From the sublime to the Ridiculous
I took today off from work. Wanted to do more around the house and then get ready for tomorrow and packing insanity.
Because I have to be an hour and a half from home at 8 AM tomorrow, and then drive several more hours, do a bunch of packing, and drive back to my 8 AM destination before heading for home, I thought it might be nice to take a mini vacation and get a hotel room near my morning destination. That way I can take long luxurious hot showers, use up towels, do some jogging in the hotel pool, chill out in the hot tub, read in the newly renovated lobbby, get internet time, and so on and all without having to worry about leaving the house at 6 AM.
Except that the car Mama rented from CarRentalCompany has bald tires. As in so bald the bald tire indicator is showing on the tires. As in they never should have sent the car out in the first place. But they did. And now LocationManager is proving his incompetence by being unable to find another of the same car anywhere in his region. His manager suggested offering us an Armada instead. I guess he figured it's an upgrade, one can still carry stuff, etc.
Uh no.
So I called several of my favorite managers around here, including the one near my morning destination. I thought maybe I could salvage this mini vacation after all... nope. She gave up two minivans to a location this morning.
And that led me to call our location at EWR. Which will be renting me a needed minivan at employee pricing so that I can drive it to her rental location so they have a minivan with which to do the exchange. Because for some reason they can't figure out how to get a car driven out to them from PHL. I take it Distribution runs a bit differently out there. Or something.
To Mama's credit, she did ask if it would be cheaper and easier to drive to her house, add me on to her present rental for the day so I could drive it to PHL and do the even exchange there... but given that I don't know any of the managers at PHL and I don't know their inventory, there's no guarantee after all that that they will have the equipment we need. Further, of course, and perhaps more importantly, that gives her another Philadelphia Area-maintained vehicle... and apparently they have Issues with maintenance. Which I thought was just a handful of problem cars we've been getting. Nope. One of my favorite managers said that she's had months where a decent part of her revenue has come from doing transfer/exchanges on equipment out of PHL. Thus, I don't really much like the idea of renting her a car from PHL.
So now I'm off to EWR to pick up said car and drive to Mama's rental location with it. Then spend three+ hours on trains to get back to EWR and then drive home and get up ugly early in the morning to drive and so on.
Fun fun fun.
But at least it shows my problem-solving ability -- at least where renting cars is concerned -- is capable of looking at various options and figuring them out. Given that my brain isn't entirely good with problem-solving (witness the mess of a couple weekends ago), it's nice to know it can do such things at times.
Onwards.
Because I have to be an hour and a half from home at 8 AM tomorrow, and then drive several more hours, do a bunch of packing, and drive back to my 8 AM destination before heading for home, I thought it might be nice to take a mini vacation and get a hotel room near my morning destination. That way I can take long luxurious hot showers, use up towels, do some jogging in the hotel pool, chill out in the hot tub, read in the newly renovated lobbby, get internet time, and so on and all without having to worry about leaving the house at 6 AM.
Except that the car Mama rented from CarRentalCompany has bald tires. As in so bald the bald tire indicator is showing on the tires. As in they never should have sent the car out in the first place. But they did. And now LocationManager is proving his incompetence by being unable to find another of the same car anywhere in his region. His manager suggested offering us an Armada instead. I guess he figured it's an upgrade, one can still carry stuff, etc.
Uh no.
So I called several of my favorite managers around here, including the one near my morning destination. I thought maybe I could salvage this mini vacation after all... nope. She gave up two minivans to a location this morning.
And that led me to call our location at EWR. Which will be renting me a needed minivan at employee pricing so that I can drive it to her rental location so they have a minivan with which to do the exchange. Because for some reason they can't figure out how to get a car driven out to them from PHL. I take it Distribution runs a bit differently out there. Or something.
To Mama's credit, she did ask if it would be cheaper and easier to drive to her house, add me on to her present rental for the day so I could drive it to PHL and do the even exchange there... but given that I don't know any of the managers at PHL and I don't know their inventory, there's no guarantee after all that that they will have the equipment we need. Further, of course, and perhaps more importantly, that gives her another Philadelphia Area-maintained vehicle... and apparently they have Issues with maintenance. Which I thought was just a handful of problem cars we've been getting. Nope. One of my favorite managers said that she's had months where a decent part of her revenue has come from doing transfer/exchanges on equipment out of PHL. Thus, I don't really much like the idea of renting her a car from PHL.
So now I'm off to EWR to pick up said car and drive to Mama's rental location with it. Then spend three+ hours on trains to get back to EWR and then drive home and get up ugly early in the morning to drive and so on.
Fun fun fun.
But at least it shows my problem-solving ability -- at least where renting cars is concerned -- is capable of looking at various options and figuring them out. Given that my brain isn't entirely good with problem-solving (witness the mess of a couple weekends ago), it's nice to know it can do such things at times.
Onwards.