The new manager is working out!

Why haven’t I been blogging in such a long time? Well I will tell the story.  We have finally got Linda into the command chair of Guardian and I am over at Access. It has taken a couple of weeks but things are starting to settle down. It was a crazy first two weeks for Linda. One of the things we did was set up gift bags for the Chamber of Commerce.  Every year they hold a luncheon for all the new teachers hired in the Yukon School District. This year they expect 100 new faculty members to be present at the luncheon. So Linda and I are up till 11:30 pm putting together mini gift bags for these teachers.

We used every flat surface we could spare to get the job done.

 Putting the bags on the floor is not an option because we have a Pomeranian that looks like this,

but can walk through a room like this.

So the morel of this story became apparent the next day when we dropped off the packages at the chamber. I had miss-heard the dates and the donations were not due for another 30 days.  It seems Linda has a doofuss for a boss.

Things coming up: We have started the auction process and I looks promising that we will go all the way this time.

So Linda has also been doing Auction calls and mailers to our customers at Guardian, John has been doing the same at Access, yet he only has 3 units to start with. If we can keep at least one in the auction it will be a miracle.

Auctions are a pain to set up, but Auction Day is quite fun.

The Return of the Stooges

When Hollywood remakes a movie they keep the characters it is just the actors that change.  Well the same can be said of the storage world.   Today I had a visit from the stooges.  Now this was not the same actors that visited me over at Guardian but these actors played the pats quite well.

I spent the day at Access Storage with Don and Debbie (two of the big hitters in my world).   We did some work we did some planning and we witnessed some poor decisions being made.

When I arrived at work it was around 11:00 am. and I was there to relieve John who had opened the store.  Debbie had opened with John, but when I pulled in there was three cars in the parking so I picked the spot next to the odd car out, a piece of crap Dodge.  Now if it was taken care of it could be a nice old car, but I doubt that it will survive that long.

So skip ahead an hour and Moe shows up, stops in the office to explain that his car had broken down and he and his buddies were going to get it running.  I look out and Larry is now opening up the hood.   Ten minutes later Shemp shows up.  This is about the time I notice what they are doing.  The Stooges have 2 ½ gallons of gas and they are pouring some into the carburetor. Now they must know that gas has some combustible properties because at this moment Larry places a fire extinguisher on top of the engine.  Let me ask you a question if the engine catches on fire where is, the last, place you want the fire extinguisher?  I would think you would not want it at ground zero, but that is where it stayed.  Oh did I mention Moe and Larry are smoking cigarettes … and Shemp has a pipe.  If you know the substance you are working with is flammable why are you lighting up around it. 

This is the moment I remember where my car is, compaired to this insanity.  Up I jump, grabbing my keys, and I am out the door.  As I pass Moe I ask “gasoline”? He says “Uh-huh”.  I look at his car and say “In the carburetor”?  Again he says “Uh-Huh”.  “Great” I say “I’ll just be moving my car now”, and I do.

Now that my car is in a safe place, on the other side of the property, I sit back in the office.  Debbie and I spend the next houror so watching the slap stick comedy, but to no avail, they can not blow up the car for our entertainment.  Neither can they start the car so they give up and drive off. Leaving the gasoline next to the car along with the fire extinguisher.  They seem to be giving mixed singles here.

 Latter Moe does come back to tell us that he will have a buddy come tow it tonight ….  I sure hope its Curly. I liked Curly better than Shemp.

Sometimes I do not think very clear

There have been days when I go to bed and think can I just have a re-due.

I spent a lot of time in my car today because I could not get my brains in to anykind of order.  For example I needed to take some duct tape, a hamer, one nail, and a "aa" battery to Access Storage.  After three trips out I still had not remember a single Item on that list. So when I finlly get fed up with not remembering I stoped by Lowes and bought a hammer, some picture hangers an took them back to Access.
"Look " I said walking in the door "I have gifts"  I produced the hammr and the hangers with pride. John looks at me for a second and says " and the 'aa' batteries"?
Aw crap! I stood right next to the "aa" batteries and never thought about picking them up.

Now the kicker.

What about the duct tape?

My brain scares me sometimes.

I will never play quarter slots again!

Today I had a special treat. I spent a large part of the day at Access Storage taking inventory of the car wash. Wash bays check, vacuums check, auto wash check, jobs done. Unfortunately that’s not what they meant. If you think about it what does a car was have the most of? Quarters. Every machine accepts quarters, or gives quarters. So there are a bunch of quarters to count. 11 am to 4 pm I spent counting, categorizing, or re-cording quarters. I met John at Access at 11 am and I think I actually said this should not take to long. I am thankful that John was there or I would still be counting. By the time we were through our hands were blackened and probably quite toxic. I really don’t want to go into totals because I want to be able to sleep tonight. Lets just say we counted thousands of quarters.



