Polishing the Turd

[byhammerandhand]

Spent all morning trying to get a bookcase with sliding doors working.  What a piece of work it was. 

The doors different in height by 1/4", some of the hardware was broken, and what was there did not engage correctly.   Glue smears all over, open joints due to shrinkage, can see daylight through some of the cracks, and warpage.   There is "rustic" and there is just plain junk.  To make matters worse, the consumer ordered from NC and had it shipped.  Delivery guys put the one door of four they did put in upside down.

By the time I got home, hit every light red on the way and followed some old woman weaving all over the lane, nearly  sideswiping the truck next to me, and stepping on the brake for no apparent reason, I was ready to kick the dog, if I had one.

[vent over]

[Darren Henry]

I was ready to kick the dog, if I had one.

"That should make it pretty easy to have a  much better day tomorrow, wouldn't it?".  Gawd I wish Grandma would  have let me finish my rant/pout/etc... before she dropped that line on me, again!

Don't sweat the petty bits --- just .....your good with word games.

[gene]

I thought the subject line was a rather interesting phrase. I looked it up and it is actually an engineering term. Who'd a thought?

gene

[byhammerandhand]

...but you can roll it in glitter

[Mojo]

I have had 3 weeks of hell. Getting pounded with orders but it seems one day every week for the last 3 has been pure hell.

I blew the measurements on a patio awning. That cost us money.

Last week a competitor threatened to sue us over a competitors matrix we had on our website.
That chewed up a boat load of time and also required legal review.

Then we grabbed the factory measurements for a triple slide topper order and they were all wrong. We know better then to ever use manufacturers serial numbers for making anything as they are always notoriously wrong. 17 yards of fabric and countless hours out the window.

We had a company meeting yesterday and it wasn't pleasant. The Boss and owner of the company ( my wife ) laid down the law to me and Mindy. Her parting statement was FOCUS........... I have to agree with her.

The last 3 weeks have made me question why I ever started this company...... The bigger you get, the more orders you produce, the more money you make, the bigger the headaches.

Chris

[Virgs Sew n Sew]

I had to laugh when I saw this title.  I remember the Myth Busters episode on Polishing the Turd.  Adam was SOOOO excited-UGH.  Had to go to utube and pull up the episode.  Laughed just as hard the second time.  Will miss Myth Busters for sure.

Sorry you've had a scuzzy 3 weeks.  I've been balls to the walls as they say.  One of the dry cleaners in town contacted me about doing alterations for them.  I thought how much can they have.  So far this week, I've trimmed 10 flags and resewn the seam, hemmed 10 pair of slacks, 4 being cuffed which takes a bit longer, tore out a shirt cuff the old alteration lady did (not even) and put it back in, correctly I hope, and mended 5 assorted seams that have torn for whatever reason.  Hoping against hope that the delivery driver will not bring anything today when she comes to pick up my huge pile.

Virginia

[gene]

There are times in one's life when the best thing to do is get a mug of your favorite beverage, sit back in your favorite easy chair, prop those leg up, and crank up the volume.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUusX_yyzxY

gene

[kodydog]

Okay I get the whole tomorrow thing. Everything will be better tomorrow.

But here is what I want to listen to when I'm kicking back and cranking it up,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdHnGyU1yJQ

[Virgs Sew n Sew]

Okay I get the whole tomorrow thing. Everything will be better tomorrow.

But here is what I want to listen to when I'm kicking back and cranking it up,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdHnGyU1yJQ

I'm with you on listening to this as opposed to "Tomorrow".

Rock On.

Virginia

[byhammerandhand]

Now I'm worried.   Bad things happen in threes.

Today's job was to "remove and replace" the legs on two high end sofas.   Pay was for one hour work.

Well, they were not the legs, they were the whole vertical back frame.  Just from the bottom I could see 4 rails, two under tension from the deck web that were glued, doweled and stapled in place, and at least 4 more up the arm and back frame.   Did I mention this was the picky customer that I was there two weeks ago because three threads were sticking out of the side from under the tack strip and the BOTTOM of metal rails on a 4' round coffee table  were scratched UNDER the middle of the piece?  

Had to walk away from this one.


Here's the "feet" they sent

[Darren Henry]

I was going to whine about spending another day covered in fibreglass and bondo from rebuilding the front end of a diesel push that smoked a deer. You win---I'll shut up about a few days of itchy.

