Thursday, February 2, 2012

Thursday 2/2/2012

It's 222!  Meaningless, but someone will make some sort of inference out of it.  Oh, wait a minute - no - it IS Groundhog Day!  In the area where I live?  We'll take permanent winter.  We don't care how long winter lasts, it could go on indefinitely and everyone around here would love it.

I have gotten nowhere with Hewlitt Packard - not that I haven't tried.  Okay, I have made very slight "ground", if you wanna call it that, but and again, that company has some of the rudest customer service reps.  They are right down there with Direct TV.  I caught the case manager in a lie, at least that's what I called it and called him out on it.  He started hemming and hawing after I made the case - didn't matter. Anyway, the box showed up from Fed Ex yesterday to send the computer to them, but I was too tired to get the thing out and go through all of that.

I will take it to work with me today and possibly pack it up and send it in after work is done.

Meanwhile, the situation with the tenant that had surgery on his wrist.  He had gone to his dad's house to recover for a few days before coming back over here.  That situation changed dramatically after he called me yesterday and informed me that he was going to have to spend 6 weeks in some sort of rehabilitation facility that has to intravenously inject him with antibiotics.  The first thought that came to my mind while he's talking this is the rent.  I had a feeling I was going to get a sob story, instead, he tried to jump over that particular portion of the conversation.

I infused it.  What about the rent?  I don't want to sound like a mean-spirited person, but I have bills to pay.  I'm not going to go into all of it.  It is the same type of thing I have heard from others in the past.  "I shouldn't have to pay or pay full rent since I am not there".  People seem to think because they aren't here, using utilities and such, they should either therefore be charged no rent or the rent should be reduced.

People are wrong if they think like that, to put it flatly.  You rent the room, it's yours whether you use it or not.  It is meaningless whether you stay in it one night per month or every night per month.  You agree to pay X amount of money per month for it, there is no discussion of how often you are going to use it because it is completely and totally irrelevant. If you want to cut a deal with someone, go somewhere else.

This conversation digressed, at least from my viewpoint of it because I also had to ask him WHEN I was getting any rent, it was due yesterday.  Yeah.  6 weeks from now.  My tones probably were getting less and less nice with each tidbit of news I was hearing.  He can't come and move out because of his situation, he is physically unable to do anything.  This does not absolve him of having to pay the rent.  Dunno.  I get this feeling that 6 weeks from now, the guy is going to show up, move out while I'm at work or something and not pay a dime.  It's happened too many times and I am not sure I am willing to wait that long to get money.

But it is what it is.

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All day intermission. I thought I posted this this morning!

So I am at a jobsite this morning, waiting to get the truck unloaded.  Caleb calls - a bit unnerved.  He's telling me this story of him almost killing another driver in traffic that had occurred 15 minutes before he called me.  That old Buick has good rubber and good brakes on it, I made sure of that before he started driving that thing.  I don't want to have to come rescue him with a flat tire and I definitely want optimal brakes on that thing in case something like this happens.

Some dude apparently stopped in front of him - on the freeway!  I've seen this happen before.  Idiots.  He said he swerved toward the center wall to avoid crashing into him and then swerved again to avoid the center wall.  I asked him how fast he was going. 70mph.  Too fast, too close behind the car in front of him, not looking far enough ahead.  I'm just glad he didn't smash into the rear of that car.  Cops don't care what happened, if you rear-end a vehicle, 99% of the time you are going to get the ticket and blame for the accident no matter what happened unless you have witnesses that can corroborate a story that would give the driver in front of you the ticket instead (such as unsafe lane change/cutting you off going much slower than you are).

That was my guess, anyway and I just got through giving him some driving tips.  You don't develop that 6th sense in driving overnight or even in a year's time.  The longer you drive, the better equipped you are mentally to be prepared in advance for whatever is going to happen in front of you.  But, he must have done something right to stay out of an accident altogether.  He said he could smell the rubber from the car's tires because of the skidding.  I just went out and checked the tires, no flat spots.

The  regional manager out at our new facility today.  Cool dude, easy to get along with and not over-bearing.  This is the kind of management I can and do respect.  Our general manager was escorting him around, he is always very congenial and easy to talk to as well.  It makes me wonder how another certain member of higher management even makes it with this kind of quality people above him.

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Wow!  The list of things going on over here is too much to get into all of it!  Enough is enough, write more tomorrow.

G'nite.

ben

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