We've been having a problem at home with a toilet, and each of our children has been accused and convicted without trial at least once, but I still don't know what’s wrong with it.  Let's just say I should have bought a case of the wax rings, as many times as I've taken the toilet off and put it back on.  If I never have to clean that wax off stuff again, that will be soon enough.

I now understand why plumbers charge what they charge.

This project reminds me of one of my least favorite management experiences.  One early summer evening we had some torrential rainstorms, and our dispatcher called me to tell me the roof was leaking in the offices.  This was
a long-standing problem.  The building was old and had a flat roof, and the drains would clog with leaves.  The water level would then rise
high enough that it would go over the sheet metal that curled up along the interior walls of the roof.

My first question was, "Did you call Todd?"  Todd was the owner, and she had, and he had told her to have one of the drivers climb up onto the roof to clear the drain.  This was a 2-story building.  The driver, a very nice, rather portly young man, made it halfway up the ladder, thought about our commission-based pay system, and climbed back down.  I told her to call Todd back and emphasize the need for his presence.

I hung up the phone, cursed to myself for a few minutes, got in my car, and drove to work.

The dispatch office looked like the house in The Cat In The Hat a few pages before the mother returns home.  Receptacles of all kinds balanced on broomsticks, on chairs with wheels, and on computer monitors, half-full of rainwater and filling quickly, and a goldfish barking orders.  The dispatcher was emptying one receptacle as another filled.  Window blinds had been rearranged.  Some of the light bulbs were out or flickering.  I was thinking about the huge buckets that were on the ceiling above the office, placed there to
catch the water as it leaked in, that were likely ready to break through.  Miraculously, none of the computer equipment had been damaged.  And she was still taking calls.

Getting onto the roof was a problem:
1.  The ladder was just long enough to  reach the roof, if you had a 2-degree angle between the bottom of the ladder and the side of the building.
2.  I am terrified of heights.
3.  There was lightning.
4.  Did I mention there was lightning?

I got onto the roof by climbing onto an intermediate roof, pulling the ladder up with me, carefully walking on the tin-covered 2x4 roof
supports to an adjacent wall, and then placing the ladder on a reinforced area where I could make it up onto the main roof.  Up on the roof, I found Lake Michigan.  I think I saw a salmon returning to its spawning ground.  It was KNEE-DEEP where the drain was.  I reached down and dug out the primordial ooze with my hands.  The current almost took me down when the drain cleared.  As I'm standing there, on top of a metal roof, knee-deep in water, I realize the  lightning isn't that far off, and I'm thinking, "This is why I got into management."

The view of the city was nice, however.

As with all climbing efforts, the trip down was much worse than the trip up, especially now that the building was 3 feet taller with the weight of all the water removed.

Have a safe and profitable week.
Sincerely,
Nick Kemper
www.TowPartsNow.com

I was thinking the other day about getting pulled over by the police while towing a car, which happened to me a few times.  We were all talking at the house about car accidents and tickets, and I really think how many miles you've logged should be taken into consideration. When you're driving 500 miles a week at work, or more, of course you're going to get into a few more fender benders.

There's a degree of professional courtesy between police officers and tow truck drivers.  Unfortunately, sometimes it's a low degree.  It's really a crapshoot.  You might get an officer who got towed away at some point and now they have an agenda.

  At one point when I was a driver I was given an assignment to record everything I did during my shift for a week.  I think it was the insurance company who was doing some kind of research.  Anyway, I was known for my obsessive-compulsive tendencies, so I took it to heart and scribbled down times and every change of status and locations and whatnot for a week, typed it up (yes, "typed" it up--this was awhile back), and turned it in.  Which is the first time my bosses got to hear about my run-in with Portland's finest.

I was impounding an abandoned van, with no tires and wheels.  I was driving an Eagle Claw, so I frame-forked one end and set the other end up on dollies.  I chained the suspension down to the dollies and down to the wheellift.  It was still a little iffyy--there was a
lot of play in the hookup--things moving around and shifting during stops and starts.

I didn't have far to go, maybe 3 miles, but there's a river intersecting Portland, so I had to go across a bridge, and I chose a non-freeway
bridge where the traffic was relatively light.  It was an early summer evening, after rush hour.  The first problem I ran into was driving down an urban street, where I came up to a stop light, and I was cruising slowly--about 20 mph--and the light changed.  I had enough time to stop, but I really didn't want to stop quick with the load I had, and I could see that there was no cross-traffic, so I rolled through.  I did not accelerate.  The light changed to red about halfway through.

I didn't know, but there was a patrol car behind me.  He didn't make his presence known.

The next intersection was a bigger problem. It was a stop sign, where I had to turn left or right onto a busy street.  Although traffic was light, cars kept coming from different directions, and the road had turns in it, making it difficult to see far in either direction.  Thinking back, I should have avoided that by taking a different street that put me at a stop light, instead of a stop sign.  Finally, after waiting for quite awhile, I eased out slowly, and sure enough, a cab came flying around the corner, so I reached down and switched on my overhead lights.  I was already out in the street, so there was no going back.  He slowed down, and I coasted through the intersection, and then I heard
the siren.

