Change is in the air

There is a time for a change and that time is now.  First Change will be the name of this blog.  I am leaning toward “The Life of Bob” and that will be the working title, but if you have an idea I will be open.  

Now for the rest of the story.

Two weeks ago (that would be 3/18/13) the day before my 50^th birthday, Storage Management Associates, the management company my old boss hired at the first of the year sent an area manager to Yukon Oklahoma to relieve Linda and myself from our servitude to the company. In other words we got fired. Ok not really a big deal I didn’t trust SMA anyway. Now I will let you know I do not hold any real grudge with SMA I could tell from the beginning it was never going to work.  The style of business that they do and what I have been so successful with are diametrically opposed.  So in the big scheme of things it was not a big surprise. 

Now on that day they fired us they also gave us 7 days to move out, and that did give Linda and I a fairly blue night.  Remember Tuesday is my Birthday and on my birthday for the past 6 years I have baked cookies and given them away last year I did 21 dozen.  This year I really wanted to make 50 dozen so Linda jumped in and started baking. Hey job or no job my 50^th birthday only comes once. That is when we got the call from a real close friend in California that her husband had passed away.  No matter how bad your problems seem there are always people whose problems are worse.  Anyway God is the one who is ultimately in control and he will lead us where he wants.

Tuesday happens and since Linda and I no longer have Jobs we could spend the whole day handing out Bob day cookies. The actual name of my Birthday is “Unofficial International Bob Day” I have networked this day with friends of mine to reach people on six continents.  It is crazy to think on March 19^th people all over the world are making and giving away cookies just to bring a smile.

 

 

Armed with 50 dozen cookies in 100 Red solo cups Linda and I gave cookies away from the north side of Oklahoma City through Yukon and ended up in El Reno.  We spread as much joy as possible and promoted the Military Prayer Group of Yukon an organization that prays for our men and women who serve our armed forces.  Bob Day ended very well.

 

Wednesday we woke up and started packing like crazy.  With the help of our friends lead by the unstoppable Joyce Roper

 

 

 we moved our 300 Square foot storage and our 200 square foot shop to 5 Star Storage owned buy one very honest and honorable man Rick Opitz.

 

Thursday I put my wife on an airplane to California to be with her best friend at the funeral of her husband.   Joyce and Samantha Matthews continued to move wood and boxes from Guardian to Five Star and Started packing up the house.

 

Friday we had more help come in and continue packing the house up. Once again Joyce led the charge and kept me focused.  Without my wife I can get bogged down in the little things it is nice to have someone step in and help.

 

 Saturday night Danielle and her son Gavin came by and packed like crazy. It was the final touch that made me feel ready for the morning.

Saturday was the big move our son Bobby brought the Red Neck army over to help.

 

My dad stopped by and lent a hand packing cleaning and moving.  My body had taken as much abuse as it could stand and it was nice to have the help. Saturday also brought the rain. So it looked like it was going to be a soggy move but Pastor Ron Rasmussen from Christ Church of Yukon brought a line of pickup trucks and we had the house cleared in no time. At one point it felt like we had so much help that I could easily lose control. God is so good he blessed us with an overflowing cup.

Monday I did some cleanup work in storage and ran errands around town. Then spent a long night at scouts explaining what just happened to Linda and me.

Tuesday I started work with John Miller doing some work on a home he was refurbishing. I also received a call from a company to come in for an interview.  Then I spent a long night at Joshua’s Karate class explaining what happened to Linda and me.

Wednesday I came in late to work on the house because of the Job interview.  Then I received a call that afternoon offering me the job.

Thursday I never made it to the house due to the fact it took most of the day to fill out employment paperwork and take a drug test. I then had the great pleasure of picking up my wife from the airport.

Friday I spent the day working for John and the evening with my family.

All that to bring us to today, we are staying with friends, my new jobs starts Monday,  we are blessed with more friends than you can imagine, tomorrow is Easter and God is good… all the time.

The Marx's Brothers

Guardian Storage was visited by some people whom must have failed the I. D. 10-T test. We will introduce Harpo,  Zeppo and Groucho.  That is right the Marx’s Brothers where right here on the property and what a show they put on. 