The planets must be out whack or something. My day got off to a sour start too. We have had 2 days of freezing rain/followed by snow and I had a service call this morning so spend half an hour scraping 1/8-3/16 " of ice off my van last night. My van and driver showed up to the shop at ten to eight---perfect. He waited patiently behind the wheel while I made the 4 or 5 trips in and out of the shop to load tools etc...---normal. Then things got ugly. There is an incline at the end of the driveway ( roughly 4 feet in 4 car lengths) and he couldn't drive the van up onto the road. He backed to the base of the incline (and not a foot further) 3 times with the same result before he managed to creep off the side of the driveway. he just shrugged and said well I can't go anywhere with this van. I walked back to the shop and scraped the ice off my truck. When I got to the van he pointed out I had a flat tire. Carry the portable compressor back to the upholstery shop/fill it/ carry it back/ get the tire as roundish as that much air will do. Now I get to hook up the toe rope that I had told him was in the back seat of the truck and yank him out. After I transferred all the tools over to the truck I find out the guy can't back it up the driveway to my parking spot by the upholstery shop. Four attempts at that had him almost in toolies again. I parked it in one go. For those not used to driving on slippery surfaces----that little skinny pedal on the right is not an on/off switch. There are several available settings before you hit the floor!!!!!!!!!!!We got back to the shop just in time for coffee and I was still just vibrating.  If I'd still been green I'd have paid the Quartermaster for a new pace stick, and turned this duffus into a poopsicle. BTW replacement cost for a pace stick back in '86 when I instructed at the R.C.A Battle school was $186. They are not an expendable piece of kit.

But hey----Tomorrow the old lady will be back in the country and I'm off to the gun and collectible show. All good.

[byhammerandhand]

Wow.  Should be 75 degrees here this weekend.

I was following this up until this bit of confusion.

  If I'd still been green I'd have paid the Quartermaster for a new pace stick, and turned this duffus into a poopsicle.

[Darren Henry]

If I were still in the army I'd have beaten the idiot with my pace stick and left it firmly wedged in his butt I was that angry.

[sofadoc]

Well, my turd polishing story pales in comparison, but here goes anyway.

A guy calls me yesterday. "We've just moved to town. I've got a U-Haul truck in my driveway full of furniture (sofa, loveseat, extra wide chair and ottoman). I want to get it recovered If you'll come out here and give me an estimate, I'll just unload the truck at your shop instead of my house".

I've played this game before. Getting all the furniture recovered before delivering it to the new home may have seemed like a good idea to the customer. But normally, when I start quoting prices, their jaw drops to the floor.

So I ran some numbers by him over the phone just to make sure that we were in the same stratosphere.
All the ballpark prices that I gave him over the phone sounded acceptable to him.  So I closed up shop, and drove 25 miles to his house to give him a more formal estimate.

Once I got there and looked everything over, I gave him a formal estimate that was right in line with the preliminary numbers that I had given him over the phone earlier.

Over the phone.........no problem. In person...........his jaw drops to the floor. I reminded him that he had just given his blessing to those same prices less than an hour ago.

He said "Yeah.....but I can buy all new furniture for less than $2000. If you can do it for $1500, we got a deal".

I asked him why he didn't mention a $1500 limit over the phone. He said that he knew that if he had, I probably wouldn't have come out.

I guess he likes wasting everyone's time. I could've used one of Darren's pace sticks right about then.

[gene]

Darren, you sound like an American. You're looking forward to soothing your anger by going to a gun show.   :)

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Hey Keith, I talked to 2 guys this week who do furniture repair but will not do any manufacturers' warranty work. And I was wondering, did you take your shoes off to walk in the house, or did you put socks on to take the pictures? We're so close to KY it's difficult to tell sometimes. (For those not living on the southern border of Ohio, a standard joke is that the law says you have to remove your shoes and socks whilst crossing the Ohio river to enter Kentucky.)

--------------------------------

I asked him why he didn't mention a $1500 limit over the phone. He said that he knew that if he had, I probably wouldn't have come out.

This is one of my pet peeves. I see this as a scum bag dishonest act of BS. The idea is that you have suffered a small loss (your time and money to go to the guys' house) and therefore you will be willing to take the job just so you can get something out of it, rather than returning back to your shop with a total loss. I learned from my previous sales experience to never be motivated by a small loss. You are dealing with someone who's first interaction with you was dishonest. I find it helpful to keep that in mind.

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Tomorrow. That was a joke folks. Hello? Did anyone get it? Haven't you read  Ambiguity and the Absolute: Nietzsche and Merleau-Ponty on the Question of Truth? I know it just came out in the last year, but really people! Tomorrow never comes. Get it? Tomorrow never comes. When it's just about to be here, it's today. Therefore, there is no sunshine tomorrow, because tomorrow never comes. Annie was a singing prophetess of false hope.

Geezle petes. I pepper this forum with third grade humor and the first time I plug in something from the fourth grade I lose my audience.

I need to find a gun show to attend.   :o

gene