So, here I am, towing this abandoned van with no tires and wheels, FOR THE CITY, and the patrol car has been following me.  He
could have pulled up and offered to escort me through the intersection.  He could have looked the other way when I cautiously flipped on my overheads.  But he didn’t. I don't have a problem with any of that.  It's what happened AFTER all that that was kind of twisted.

He pulled me over, and asked for my info.  I was polite.  I'm always polite when I get pulled over.  He started asking me questions, like why
did I run the light, and did I know that it was illegal to drive with the overheads on.  I explained why I had done what I did.  Then he
asked, "What are you on?"  I really honestly did not know what he was getting at.  Then he said, "Your pupils are like dots! What are you on?"  Well, it was late afternoon, and we were parked facing the setting sun, so my first thought was that I was looking toward the sunlight, which would cause my pupils to get smaller.  I hazarded that guess.  He made me get out, and we went through a sobriety test, minus the breathalyzer.  I was a little unnerved, but had no problem because I was not "on" anything. He was adamant that I spill my guts about what kind of drugs I was taking.  I think I actually looked around to see if there was a hidden camera somewhere, because I've had tricks played on me before.  He seemed very serious, so I didn't challenge him at all, even though he was the one who was clearly  impaired.

He had me get back in the cab and let me sit there awhile, and then he approached the door and told me that he was letting me off with a
warning.  After all that, not even a ticket.  Are there drugs that make your pupils smaller?  I thought it was dilated pupils they were supposed to look for.  To this day, I don't know what that officer's agenda was.  My bosses read the report and were just as amazed, but they took that part out before forwarding it to the insurance company.

Have a safe and profitable week.

Sincerely,
Nick Kemper
www.TowPartsNow.com 

Drug-testing, unfortunately, is now an entrenched part of our industry.  With vehicles on the road, it’s understandable that drug use is a problem that must be prevented, not just addressed.  I have witnessed many employees and prospective employees fail drug tests.  A Driver Manager I worked with decided at one point that he wanted to go back to driving, and stop managing.  I took over his position, and when I did, I noticed his name was conspicuously absent from the list of eligible employees we provided to the
drug-testing company to conduct random screens.  I added his name, and within a year he had failed two tests and struck out.  Two of the more interesting cases I was a part of, however, involved dispatchers.
 
A dispatcher I managed was suspected of drug use on the job, something to do with the bathroom, smoke, and a garbage bag (don't ask).  The first time I took her up to the facility to be tested, the result was "overhydrated," meaning there was apparently too much water in the sample for accurate testing.  Not sure exactly what happened there. The next day we went back (she was livid, at this point), and the same result occurred, with what the facility called "probability" of a positive result.  When I confronted her with this, she got angry and went home, and then her husband came down and violently submitted a protest to our company owner (I had already left).  She never came back.

Another office worker I managed was suspected of drug addiction, and I let her know that we were concerned for her and that at some
point she would be tested.  "Bring it on," she countered.  Well, one day I came in and took her up to the facility.  She seemed calm and confident.  We had to wait a few minutes, so she asked for a drink of water and was directed to a water fountain down the hall.  After a few more minutes, as I sat and read a Sports Illustrated, the facility tech asked me where she was.  I didn't see her anywhere, so they brought a female security guard up to check the bathroom.  Nothing. We looked all over for about 15 minutes, and finally gave up.  I drove back to the office.  They called me about 10 minutes later.  They had found her, three floors up in the medical building, hiding in a copy room.  I drove back to pick her up, and they asked me if we still needed to do the test.  "Nope," I said. "We're good."

  The people at the facility seemed excited whenever I came in with anyone after that.  A break in their day, I guess.

In my first few months at TPN, I got a call one day from one of our customers, very upset.  She had received her order, and all over the box were written names of drugs, she said. Marijuana, methamphetamine, PCP....  Well, needless to say, I was quite confused by this.  I
apologized and asked her if she could send the box back to me so I could see it.  "I destroyed it," she told me.  She spoke the word "destroyed" with a sort of biblical authority.  I did some research and found that the shipment originated from one of our distributors, but they were at a loss as well when I called to ask about it.

A few months after that, I was in our storage room, getting some paper, and up on the top shelf was a little box containing a drug-testing kit.  And printed on the outside of the box, for marketing purposes, were the words, "Marijuana," "Methampetamine," "PCP," and other drug names.  Apparently someone at our distributor's facility recycled one of these boxes and used it for our customer order . Yeesh.  You'd think the guy at the shipping table might look at that and think, "Gee, maybe I better ask someone if this is a good idea."

Sooner or later, there's an explanation for everything.

Have a safe and profitable week.

Sincerely,
 Nick Kemper
www.TowPartsNow.com