It's where I live and how long I've lived here. I've lived in the same place my entire life. I'm approaching 57 and born in 57................... wow, I guess the next one is a special one.
I have been blessed with some fantastic customers over the years.......... they aren't customers when I get done with em. They become friends for life, even if we only see each other at the grocery store. I have been asked to stay for dinner, or have had customers fix me lunch more times than I can begin to count. I'm 6'3 and 215, so it's not because they feel like I'm starving myself. I like making sure my jobs get 110% attention to detail and my customers appreciate that.
I don't do much commercial work because it's mentally unrewarding unless you enjoy counting your square yards per hour accomplishments and like reminiscing over your top ten biggest jobs and wear the memories like a badge. Commercial money can be pretty good, but I am a detail guy, and that's a total waste for commercial work.
Here's how my today went. Yesterdays repair job was more than I could get done, so I rescheduled so I can get better prepared for what I saw the job needed.
Next I went to look at a carpet repair and it looked like a waste of time......... you know, patching in a 4' by 14' piece of 12 year old carpet leftovers to fix some bad stains in a bedroom. ( New homeowner wanted to move in)
I tried to persuade my new 'potential' customer that there might be shading and wear issues where the repair was done. I was concerned about the placement of the repair seam locations and how bad the worn and faded areas might look like. She wanted em fixed anyway.
Today, I came over and "gotter did" it was more labor intensive than I estimated to them but I held to my estimate anyway. They were gone when I did the repair.
This repair location was 3 houses down from another old time client (friend) of mine. We hug every time we bump into each other down town................ don't get any ideas, shes 91.
Anyhow, I have re carpeted her home 2 times in 30 years and done a few other smaller things.
Her husband passed way about 6 months ago. He was an engineer. Even tho this is "just" a customer, I felt I should have made it to his funeral. I know she would have appreciated that. I was just too busy and it didn't fit in to my time line. I was feeling bad that I didn't even send her a card............ hey it's a just a 'customer', right?
OK, so I am doing this carpet repair, and I'm 3 houses down from her, so as I finished up, I call her and say "this is Randy, your carpet guy. What are you up to?" (It's 4:30pm)
She said come on up. Her son was there, and he's close to my age.
We had almost a 2 hr long chat, and I got the same "Beer or Seagram's" greeting when I got to the door as I did when I worked at their place. When I did work for them, 5 O'clock always meant time to stop work, and have a beer with nuts and pretzels as we watched the news.
Anyway, it was a great visit with her. She was looking more frail than her usual strong and domineering self.
(They owned a local metal fabrication business)
Her memory is obviously slipping since our last visit. I think the loss of her husband has had quite an impact on her.
Anyhow, the visit was great, and I left felling good, and I could tell that she was glad that I stopped by. So today ended up on a good note.
I got 5 or 6 blocks away and my phone rang. I pulled over to answer. That carpet repair I just finished 2 hours ago? ...............the customer had stopped by and did an inspection. She called me a bunch of names.
...like artist, miracle worker and used words like invisible, unbelievable.
Doncha just hate it when customers yell at ya?
So today, I didn't get no dinner, but a beer and some cashews were close enough.
