2020-05-09 — An Awful Fantastic Day

I’m gonna sleep so well tonight 😁.

I think I started working about 7 this morning oh, and its 11:55 right now and I’m on my way home. I still have about 20 or 25 minutes before I get home (gotta love voice-to-text journaling).

In some ways it’s been an awful day. I spent probably six hours on a job that was only supposed to be 3 hours. And then I spent five hours on a job that was only supposed to be about an hour and a half. And once again, if it weren’t for David, I wouldn’t even have gotten that far.

I got stuck on a 2006 Ford Taurus after changing out the power steering pressure line. I went to bleed the system, and I completely forgot that these Tauruses are probably the worst power steering systems I’ve ever come across when it comes to having to bleed the air back out of the system after replacing parts in the system. You can only properly bleed them with a vacuum tool. Well, I left my vacuum tool at home, which was quite a ways away from where the job was.

So… I spent probably three or four hours just trying to figure out how to bleed the system without the right tools, channeling my inner Grandad … manufacturing tools I didn’t have in order to do the job, but no matter what I tried, I just couldn’t get it to work.

For as much time as I spent on it, I probably could have gone home and back… twice.

Fortunately, even though David had already worked a long day for me, he swung by and helped me out. He was willing to ruin something small and inconsequential (the power steering cap, which I compensated the customer for) to get the job done and had a trick on that particular vehicle to get the air out that got our customer going, and I was super grateful.

Super grateful.

If it hadn’t have been for him, I’d have given up, given the gentleman a ride home (he was stranded at work), and had to come back on Sunday, my only day off, to finish what I’d promised I’d finish today.

Anyway, super super grateful.

After that, I had one more job to do, a 2016 Silverado that was a crank, no start. I didn’t even get to that job until probably about 10 tonight, and I spent quite a while trying to chase down the cause of the issue. It was having some sort of fuel issues. The pressure was fine, but it wouldn’t maintain pressure after having the system primed, the volume seemed a bit low, and there is a whole bunch of junk going through the fuel lines, quite possibly clogging up the injectors.

Anyway, I think he probably has a bad fuel pump, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s going to need to have his injectors removed and cleaned (super expensive on this truck)

We’ll get going on that job on Monday, along with multiple other jobs that we had to put off until Monday because of how long I took with the jobs I was working on.

Man, that Ford Taurus kicked my butt.

Every tool that I was supposed to have that I needed was somehow missing from my tools today. I needed an 18 mm crows foot to get off the pressure line and also to be able to properly torque it once the new one was on, but was my 18 mm crows foot in the bag where it was supposed to be?

Nope.

So like I said, I channeled my inner Granddad (my mom’s dad used to build the tools he needed if he didn’t have them) and tried to manufacture a tool, only to have my grinder wheel break.

Normally that’s no problem, just put another other grinder wheel on. However, when I went to get the tool to take the old broken grinder wheel off and put a new one on, guess what tool was missing?

I have no idea where that would be.

Ugh.

And that wasn’t even the half of it. Not even a third of it with that car… not even a third. 🙁

Aaaaaaaaaaand, my new phone, in addition to it’s smashed screen, can’t handle how much I have to use it. I don’t know what the deal is. I’ve never had these problems with phones, and now I’m having them all the time. It’s really hurting my business (and my psyche). It’s like it gets hot (or just tired) and the screen stops reacting properly. It flips out… You touch the screen and it won’t react for a second or two or three, but it remembers most of what you’ve touched, which is even worse than not remember all of it because then you have to delete everything (if you’re lucky), and start over.

I just don’t understand. It’s like a software update issue or something, but two different phones with the same problem.

Anyway, so why on earth was it a fantastic day? Well, because despite all the issues, and cursing, and emotional bread downs, I BROKE MY SINGLE-DAY RECORD FOR MOST MONEY MADE BY THE COMPANY! 

Pretty amazing, honestly, given everything that went sideways.

Crap.

I’m falling asleep again… I’ll try to get the rest of this spit out before I keel over…

I knew there was a chance today (that we’d break the record), given what was on the schedule, but when things started to go sideways, I don’t think I thought a ton about it. I was just trying to get my customers taken care of.

But David churned through a whole bunch, and he saved my butt with the Taurus, and I didn’t do too badly myself (in terms of billable hours completed), so when all was said and done–wow! It was a fantastic day for the business, probably 15% higher than my previous highest day (I guess if it were sports, you’d say I smashed the single-day record… but we don’t watch sports anymore 😉 )!!

So… I’m really starting to get serious about hiring a secretary. I’m losing so much money having to do all this stuff myself. The first five hours of my day today were just preparing for the day (work I don’t get paid for). I’m just gonna have to sit down and figure out how to hire one… war game it out–something. Maybe I’ll hire two people for 3 days a week each, on call from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m.? 

That’s a tough schedule, but three days a week isn’t bad like that, and the person isn’t gonna be actually working for a lot of that time, and they can work from anywhere in the world–the beach for all I care– provided they have an internet connection and a phone.

I can’t pay amazingly well, but I’ll figure that out there as well. I might be able to pay more than I think. We’ll see.

Anyway, business growing pains. Good problems to have.

Well, folks, I’m 

#1. Grateful that David had that trick for getting the system vacuumed down (we drilled a hole in the power steering reservoir cap, created a suction tube, and kicker, used the vacuum of the engine to provide the needed vacuum to draw the air out of the power steering system.

Genius!

Take that, you blasted piece of Ford–Taurus! I might be able to use the same technique to bleed hard to fill cooling systems as well.

Thank yoooooooooooou, David!

#2. I’m sooooo grateful it’s Sunday tomorrow and my day off. 

#3. I’m grateful that my ulnar nerves did even better today.

#4. I’m grateful that once again, though I wasn’t so great at taking care of my body today, I’m still not far over the edge, just on edge, and fading, so as long as I get going eating and drinking right now, I’ll probably be able to head off a multi-day crash.

#5. I’m grateful I’m still going strong on the various things I’m keeping track of. And speaking of… 34, 42, 33, 7, 2. 🙂

Yep! I did more servicize today, chopping bushings with the hedge trimmers at a fast enough pace to keep the blood going and to be mildly out of breath.

Uh oh… sleeping while I type. Good dreams, maybe?

Well, folks, I’m sure there’s more to write, and probably better stuff, too, but wow.

I’m exhausted.

Soooooo tired.

…

Ok, yup. I’m done. Just fell asleep for who knows how long. 

Lift the World.

~ stephen