As we approach the end of another year, New Year's Eve brings back a particularly poignant memory from my driving career.  I worked several years for an impound company that expanded its operation to a second storage facility approximately 10 miles from the original location.  We got on the police rotation in that area, and we began taking our private property impounds from that side of town to that new storage location.  However, the original location remained our central location, where the dispatcher answered the main phone lines, where the trucks were stationed, and where all of the drivers reported to work.  Since much of our work came from the downtown core area of the city, within 2 or 3 miles of the original location, it became like a death knell for the driver who was dispatched to the "Eastside" for a call or a vehicle release.

What was worse was being dispatched to the "Eastside" near the end of your shift, because it would take forever to get out there, complete the call or vehicle release, and then drive back to the central lot to turn in your truck and complete your shift.

My shift, as it happens, ended at Midnight every night. Maybe you can see where this is going.

Although I had no particular plan to celebrate the New Year as the clock turned to twelve, I was looking forward to getting off work at Midnight to join whatever party was going on that year with family and friends.  It was relatively slow that night, but around 10 o'clock, the dispatcher informed me that I had a couple of vehicle releases at the Eastside Lot scheduled for 23:59.

23:59?  What in the world?  Most of the time, when a vehicle owner discovers their car has been impounded, they either want to get it right away, or they have to make arrangements to pick it up at a time more convenient for them.  If the vehicle is impounded after 6 pm, or on the weekend, there is usually a financial incentive to pick it up the next day, if they can, because the overnight storage fee is normally already in effect, and the after-hours release fee increases the total.  Couple this with the fact that you wouldn’t think anyone would want to celebrate the annual calendar change at an impound lot in NE Portland, and you can see why I was confused.

After some investigation, we discovered that one of the new dispatchers had been confused about how vehicle storage charges were calculated.  She thought we charged by the calendar day, but in fact we charged by 24-hour period.  So everyone that called about picking up their car was told that at Midnight, the charges would go up.  A couple of vehicle owners whose vehicles were impounded together from the same location got the idea that they would get their money's worth and wait until the last minute before the charges increased.  Apparently they were unhappy about getting their cars impounded, and they were making a statement of some kind.

So, just before Midnight on New Year's Eve, I drove out to the Eastside Lot, the armpit of the world, and I rang in the New Year sitting in my truck, waiting for angry vehicle owners who never showed up.  They after-hours release fees would be applied to the tow bills, and I would get my measly commission on the small fees, but clearly they just wanted someone else to suffer, which is why they had set up the phantom lot meets.  I watched a few cheap fireworks being shot off from residential streets in the distance, listened to conspiracy theorists on AM radio, waited the required one hour from the time of the appointment, and began the drive back downtown at 00:59 of the New Year.  In was a very inauspicious beginning to the new year. 

Have a safe and profitable week.

Sincerely,
Nick Kemper

www.TowPartsNow.com

Fall is the good time-change, the one-hour “Fall Back,” which means we all get to sleep an extra hour that weekend. The time-changes are tricky when you're calculating work hours for employees.  Please, those of you who calculate work hours by hand, if you have graveyard shift employees, and the Spring Forward has just occurred, there was an hour early Sunday morning that didn't happen, so don't pay them for it.  Similarly, in the Fall, you have an extra hour to pay them for on another Sunday morning. Believe it or not, I’ve worked a few of these graveyard shifts myself.

One year, in the Fall, I was working a swing shift that ended at 2 a.m.  So the problem was, on this particular Saturday evening, when 2 a.m. hit, it switched to 1 a.m.  So, in effect, my 12-hour shift became a 13-hour shift.  What was kind of funny about it is that I impounded a car at around 1:45 a.m., and then I got another impound soon afterward, and I brought that car in at 1:30 a.m.  So I finished a later tow at an earlier time.  Looked kind of strange on the tow log.

Another year, the Spring time-change.  I was managing a 24-hour dispatch center, and we had a relatively new Dispatcher working alone on Saturday swing shift, and our business was growing so that every Saturday night seemed a little busier.  I volunteered to come in and help during the busy time, about 5-10 pm.  Two of my other dispatchers had gone on vacation to Disneyland.  Don't ask me why I let them both take time off at the same time, and don’t ask me why two young males went to Disneyland together.  They were due in that day, and one of them was scheduled to work the graveyard shift that night.  Shortly after I arrived at 5 p.m., he called in and claimed that he couldn't work.  They had been driving all day, and he was "so tired he was throwing up."  So my 5-hour unpaid shift (I was a manager, so I was on salary) turned into a 12-hour unpaid overnight shift.  Without the time-change, it would have been a 13-hour shift--at least I had that going for me.  The swing shift Dispatcher had to be in at 2 p.m. the next day, so I let him go home around 11.  I confess that I laid my head down on the desk and slept for about an hour at one point.  8 a.m. came--no day shift Dispatcher.  She had forgotten to change her clock, so she sauntered in at 8:59, all smiles, with a "what are you doing here?"  I calmly gave her the story of the lame coworker who couldn't work after his week-long vacation.  She was "disgusted" at his behavior. As I got up to leave, I told her, "Oh, by the way, it's 9 o'clock.  The time changed last night."  She went white as a sheet.  Made me smile.

Have a safe and profitable week.

Sincerely,
Nick
Kemper
www.TowPartsNow.com