words my way.
Look, dude, it's like this. I work at Stewart's one day a week. It's the only day I have available. My manager is thrilled to have me for that one day a week. But if something were to change, and she wanted to replace me with someone who has better availability, then I would accept that and not take it personally. Nobody's in the wrong; the situation is just no longer satisfactory.
No such luck with Asshole Car Dealer. Who was late getting back into town Wednesday night for our appointment, which meant I would have been (a) looking at replacement cars in the dark, and (b) driving an ancient Rabbit with a shitty gearshift (and no reverse) home in the dark. I did that tonight - not fun. So I canceled. Which makes ME the irresponsible one.
I chose to do business with a guy who runs a one-man shop and operates by appointment. But I made that choice on the assumption that this would be a simple transaction: make deal, get insurance, go to DMV, attach plates, drive away. But because the title on the vehicle he sold me turned out not to be valid, this was anything but simple. His wholesaler spent WEEKS trying to find the guy he got it from so he could get the valid title. Didn't happen. That car was going back to him, drivable or not. And I would miss more work for ANOTHER round of shopping, insurance office run, DMV run, etc., etc. Does this make me a bad person for wanting to work with a dealer who won't put me through all this?
He kept saying, "The title is not the issue!" Hello? I would have had the tranny checked out when it was just a little problem that could have been resolved with an adjustment or two, but HE said, "don't do that until we get this title thing resolved." So if you ask me, the title IS the issue. Duh.
OK, enough rant. I have to get some sleep if I'm going to go back into work in the a.m. And get out in time to go to Ilion and Syracuse with ND for the weekend.
Argh.
posted by niicelaady @ 12:36 AM
3 Comments:
At 7:16 AM,
The Bean said…
did he give you your money back?
At 11:08 AM,
niicelaady said…
RF: He is going to. I had the car towed to him over the weekend and we will take it from there.
Mrs. Pi: To be fair the title thing wasn't his fault. That's the title the previous owner gave the wholesaler when he sold him the car. Neither the wholesaler nor my dealer had any way of knowing it wasn't valid. I didn't find out until I went to register the car and was told there was a duplicate title floating around out there. They have both tried to track down the previous owner but he is nowhere to be found. Grr.
At 3:59 PM,
niicelaady said…
He's junking the car anyway, so it won't be an issue. Technically junkyards aren't supposed to take a car without title, but my friend who owns a garage says they all do.
Part of his rant was that he'll have to junk the car that he put $1,200 into. I didn't point out to him (because he wouldn't let me get much in edgewise) that he'd be eating that $1,200 even if I returned it to him in perfect driving condition, because he can't sell it without a valid title.
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