so yesterday was a shit day...
It started out really well actually. I woke up at about 5:45 and picked up Matt Fine to go to Radnor Lake an walk. We met up with Rob at the lake and had a nice walk. Matt mentioned that he had to get his car worked on today and offered to have me fix it. After walking we went back to my house and determined it should be a pretty simple fix. I told him we could deal with it today and sent my wife a text to make sure it was cool that I worked on cars that evening.
The work day went pretty well- I ordered the parts for Matt's car and worked through the rest of the day. I don't even remember what I did during the day but I felt pretty productive.
Around 5:30 I walked into the back room at the shop for something and I noticed my red socket holder, ratchet and two sets of 1/4 drive sockets were missing. I've had some of the sockets and the ratchet for years- they're wal-mart cheapies but they're from an era when they were still worth owning and had been durable and reliable for years. The real bitch of it is the Snap-On brand deep well socket set- I just checked the Snap-On web site and found that set is now 189 dollars (plus tax). I must have bought the set a year or two ago and I was looking forward to taking it home to my new basement shop where I could really make use of it. I have a second old beat-up set of the same I use at work every day but of course it's the brand new one that's gone. The funny thing is that my tools sat in that same place for many many months and nothing happened. Last Thursday I used the set to fix something on Peter's car and I decided to replace the one socket that was missing- left in a customer car not long after I bought it and long gone. So for months the set was incomplete and in the same location abd wasn't stolen. I replaced the one missing part and suddenly the set disappears...seems a little odd. I know the set was complete and on top of that toolbox Thursday afternoon after I fixed Peter's car- I remember rearranging things on top of the toolbox.
We have an employee that's been accused of stealing and supposedly has been fired from other local import shops for the same. I don't really think he did it but I have this nagging desire to talk to him about it. There were some strange politics early in his employment here and he told (over a beer) that he would always want people to be straightforward and talk to him if they had an issue. I guess I may have an issue; I'm not sure what to call it. A fear? A hunch? A suspicion? (that word doesn't look right but spell check liked it) I don't really want to deal with it. I need to pray about this.
So...I hung out at the shop late and looked for my sockets and ratchet, hoping that I just left them somewhere like a dufus. No luck. The whole drive home I fought the urge to get crappy fast food and eventually caved and went to Hardee's near my new house. It was a damn good (and not greasy or cheap) burger! I sat in my new backyard eating while the dog barked inside.
I got to work on Matt's car and before too long I found out that O'reilly put the wrong nut in the box with one of the axles- so I had to go get another one while my poor wife was stuck at home with the dog instead of going out shopping like she had scheduled to do. As Murphy and his damn law would have it, things were slow at the O'reilly warehouse and it took forever to get my replacement nut.
Hannah seemed pretty frustrated when I got home. She took off to go do her thing while I continued working on the car- now paranoid of making too much noise in our quiet little neighborhood. I kept plugging away and at about 9:30 I was putting the second axle in. I noticed the output seal was damaged. I called O'reilly again and told them to hold a seal for me- I'd be there before closing. When I got there the seal was wrong. Luckily I had brought the old one and they matched it up. I headed to the Autohaus to double-check some info about Matt's car and make sure I used the correct fluid in the final drive gearbox.
Begin paraphrase, this is taking too damn long and I've got shit to do.
Hannah seemed pissed because I was still working on cars at 11PM (not that I wasn't pissed either- it just didn't help that she seemed upset and was sarcastic which hurt my feelings even though she was technically right.) Matt came over and at about midnight we put the car on the ground- job done!
Or not.
The axle O'reilly gave me wasn't built correctly. The internal splines at the outer CV joint weren't the same size as the ones on the driveshaft so when you put the car in gear it just spin like crazy! It took me an additional 1.5 hours to determine this of course.
By 2 am I was in bed, convinced my wife wanted a divorce and pretty much hating life.
I was at O'reilly this morning by 7:15 to get another axle (which I had to pay for).