I wanted to say that I will not be blogging about my upcoming auction. Some how the computer did not send out the final lien notices when it should have. This is the certified letter that has to go out on time.  Not a real hard fix the new program did not have the right switches set. So what does the manager of a self storage facility do when the paperwork gets messed up.? Simple, set a new date and restart the process. Never take the chance on your auctions it is better to start again then to put about a questionable auction. I will let you know when the new date is set.

Cookies rule

ookies! What is happier than fresh free cookies?  Well, in the world of Bob cookies are king.  Several years ago I was chatting with some friends trying to figure out what to do for my birthday and that is when I figured out cookies, I would go home and bake myself cookies.  Well that did not make as happy as is sounded so I started giving the cookies away, and Unofficial National Bob Day was born.  The first two years I baked a lot of cookies, but how many cookies can on man make?  So every year I keep expanding and asking more people to bake cookies and give them away on March 19^th.  Last year we went International cookies were made all over the US, England, West Africa, and Japan.  We celebrated Unofficial International Bob Day in The Middle East and somewhere in the Pacific Ocean with our troops. 

This brings us to the present. Unofficial international Bob Day is Monday if you can bake some cookies and give them away please do and let me know.  I love the fact that one crazy guy’s idea and go all over the world.  So for all the people of the world, go celebrate Bob and his love of cookies.

The first round of baking, three dozen Chocolate Chip, three dozen Snickerdoodles, and t.hree dozen No Bake

The Game of Life

Here is a lesson for all who may read this.  In the “Game of Life” that is the Parker Brothers game, the idea of the game is to make more money than anyone else and beat your opponents to the finish.  That is a board game people.   Get the clue that life is not a game.   The one with the most toys does not win.

Pardon for the rant but I seem to be in a power struggle at work and I did not start it.   I have a fellow employee in the company that feels like he is not needed in his current position and is trying to gain some form of control in the storage branch of the corporation.   Now the old me wants to say “I didn’t start this fight but I will sure end it”.  Now here is where my internal struggle hits.  My gut still wants to fight fire with a small thermal nuclear device, but I spent last fall at an adult leadership course put on by the Boy Scouts of America.  This course is called Wood Badge and is one of the most compelling classes I have ever taken.  I will not go into great detail on the overall course, but I want to tell you about one lesson. 

“The Game of Life”

Here are the rules of a simple game.  You have two paddles on red and one green. On the count of three each team lifts a paddle in the air.  That is all the rules you are given and the game starts.   After the first round the scoring board is brought out and the scores are counted.  For example the scoring board for a game with two teams would look like this.   Two red paddles are raised both teams lose 100 points.  If a red paddle and a green paddle are raised then the red paddle wins 500 points and the green paddle loses 500 points. If the two green paddles are raised then each team gets 50 points.   Now the motto of this game is “Win All You Can”.  How do you see this game going?  When I played it we had eight teams with a very complicated scoring board, but the concept stayed the same.  At first we were just throwing up paddles at a whim and going into the negatives fast.  Then a group of instructors ran across the room holding up one word signs which read Win All You Can. As soon as they passed they ran backwards so the message read Can You All Win.  Slowly two tactics emerged one group started only holding up the red paddle while the other seven groups were holding up green.  The seven groups started trying to get the eight group to join in but they were winning and they kept holding up red by the end of the game seven teams where dip in the negative and one team had thousands of points. Who won?  …. No one won.  In life there is no score board and no playing pieces and if you can’t figure out that there is always a win-win scenario, then you will be the one to bring down everyone.  I don’t want to be the one to destroy everything just to prove I am right. 

When I started this blog tonight I had all intentions of explaining my strategies of how I was going to win this battle.  Then I would probably spend some time justifying my decision.  Now here I am at the end of this post and I realize it’s time to lift the paddle.  Well Bob what’s it going to be red or green.   This will be a long weekend figuring out my next move.   I hope you will think before your next move and try to find the win-win scenario.

P.S. If I blow this game for any soon to be Wood Badgers, please forgive me.   Not only did this game hit me hard then, but again tonight.  It is a lesson we all need.

 Make good choices.  in the end it is just between you and God.

A new place to work and another auction!

I am still 4 weeks outside of my auction and lo and behold the owner of my storage has closed on another facility. Access Storage is now under the Avandale umbrella. This is an excellent opportunity and creates some new challenges. Access has a Car Wash included with the property and 4 acres of undeveloped land. Look for a lot to happen here. Oh yeah, did I mention it is one mile from Guardian. This may constitute some running between facilities for me, but that is just good business.

