2020-04-06 — Perspective

Hi, y’all. 😊

Today has been an interesting one. It’s got me focusing a little bit more on what’s important in life. It started out normally enough. I sent my contract worker out on a job, and I headed into town to do a job as well, as I’d double booked the schedule.

I got the radiator support returned (the parts supplier sent me the wrong radiator support last month for that beastly 2015 Pathfinder, and I finally got it shipped back.).

I went to Autozone to take some parts and tools back and to pick up some other parts. The commercial section of Autozone (the section that deals exclusively with supplying parts to commercial businesses like mine) mentioned that sales were way down with Covid-19 keeping more people at home. Fewer cars on the road means fewer cars to break down, which means fewer cars in the shop, which means fewer customers for all of us.

I’m noticing a bit of a slowdown. We did four cars today, my worker doing one, and I the other three. I’ve only got two on the schedule for tomorrow so far. Yeah, I think it’s slowing down a bit. That’s actually probably really good for me, though. I’ve needed to work less. I still have a whole ton of government business paperwork to do, taxes, business organization restructuring, etc. So, the slowdown, if one indeed is occurring for me, will be a welcome respite from the craziness of the last year and a half. Hopefully, I’ll also have more time to work on this non-profit organization. 😊

Anyway, it was a good day today. I lost out on one job I had scheduled because there was a bit of an emergency job at Autozone that happened while I was there. A kid’s starter went out in his Malibu while he was in the parking lot, so one of the guys at Autozone called me to come back just a few minutes after I’d driven away, so I went back, diagnosed the car, figured out the starter was bad, and put one in for him.

I also had another customer meet me there to get his car diagnosed and his PCV valve replaced. The original car I had scheduled will hopefully end up being done tomorrow or Wednesday.

After those two cars, it was down south to diagnose a 2011 Dodge Caliber that died while driving. Turned out to be an alternator, and boy is that one a pain to get out.

Well… actually, the Dodge factory service instructions call for removing the AC compressor in order to get the alternator out, which means evacuating all the refrigerant, and then pulling a vacuum and recharging the system after it’s all put back together. Fortunately, I was able to find another way of doing it, as I didn’t have my AC equipment with me. That was also good for my customer because it saved her probably $150.

It took a really long time, though, and I had to get super creative in finding a way to get that thing out of there. For a while, I was worried that I’d worked for an hour and a half trying something that wasn’t going to end up working and that, after all that, I’d have to do it the normal way anyway, but, I did it!!!

I think the thing that got me focusing more on what’s important was stopping by one of my employee’s apartment to see how he was doing. When the Covid-19 thing hit, at first he was quarantined and had to stay home for a few days until the results of his test came back to see if he was positive or not. But then just a few days later, all the kids got sent home from school, so he had to become a stay-at-home dad because their daycare wouldn’t take his kids anymore either (his fiancee works in healthcare and is considered high risk, so the kids aren’t allowed to attend daycare because of her profession).

So, he lost his income from me (and I lost a contract worker who’d been putting in probably 70-80 hour weeks for me). They’d just moved into an apartment to lower their costs and were planning on putting their home on the market and were going to make a killing on it. But with the crash, he’s going to lose everything he’d hoped to get out of the house, which is an astronomical amount of money. He’s gonna end up selling it for half of what it appraised for only a month or two ago, I think.

He now has to sell the house out of necessity because they’ve lost nearly everything and need money now. Not only that, but one car just blew up. The other two are on the fritz. They can’t afford internet or cell phones right now. They’re swimming.

Oh, and the baby is due in two weeks!

Yeah… puts things a bit in perspective. Like I mentioned in my post the other night, I’m grateful I’ve had the principles instilled in me to live a debt free life. I can’t be upside down on a mortgage or car loan if I don’t have one.

Yada yada yada. You read my post from the other day about debt and contracts and whatnot. No need to rehash that. But it’s been a good reminder to focus outside myself and check in on my family and friends to see how everyone is doing through this. Family first, right?

Anyway, gratitude!!!

1. I’m grateful that just when I thought I might be out of luck with that alternator job, that I was able to use a creative combination of tools to get the job done. That was a big deal.
2. I’m grateful that I was able to make a good amount of money today.
3. I’m grateful I was able to get that package shipped (finally).
4. I’m grateful that my mom’s car (that she’s letting me borrow since the transmissions are blown on both my work vehicles) is doing well or me so far.
5. I’m grateful that I have the luxury of instant communication to people all over the country and world.

Thanks, for reading, all you wonderful people. 😊

Please let me know if there’s anything I can do or you. I’m checking in where I can, but if I miss you, please don’t hesitate to fire me a message. 😊

Together. 😊

Goodnight peeps!

~ s