Groucho and Zeppo called in to find out if there was a parking space available for rent. It seems that Zeppo’s offspring had totaled one of the family vehicles and they needed a place to put it for 30 to 60 day until they could make it go away permanently.  Zeppo had called his good pal Groucho to help him drag this smoking wreckage across the state to the Guardian facility.  Well, being good friends and desperate for a rental of course we said yes.

When they arrived they elicited the help of their third friend Harpo.  After looking at the package that was once a car Harpo asked how they got it on top of the trailer in the first place.  It seems that Groucho and Zeppo had used a come-along to slowly drag the car up on trailer, but there was no real plan on getting it back off.  The major problem it seemed was the driver’s side front wheel was almost snapped off and had no control of where it went. Three of the four tires were flat, the drive train was busted and the engine was in no condition to turn over again.  How could the Marx’s Brothers ever get this hunk of junk into a standard parking space?  Well it was Harpo’s idea to park the trailer in the middle of the space use the come-along to get the back wheels on the ground then drive the trailer out from underneath the car, effectively dropping the broken and twisted wreckage into the space.

After hooking the come-along to Harpo’s car to give a solid base to pull against, the team watched as Groucho started wrenching the car to solid earth, but something went wrong.  As the straps were pulled tighter the wreck did not move but Harpo’s car did start to lift. No matter how much the team pushed, pulled or used engineering terms the wheels of the damaged car would not turn.  Twenty minutes our trio scratched their heads till finally it came to them….  Release the parking break. 

Yes at that point the car rolled, with just some minor coaching from Zeppo, off the trailer and into the parking spot.

You would think that I would have been rolling on the floor, tears flowing from my eyes as I observed this story unfolding.

Ah, but alas I have met Harpo and he is me…..

Some days it just doesn’t pay to be a Bob.

Auctions 2013, we work hard to make them small.

Auction Day!!!!  Another chance to sell other peoples stuff to pay for debts owed.  That sounds kind of cold doesn’t it? The cold hard fact is, that is exactly what it is.  If you do not keep up you monthly payments a self-storage company can sell your stuff, but that is not the end you want.  If cash gets tight and you get behind the first thing you need to do is contact the manager and find a way to get caught up. Remember a working payment plan will keep you out of an auction only if you keep working it.

So where do you start when you need to save your stuff from auction?  The first and most important step is to choose your Self Storage Facility well.  You may feel more secure with a big name nationally known company, but the bureaucracy that comes with the big company can often keep the managers from being able to work with you.  Owner manager facilities mean that when you talk to the manager you are talking to the decision maker. Smaller companies tend to trust their managers more and you get to deal with decision makes again.

What can you do if you get into trouble? Payment plans is always a great way to get back on track.  A pay and move is a technique that is as close to a cut and run as you can get.  The moment that the manager says auction status, you offer 50% to 60 % of what you owe and you get yourself out a.s.a.p. That storage company gets more money than an auction would bring and their unit back that they can rent again. When all else fails a letter of abandonment is a polite way to walk away.  When you just walk away because the amount owed is too much not only do you lose your stuff but you make the storage company go through the auction procedure. Please remember it was not the managers’ fault that you got behind, so don’t take it out on them. The letter of abandonment will allow the manager to do with the space as they see fit. They can throw it into the next auction or throw it in the trash; it does not matter because you have given them the permission to do it.

Remember the managers are just people trying to follow the laws and make the owners happy. By treating them nice you can make life easier on yourself.

If all else fails and auction happens make sure that the storage company has your updated contact information.  Many times auction buyers will leave photos and important documents behind and without good contact information you won’t know if any is left. Another thought is that on the rare occasion your unit sells for more than you owe that money goes to you, but only if they can find you.

As for our auction day it went off without a hitch both units at my facility were paid off the night before so I ended up with nothing to sell. Linda started with four or five units and ended up only selling two. Not a bad day for auctions .

Auction and More

It has been a long January and the truth be told I have not felt like blogging …. Sorry…. But I am back with lots to tell.

First let me tell you the first and most important thing will have to wait till anther time … and again sorry… but now for the fun parts.  Auction time is coming!