Now for the challenges! The office came complete with contracts, cameras, a comfy couch for the customers and no employees. Usually when a company is taken over or bought out the customers and their pay comes as part of the deal. We are not sure when but there are no employees so day one we start behind the eight ball. Also on day one we find out that Access Storage is in the final days of an auction of it’s own. I don’t understand this auction first of all there is no paper trail that is easy to follow, and there is only one space going up for auction. The facility is only 55 to 60 % occupied so why push only one unit why not wait for more units to accumulate. To top this problem the customer has notified that he has retained a lawyer to declare bankruptcy. What a pain in the ass this is. Now that we are trying to put together an office on the fly, we are now in a horse race. The race is this, when the lawyer gets the paperwork into the court house we will be notified and have to kill the auction on this space. So who is faster the lawyer and his paperwork or Access and the calendar. If Auction date gets here without our notification of the bankruptcy then the sale goes on.

The best thing about the new facility and it’s location so close to us, is that we can run the two stores in tandem. And I get free car washes !!! Yeah!!

Let the games begin

The letters about the inventory for auction went out yesterday and I got my first head ach today.   Today went by kind of hectic but not out of the ordinary.   Till 5:45 this afternoon when one of my auction tenants stops by.  Now I haven’t received a payment from her (that didn’t bounce) since she moved in.  Yet today she shows up and wants to pay now.  Hey I like that kind of enthusiasm, just tell me where it has been for the past three months. 

Now let me tell you that the computer happens to be turned off at the moment she comes in ( another long story for another rime).  So we must wait for the complete boot up to happen. Then she has some disputes on the total amount.

Side bar here - the reason we got the new program is because the old program would like to add charges at random. 

Yes I know there is a problem and yes I know how to fix it.  The problem is the info I need is in her file and the calculations are going to need to be done by hand.  Then once the proper price has been set I will need to figure out how to make the new computer to accept the discounted price.  Did I mention it is 5:45 heading to my 6 o’clock closing and this will make me work past 6 which I do not get paid for.

By the way did I mention that this process is taking to long for her and I am putting her out?  You see she has places to be.  This is the kind of attitude that really bothers me.  She has put off taking care of this bill till the last moment making me wait three months to get paid, yet waiting fifteen minutes so I can charge her the proper amount is cramping her style.

Simple answer… I cut her a hand receipt … refilled my coffee and fixed the problem.  She was out of my office at 6 and I took the next 10 minutes and patched the paperwork.  She will never understand how rude not paying your bills can be, but that’s ok I had hot coffee and a quite office.  Unfortunately this is what will great me in the morning.

I need to do some filling to find my desk.  

The first is down, five more to go

The next Big step to Auction.

I mailed out letters to my tenants who are on the road to auction.  I hate these letters for many reasons but the top reason is the attitude I get from many of the customers.  Now please understand I have 90% of my tenants are great people fun to visit with and never give me any problem, what I get from the bottom 10% is this look of disgust as they walk into the office as if I was the problem.   I have even had customers tell me “why are you threatening me with these ugly, mean letters.  You know I always come in and pay my bill”.  What are they thinking the account is over 120 days late and they have not responded to my letters, or phone calls, yet I am supposed to psychically know what day they are going to pay!  Most likely they will also want me to waive the fees.  Man I wish I was golfing.

Here is what is actually coming my way.  Out of the six letters I sent two will pay up quickly one will make a fight out of it and I will get 90% of what they owe, but only after I cut their lock. The other two will end up in the auction and one of those two spaces will look like this.

I stared with just over 20 units going to auction three weeks ago and this is what I am down to.  When I get the rest of the units filled I will probably get a better sized auction going, but with just over 200 units rented I should be happy with 2 to 3 units every 6 months.  

 I should start hearing back from my letter as early as tomorrow.  

My desk continued

I found out how to get a clean desk and it was quite simple.  On Monday I started organizing things that did not belong on my desk.  By removing these Items I made a great step forward.   On Tuesday I started filing all of the paperwork that had built up.  This was a great step also, but it left the pile of real work left to take care of.  On Wednesday morning my boss calls me to inform me that we have a webinar that we need to attend at 1:00. Hey this could be a break from the cleaning!  Except my car it in the shop and there for he needs to come to my office so we can attend it together.  Ok game is on!  One hour later this is what my desk looked like.

The Webinar by the way was great.  If you get a chance to hear “The Hat Lady” speak on storage don’t miss it.  She really knows what she is talking about.

Now that the Webinar is over I need to crunch some serious numbers. Up stairs to the old records, bring down 2010 and 2011  and this is what my desk looks like.

Maybe I should just accept the fact that I am not a neat desk person.  I think I heard once that Benjamin Franklin was a messy desk person.  I think I have that reference somewhere... on my desk.

My desk does not understand me

I lost my desk! I left it right here in my office and when I turned around , Bam, it was gone.

The reality is that my desk gets lost from time to time. The past couple of weeks it seems that the desk is gone more than it is present. So here we go, tomorrow is Monday and I will find the top of the desk. My belief has always been a clean desk will help you stay organized in your day. I like to be organized and I hate having things slip through the cracks. So organized Monday is back. What I need to do is find a way that will keep the clutter off the desk during the week so when Friday comes I can see the desk top.