Category: Salesmen

I get most frustrated by people who are in the sales/retail/services business. This is usually caused by them doing what they are told, but not having enough of a brain to think on their own. You should enjoy some of these stories.

Bike repair

I decided 2 weeks ago that I wanted to chip the rust off my bike and put it back into service. My rims were eating holes in my tubes from all the rust. Rim tape alone would not have been enough. However, I did not have any money at the time.

Finally payday arrived. It was a Wednesday that I was able to take my bike in for an estimate. I know this will sound ridiculously cheap, but that is because it is. Bikes are such a part of the culture here that the parts stores are almost as busy as auto parts stores. They deal in crazy volume. Plus many of the parts are cheap Chinese products.

I got an estimate for 2 new rims, all new spokes (64), a new seat, all new cables (brakes and gears) and a derailer cleaning and adjustment for a whopping total of $31.

Supposed to have been ready at 3:00 on Friday afternoon (2 days later). On Friday we buzzed by the shop and the bike was not ready. But, they said, it would be ready in a couple of hours. I could not get back on Friday evening, so I went by about noon on Saturday. Still not ready. I was assured that it would be ready by 3:00 since they closed at 4:00.

I called at a little after 3:00 on Saturday and the man said that it would be ready at noon or maybe 1:00 on Monday afternoon. I told him I was getting a bit frustrated with the constantly changing completion time. He absolutely assured me that it would be ready by noon.

Monday I called at 1:00. Still not ready. I talked to the man who was doing the work and he told me it would be ready by 2:30. By this time I was more than a little frustrated.

I ended up writing a nice long email to the general manager of the bike shop. They are a fairly large chain of stores here in the city, Bicimotos. I outlined my frustration with him and just asked that he respond to my email letting me know that he had talked to the store in question to find out what the issue was and to try and prevent it from happening in the future.

I got my bike that afternoon. Their excuse was that they could not get the rims I needed. They were at their main store downtown, but for some reason this chain of 10 stores was not able to figure out how to get 2 rims from one store to another. If they did not have the rims until Monday, why did they tell me on Friday to come back in a couple of hours and the job would be done? They either had the rims the whole time and just did not do the work, or they really did not get the rims until Monday but figured that I would be fine with them telling me to come back every 2 hours for 3 days until they arrived. Not cool.

The next day I got an email from the general manager telling me that he had a talk with the store. He also said that the problem was getting the rims to their location, but that it was no excuse and that he apologized for doing such a poor job. He also told me to take his email with me the next time I went there and I would get a discount.

While I appreciate his getting back with me and offering a discount, I will probably never go back to that store. I may go to another Bicimotos to buy parts or to have work done, but never to that particular location (Prolongación Montejo). You can only lie to me and treat me poorly just so many times before I take my business elsewhere. On top of that, I was not overly pleased with the completed job. Cables were too long.

My bike is nothing special. I bought it at a yard sale for $10 I think. It might have been $5. But for a store to hold my bike hostage and not do the work requested is just not acceptable. I somewhat worded it that way to the manager. I said that his store stole my bike for 3 days while they kept putting off the work.

Waiting for a bunny

Today we have spent a typical day waiting on other people. This is not at all unusual but it is a rather frustrating part of life here in Mexico.

I got a good deal on a rabbit cage this weekend at a yard sale. We have casually talked about having a pet rabbit for quite some time. When the cage fell into our laps, we figured there was no better time than the present to get the bunny. I got a recommendation from a friend on a reliable vet who might be able to help us with acquiring a bunny for cheaper than a pet store wants to sell them.

I called the vet yesterday afternoon to see what he could track down. He called me back in an hour telling me he had found a rabbit that fit our criteria. We decided the price, for the type of rabbit, was the best we could get and we had the confidence of knowing that the vet was helping us pick out a good one.