 

In the last auction, we had two of the units get bought back less than 24 hours before the auction.  It seems like most of the units that I have seen saved at the last minute end back on the auction block.  Why this is I can only surmise, one if it takes you to the last second to raise the money to save the unit once, you will probably not be able to do it twice.  Once in Pasadena, we had the same unit go to auction 3 times before it finally sold. What a waste of money.  There is another type of personality that thinks that if they only pay for the storage when it is going up to auction, then they have saved the three months of rent.  I have had customers try to explain this theory to but I just don’t get it.  I don’t think Dave Ramsey would understand it either.

My auction is the 19^th and where I hate the prep work for an auction, auction day is always fun.

Another big change is I have merchandise to sell.  This is cool on several reasons. First is the long range foot traffic that will build as we get to be known for moving and packing supplies.  Another reason is the instant impact that people will have when they come into an office and it looks like a real store.

The Smell Is Oh So Special

Now I have been having so much fun with the car wash for the past two months.  The sumps have all started backing up, at first it was one at a time then the whole thing started acting up.  In fact, in the month of December I have cleared clogs five times.

Now I have explained how much I enjoy working on the sumps with the smell, the slime, the smell, and the smell. In fact last Sunday I had the extra fun of teaching Andrew how to clear a clog.  What bothered me on Sunday was the fact that that it was the second time for the Auto bay to clog up in three days. Things were going from bad to worse for the drainage system.  That Monday I called American Sanitation and tried to set an appointment to get the sumps clean.  The answer was “Well maybe, we can get there by Thursday!” I heard myself saying “That’s cool we get it done when we can” While my brain was exploding in my skull and leaking out my ears. Luckily we did not Back up in any of the stalls for the rest of the week.  We did not get the cleanout done till Friday, but boy did those guys earn their pay.  Two guys show up early Friday morning with a large empty Tanker and started cleaning out the manual bays

 

These guys worked through the wind, the temperature, and the smell. I never realized just how much crap comes off cars, trucks, and whatever else that fits into a wash bay.

 

Once a bay was clean they opened it up to the customers and moved on to the next, at least for the first four bays.  That’s when they realized that our bays were so full that their tanker truck would not hold all the crap.  They had to leave and dump their tank and come back for the last three bays. 

 

The last surprise was when they started working on the main sump.  We found that there was a major clog somewhere in a two foot section of pipe that was deeper in the crap soup than anyone could or wanted to try to reach. (That included me).  This is when the manager came up with the idea of building up some pressure in the tanker then hit that clog with all that pressure at once. This sucked the clog out faster than anything.  Think of a giant plunger and you might get an idea of the sound that clog made coming out.  Now what was in that clog?  well no one will ever know.  I like to think it was something dead.

 

All and all it was well worth all the trouble to get the car wash back up and running.

Now for somrthing completely diffrent

Here is a quick fun fact! We got power to our new sign

 

So what is so fun about this fact you might ask

 

The answer is in the 21 years that I have been working in storage I have asked electricians a thousand times (maybe 10 times in total) to add an electrical outlet to the outside of buildings signs and polls.  In 21 years they always forget to do such a little thing and I end up running extension cords all over the property.

If you look to the bottom of this sign, this magnificent most tricked out sign I have ever been blessed to work with, you will see an electrical outlet.  Such a small thing and such a large time saving, frustration removing gift. 

 

And in other news ...Yukon gets over run with wild turkeys!  Ok, ok, it was only two turkeys but this was in town by the post office.  Not exactly what I expected.

The Lights 2012 night one

The first night at the Christmas Lights at the Park was last night and it went pretty well.  The night started out warm enough but by 10:00 it did get cold.  Once again I got out of the cold by donning the Rudolf costume and running around for three hours acting like an idiot, but I got a lot of smiles from kids and adults alike.

 

Now not everyone was as warm as I was. Linda and Josh had to find their own places to get out of the wind.

 

The City of Yukon goes all out to make this the best light display and every year you find new lights.

 

 

As I said before if you get the chance to come down to Yukon and see the lights make it happen, you will not regret it. If you come on the 20^th be real nice to Rudolph.