The shiny lining to this drab story is that I got Matt's car together and out the door in time for me to get to work at about nine.
Until I got a nosebleed while cleaning up and had to deal with that and got to work late anyway.
Fuckin' shit...
The work day went pretty well- I ordered the parts for Matt's car and worked through the rest of the day. I don't even remember what I did during the day but I felt pretty productive.
Around 5:30 I walked into the back room at the shop for something and I noticed my red socket holder, ratchet and two sets of 1/4 drive sockets were missing. I've had some of the sockets and the ratchet for years- they're wal-mart cheapies but they're from an era when they were still worth owning and had been durable and reliable for years. The real bitch of it is the Snap-On brand deep well socket set- I just checked the Snap-On web site and found that set is now 189 dollars (plus tax). I must have bought the set a year or two ago and I was looking forward to taking it home to my new basement shop where I could really make use of it. I have a second old beat-up set of the same I use at work every day but of course it's the brand new one that's gone. The funny thing is that my tools sat in that same place for many many months and nothing happened. Last Thursday I used the set to fix something on Peter's car and I decided to replace the one socket that was missing- left in a customer car not long after I bought it and long gone. So for months the set was incomplete and in the same location abd wasn't stolen. I replaced the one missing part and suddenly the set disappears...seems a little odd. I know the set was complete and on top of that toolbox Thursday afternoon after I fixed Peter's car- I remember rearranging things on top of the toolbox.
We have an employee that's been accused of stealing and supposedly has been fired from other local import shops for the same. I don't really think he did it but I have this nagging desire to talk to him about it. There were some strange politics early in his employment here and he told (over a beer) that he would always want people to be straightforward and talk to him if they had an issue. I guess I may have an issue; I'm not sure what to call it. A fear? A hunch? A suspicion? (that word doesn't look right but spell check liked it) I don't really want to deal with it. I need to pray about this.
So...I hung out at the shop late and looked for my sockets and ratchet, hoping that I just left them somewhere like a dufus. No luck. The whole drive home I fought the urge to get crappy fast food and eventually caved and went to Hardee's near my new house. It was a damn good (and not greasy or cheap) burger! I sat in my new backyard eating while the dog barked inside.
I got to work on Matt's car and before too long I found out that O'reilly put the wrong nut in the box with one of the axles- so I had to go get another one while my poor wife was stuck at home with the dog instead of going out shopping like she had scheduled to do. As Murphy and his damn law would have it, things were slow at the O'reilly warehouse and it took forever to get my replacement nut.
Hannah seemed pretty frustrated when I got home. She took off to go do her thing while I continued working on the car- now paranoid of making too much noise in our quiet little neighborhood. I kept plugging away and at about 9:30 I was putting the second axle in. I noticed the output seal was damaged. I called O'reilly again and told them to hold a seal for me- I'd be there before closing. When I got there the seal was wrong. Luckily I had brought the old one and they matched it up. I headed to the Autohaus to double-check some info about Matt's car and make sure I used the correct fluid in the final drive gearbox.
Begin paraphrase, this is taking too damn long and I've got shit to do.
Hannah seemed pissed because I was still working on cars at 11PM (not that I wasn't pissed either- it just didn't help that she seemed upset and was sarcastic which hurt my feelings even though she was technically right.) Matt came over and at about midnight we put the car on the ground- job done!
Or not.
The axle O'reilly gave me wasn't built correctly. The internal splines at the outer CV joint weren't the same size as the ones on the driveshaft so when you put the car in gear it just spin like crazy! It took me an additional 1.5 hours to determine this of course.
By 2 am I was in bed, convinced my wife wanted a divorce and pretty much hating life.
I was at O'reilly this morning by 7:15 to get another axle (which I had to pay for).
The shiny lining to this drab story is that I got Matt's car together and out the door in time for me to get to work at about nine.
Until I got a nosebleed while cleaning up and had to deal with that and got to work late anyway.
Fuckin' shit...