The rabbit was to be at his clinic (30 minutes from our house) by 12:00 today. We waited until 12:30 to go get the bunny. When we arrived at 1:00 the vet was calling the bunny farmer to see when the rabbit would arrive. We were told 4:00. That meant a 30 minute drive home and then another hour long round trip drive to get the bunny at 4:00. Fortunately, some things work differently and better here (just some). Everyone delivers and makes house calls. The vet volunteered to bring the rabbit to us at 4:00, or as soon after 4:00 as he could.

At 6:30 I called the vet to find out if he was bringing the rabbit today. He still had not gotten it from the farmer. He has not even been able to get a hold of the farmer since we were at his shop at 1:00. The vet asked if we had plans to go out tonight. I told him I did not, but that I had already spent several hours waiting at home just so he could bring the bunny. I was not pleased.

He will bring the rabbit by later tonight if he gets it. Or maybe tomorrow. Or…

I have decided to call the vet in the morning and tell him to let the farmer know he can kiss his $35 goodbye if I don’t have the rabbit by 1:00. I cannot waste another day on this. I do have other things to do with my time that does not include sitting at home waiting for a rabbit.

How NOT to get repeat business

Monday I dropped my expensive dress shoes off at a shoe repair shop. I made sure I talked with the cobbler to let him know how much those shoes meant to me. I have had them for 8 years and I would not mind having them another 8 years, or more. I was wanting the man to realize that I prized the shoes and having them repaired well was more important to me than what it cost to repair them (within reason).

I needed a couple of busted seams to be re-stitched. Through the years both shoes have had to have some re-stitching. The last time they were done by a different repair shop, the cobbler did not do a very good job of cleaning up his extra thread. What did not break over time started to look ratty. I wanted the new guy to clean up the mess and re-stitch some parts of the shoes. While he was at it, even though I probably had another 3 or 4 months worth of sole left on them, I wanted him to re-sole the shoes.My nice shoes

All of this was agreed to be done by 10:00 Wednesday morning (today) for $15. Yes, soles are much cheaper here in Mexico than they are in the US. I emphasized to him that I really needed the shoes Wednesday morning at the agreed upon time because I had to have them that afternoon. He said he understood and that they would be ready.

The odd thing about this cobbler is that he wanted some money up front. While that is common practice here in town, especially where goods are involved, I have never had to pay for my shoe repair up front. I want to know that the job is done well before handing over my cash. I had no cash with me because I did not anticipate this.

I went in this morning at 11:00 to pick up my shoes. They were not done yet. He had not even started working on them. He said they would be ready at 5:00 this afternoon. He said that it would cost $16 and I needed to pay him up front. I argued with him about the price and the time. While $1 is nothing in comparison to what I was having done, it was not the agreed upon price. Furthermore, the agreed upon time was 11:00 am not 5:00 pm.

He finally said that he could have the shoes ready by 1:00 for $15. And if not, I would pay nothing. I did give him $10 at that point and promised that I would be there near 1:00.

I was not able to arrive as close to 1:00 as I hoped, but I was there shortly before 2:00. My shoes were ready and I paid him the final $5. Then I added that I would never be back in his shop and that I would tell my friends to avoid his business based on the fact that he had wanted to change the price and that the shoes were not ready on time. I did consent to him that I understood that sometimes things happen to prevent deadlines from being met, but there is never an excuse for changing the price.

I am not asking for special treatment in any way. But, I think the cobbler could have seen an opportunity and seized it.

While I am not rich, I am richer than most people who would be in this man’s shop. His normal clientèle would be people who are too poor to buy a new $30 pair of shoes so they have him replace the soles for $10 or less. I walked in with a story of having had these shoes for many years and that they were precious to me. I wanted the best treatment I could get for them. I happened to be dressed that day in nice clothes. As a person conducting a business, I think I would have looked at a customer like myself and realized that this could be a very good repeat customer. The cobbler never saw that. Not until I made plain to him that he would never see me again in his shop did he start to think that he should care for the customer and their needs more.

