2020-11-05 — Rough Day

Hi, folks.

It’s been a rough day. I made that promise to get the tax stuff done today and was all set to do it when I got a message from a customer that her brakes were leaking fluid after David did a pad job. It was both our day off today, so I ended up going down there and finding that David had done a super sloppy job, tearing the caliper boot, not noticing that a guide pin boot was completely missing. Resurrected all the old fears of whether or not I can trust that he’s doing good work.

The irony being a different customer texted me in the middle of the fiasco saying how great David was. It’s hard. I know David’s standards aren’t as high as mine. I don’t know anyone’s who are, except maybe Chase’s, and mine were still probably higher, but… he was close if not right there.

I don’t know that it’s fair to expect anyone to have standards as high as mine, but what I saw today was just hurried, sloppy work, and I don’t know what to do. I’m getting better at not having my initial reaction be to just throw it all away and either fire him or quit the business. I certainly think things like that. It’s hard to express how heavily these kinds of things weigh on me. It’s a moral thing to me. Am I giving my customers a good product?

(sigh)

I’m really discouraged.

On top of that, it took five hours to do a simply caliper replacement. Five bolts–total. Two bracket bolts, two caliper bolts, and a banjo bolt.

Except, it was a Nissan, and that means nightmare.

Ugh. I don’t get Nissan engineers, unless their purpose is to make everything take longer. It’s so… dumb. Anyway, five hours on that, and the owner said the brakes still aren’t the way they were before, still squishy. I couldn’t get any more air out of them, though. Wasn’t sure what to tell her. They felt pretty good to me, but she said they were still squishy. In the end, there wasn’t much more I could do, and she needed to leave, so I spent 5 hours fixing the mess, gave her $100 worth of parts and materials, and that was that. Blown day. Hectic day. Discouraging day. Overwhelming day.

Right now I’m overwhelmed and dreading work tomorrow–dreading it. I’ve got one job that’s been lingering for weeks, and I’m stressed out by it because it’s a bit over my head, and I’m having to learn as I go (it’s a motorhome with fuel issues, and it’s electrical… bad wiring somewhere, and I’m trying to figure out where. Have to run new wires, etc.

Anyway, it’s 9:30. I’m tired and all those other emotions. When I’m like this, it’s hard not to let it snowball or spiral, so I’m struggling to fight off the discouragement with all the other challenging aspects of my life right now.

Guess I better do this…

#1. I’m grateful that Mindy is starting to act like a dog. She’s actually playing a little bit.

#2. I’m grateful that I was able to figure out where the leak was coming from in the backhoe attachment to the tractor. Unfortunately, it’s likely a pretty big and expensive fix, but at least I found it.

#3. I’m grateful to be making good progress on working through all the food storage stuff.

#4. I’m grateful for nice weather–70s today.

#5. I’m grateful to have been able to give the lady the free parts today.

This is really hard to say right now, given how I’m feeling, but… I want to get to the point where I can see the positive in everything, endure the hardest things gracefully, etc., so…

Bring it on.

Lift the World.

~ stephen