Directly across the street from this cobbler is the jeweler that I have been taking my watches to for the last year. I have been unusually harsh on my watches lately and they have had to be in the shop too often. This jeweler immediately saw me as a potentially good customer. Just recently he did an easy job for me that required $9 worth of parts. He charged me $9. He knows that maybe losing a little bit of money on labor now, will cause me to look to him when I want to buy a new watch. I have already recommended him to a couple of friends. He is a man who knows how to grow a business.

If you work in the service industry you have to remember that your business is people, not shoes.

Cool Running to Active

This was a frustrating week in the running community. The place where I had previously kept my running log, Cool Running, sold out to Active early in 2007. In August there was talk about how our running logs would be transitioned over to Active’s system in September. Later, it was pushed to October, November and then December. It finally happened last weekend.

Leading up to the transition, there were many questions about Active’s training log. One thing I did not want to do was create an account at Active and start using the system. That complicated everything and I did not want them to have to try and match up my two usernames at the two different sites. But, I did as much reading about the log as I could. Active is very much a “pay for extra services” type site. Nothing wrong with that, but we were getting a lot of features free at Cool Running that we were going to have to pay extra for at Active. These issues were raised and Active seemed to finally be listening and offering to make certain features free.

But the transition took place and things fell apart.

For many people their logs were not moved over, or their logs were missing information (as was my case). Then the problem was not just that the info did not transfer over but the log itself is totally klunky. Just trying to enter a run into the system is not fun. To enter all the basic information that would take one page in Cool Running’s log now took at least 5 pages at Active. You click the date that you want to enter a workout for (load new page) and then have to tell it to enter a new workout (load new page). Then you choose the date again along with the type of workout. Let’s say running (load new page). Enter the type of run with your time (load new page). Manually add mileage to your shoes (load new page). I still have not found out where to add my weather information nor how to change a workout from being planned to actually doing it. The runs that did get transferred over to the new site are all planned workouts. According to their log I have not actually run any mileage.

They instructed us that it would take 24 hours from the time we requested our log conversion until it was available on the new system. My transfer did not go well. Data was lost. I waited the obligatory 24 hours and did not get any more information to magically appear. I contacted them and got an automatic reply telling me that someone would be getting back to me. When they finally did (20 hours later) it was a canned response that told me how to convert my data to begin with. The data conversion had already been done, as I explained in the first email. I wrote them back and have now been waiting 5 days to get a new response. I don’t think one is forthcoming.

Each time you go to the sites (forums at one site and running log at another) you have to log in again. It does not save your login from one session to the next. Since their site’s main business is selling services, for your safety they force the log out so that no one can run up a bill for you.

Cool Runners have been leaving in droves. Active has said they are addressing many of these issues. They expect to have some things worked out in 3 to 4 months. Months! I have already found a new home for my running log. I am a very happy member at RunningAHEAD now. This log is every bit as easy to use as Cool Running’s log was, but with more features. Still you enter all your run info on one page.

Cool Running did have a way to export your log (Active does not). As soon as they started talking about the transition taking place, I took the time to export my log after every run. Many people did not. While there is still a back door to get at your log and download it, that probably won’t be available for long. RunningAHEAD makes it easy to download your log.

Check out my new stats generated by RunningAHEAD in my sidebar. I have not looked to see if I can make my log public yet or not, but probably the statistics in the sidebar is more than most people will want to know about my running.

Active is owned by ESPN. But, they only have 10 hour work days. They have not responded to any type of comments in the forums since the middle of the week last week. I am sure they will be off for Christmas. In that amount of time the ones who were holding out to try and make this transition work will be long gone. I told Active that I would try and stick it out until they get my log imported properly and I get a chance to really use their system. I have been waiting several days now and have not heard anything. I have logged several miles at RunningAHEAD and don’t see any reason to give Active another shot.

Active bought a community of hundreds (and maybe thousands) of runners. Within a week they have managed to drive the majority of them away. So much for the purchase of new users.

New steering system and alignment

Typical of anything I do mechanically, it takes way more time to accomplish than it should. When my uncle (my mechanical adviser) tells me that a project will take a certain number of hours, I usually triple it and get close to a good guess on the amount of time it will take me. I was told that to replace my steering linkage in my Suburban would take about 4 hours. My estimate of 12 was pretty close. It may have taken me a bit longer than that.

I pulled it mostly apart on Monday. There was some time lost due to trying to find a couple of specialty tools I needed. I got the tie rods and relay rod removed. I tried to get the pitman arm and the steering idler arm to come off, but they needed another day to be convince they were going to come off. Finally on Tuesday morning I was able to get those removed with a little persuasion from a bigger hammer and lever.

I took the parts that I needed to replace with me to the parts store. With new pitman arm, tie rods (inner and outer) and steering idler arm in hand I was ready to start the installation. I got it all back together by late Tuesday evening. I even took the time to fix (I hope) a brake squealing problem I have been having while I was at it.

I was not quite satisfied that my quick alignment job was good enough to take it to the alignment shop this morning. I did a few more measurements and determined that I was quite a bit off with the passenger side. I took a few more minutes to straighten it out before going to the shop.

At the shop I was told that it would take an hour to clean up my mess. I stepped across the street to a store to waste a bit of time. I also took a book to help me out. Having spent about 45 minutes there, I wandered down to a convenience store to get a drink and do some more reading. I returned to the tire shop and they were still working on it.

Thinking it would be just a few minutes longer, I sat down in the lobby. As far as I could tell someone was working on my truck the whole time I was there. The management staff was coming and going in the lobby and I would have expected them to tell me if it was going to be much longer. Nothing was said, so I just enjoyed my book and read the newspaper. After an hour more of waiting I asked if it was going to be much longer. The man went and checked and told me it would be about 20 minutes more. “Any problems?” I asked. I was informed that because it was not a compact car, it would take more than the standard hour.  Didn’t they know when I brought it in that it was not a compact car? Is it possible to confuse a Suburban with a Jetta?

It ended up taking 2.5 hours for them to do the alignment. There were no problems, it just takes longer on that type of suspension I was told. Then why did they tell me it was going to take an hour? I would not have minded that it would take 2+ hours if I had known up front. I could have gone home and done something productive. I voiced my concerns to the man who originally took my work request. He asked me if I was going to be late for something because of it. I told him it did not matter. The point was they took two and a half times longer to do the job than what they told me.

When I took the truck in last week to have them look it over and tell me what needed to be replaced, they gave me a price of $16 for the alignment. Then when I dropped it off this morning the price was $17. No big deal, I was not going to argue over $1. When I picked it up the price was $23. Huh? When they told me the price this morning (along with the statement that it would take an hour) they did not know that the vehicle would be so difficult. What idiot at an alignment shop can’t tell that a Chevrolet truck is not a Nissan compact?

One of the workers asked me to fill out a complaint form. He said that a manager would call me.

I remember in the back of my mind that a little over a year ago I took something (I think it was to have a flat fixed) to this same shop. They told me the job would take 2 hours because of being busy. That was fine, I had plenty of time. It took almost 5 hours which then made me late for an appointment. I remember complaining heavily at the time for the stupidity of not being able to do a simple job in the time alloted. Of course, I did not remember any of this until I was standing there this morning stewing over the delay.

I knew when I started this project that it would take me, an amateur without good tools, three times longer to do a job than a real mechanic would take. But when the real mechanics tell you it will take an hour, then it should take about that amount of time. I told them I was more upset that when I returned at the alloted time that they did not inform me then that I would be waiting at least an hour longer.

Just another example of how people don’t look out for the customer. When I find a place that puts me (the customer) first, I will frequent that establishment.