Just like the Shuttle

The plans for a Sunday night departure to Birmingham fell through. Just like the shuttle, I’ve been delayed. I’m still going to The Ham tonight for dinner with Abby but then I’m coming back to finish up packing and going to leave tomorrow morning. But why?

Some of you who chastised me yesterday for not having started my packing early enough might think it’s because I didn’t finish. Not so! The culprit, in this case, was our friendly local UHaul store.

They were supposed to call yesterday to set up a pickup time for the trailer today. They didn’t. So I called this morning and they were happy to give me the trailer at noon. That was agreeable to me and plans were made. I was ahead of schedule when noon rolled around, having finished the bathroom, kitchen, and clothes so I headed off to UHaul.

A nice guy named Russell was going to be hooking me up to the trailer. He pulled it over and tossed it on the hitch and the put the wires in. They don’t trust this complicated wiring job to just anyone, so Russell did it and then went back to look at the lights while I flipped the switches. No lights on the trailer. Russell spent the next hour of my time poking his little circuit tester every where I’d let him and occasionally mumbling to himself. When he was using the circuit tester on the actual connectors I understood, but when he started checking the wire BEHIND the connector, I had a moment of confusement. Why? Because the connector had status LEDs to show when it was getting power and, sure enough, every last one of them was working just fine. I recall saying “Well, the connector must be getting power of those LEDs are on, right?” to which our wise technician said “I don’t know, that’s confusing me too, because there’s no juice in those wires.”

That’s right, ladies and gentlemen, Russell thinks I have a magic truck. I wonder if it’s related to the Magic Bus…

Russell told me to “sit tight” (WTF does that mean, anyway?) while he went inside. He came back out 10 or 15 minutes later and proclaimed that there must be something wrong with the wiring of the truck, and I’d have to take it to a dealership to get it looked at. I was frustrated for a few reasons. a) Hello! I’m supposed to be leaving. b) I wasn’t confident enough in my knowledge of cars to argue with him right then and c) This is not how I drew up the play last night.

I was going to have a look at this myself if, for no other reason, because I wanted to find out how those lights were lighting up sans-juice… so I went to walmart to pick up a multimeter. I also found a trailer wiring tester which cost $2.50 and picked up a generic three-dollar circuit tester. I really only bought the multimeter because I thought there might be something weird going on.

So I get home and plug in the little trailer hitch wiring tester and… what do you know… of the lights light up bright as can be. Now, this was not conclusive because the connector had seven inputs and a ground — the four on top were the ones he was using and the three on the bottom (with ground) are the ones the tester was testing. So I busted out the circuit tester and hooked it to the same part of the car that Russell was and, as one would expect, the lights on top didn’t work.

…but neither did the ones on bottom. Maybe it’s just my years of CS training, but that to me suggests not that there’s a problem with the wiring, but with the tester… or the user. So, calling upon my extremely limited knowledge of electrical systems, I deduced that I must not have a good ground… and I couldn’t seem to find one. So I decided to just connect the ground wire of the circuit tester to the ground plug on the bottom… and when I did, what do you know, the circuit tester showed current on the bottom three plugs… and the top for that Russell insisted weren’t “getting juice.”

At this point, when I realized that three hours of my afternoon had been flat-out wasted, I was very, very irritated… and also a little excited because I enjoy confrontation when I am right and justified. It’s been a long time since I’ve been this right and this justified.

But on the way to UHaul a strange thing happened… I chatted with a few folks on the phone and when I got there I just decided that I was going to be nice and polite and give them a chance to fix things before “got ugly with them” (as we say here in the south). I’m going to break from the narrative now for the conversation part of the story. It’ll be better that way. It went something like this, recalled to the best of my ability.

Setting: UHaul store, Tuscaloosa Alabama. A cashier is present and waiting for customers.

[ENTER Pete with a very polite look on his face]
CASHIER: Can I help you?
PETE: Yes, can I speak with the gentleman who was helping me with the trailer earlier?
CASHIER: Sure, just a moment.
[ENTER RUSSELL]
PETE: Can I get you to look at something right quick?
RUSSELL: Yeah.
[EXIT Pete and Russell]

Setting: Outside the UHaul store — Pete and Russell are walking to his vehicle.

PETE: So I couldn’t find anyone to look at the truck this afternoon, so I went to walmart and got a circuit tester to see what I could find out on my own.
PETE: So I picked up this normal circuit tester and also one that’s made to test trailer wiring. [Pulls both testers from the passenger side of the truck]

[Pete and Russell walk around to the back of the truck]

PETE: I was really confused as to how those little indicators were lighting up since you said they weren’t getting any power, so I just had to check it out for myself. So when I got it back home and plugged this little tester in… [plugs in the tester and then goes to the front of the car to turn on the lights and hazards] …and sure enough, those are all lit up just fine.
RUSSELL: Huh.
PETE: But you were checking the other ones, so I figured maybe those are blown out or something, so I decided to check those, too.

[Pete gets out the tester and connects the ground to the vehicle in the same place that Russell was earlier and starts testing the outlets]

PETE: Sure enough… it doesn’t light up on those top ones. But here’s an interesting thing… it doesn’t light up on the bottom ones either and we know those are working.
RUSSELL: Hmm…
PETE: So I don’t know a whole lot about this, but it seems to me like it might be a problem with the ground, so I tried hooking the tester’s ground up to the ground wire on the connector itself and…

[Pete puts the tester's ground wire into the ground for the connector]

PETE: What do you know… all seven little plugs light up the tester just fine now… so it looks like you weren’t getting a good ground. [Pete specifically avoids saying 'couldn't find a good ground' in the interests of being nice]
RUSSELL: Alright, well why not back up over here and we’ll hook you up–
PETE: Actually, I don’t really have time to do that tonight, but I’ll come back tomorrow… and I hope when I do that y’all can give me a little break on the price for all of the trouble I’ve gone to.
RUSSELL: [Now aghast, obviously not happy] What are you trying to say!?
PETE: Well, all I’m saying is that I didn’t get the trailer earlier because there was something wrong with the truck… but there really wasn’t anything wrong, so that’s set me back quite a bit in this move. [Pete carefully avoids finger-pointing here, in the interests of being nice, but his patience is wearing thin]
RUSSELL: Well, I’m sorry, but it wasn’t working earlier, there’s nothing I could do.
PETE: [Becoming a little frustrated] Well, why don’t we just go talk to the folks inside so I can get a new reservation for tomorrow. Is there a manager here, by chance?
RUSSELL: No, there’s not.
PETE: Not at all? No managers?
RUSSELL: No.
PETE: Can we get one on the phone?
RUSSELL: I don’t have her number.
PETE: Well, maybe there’ll be one here when I come back tomorrow.
[EXIT Pete and Russell back into the store]

Setting: Back inside the UHaul store, two cashiers are now waiting in the store,

[ENTER Pete and Russell, talking Russell following behind Pete as he walks to the counter]

RUSSELL: I don’t know what you expect me to do!
PETE: Well, I’m just saying it works now and I didn’t do anything to it from earlier, so I’m sure it worked then, too. [Still trying to be nice, but fading quickly]
RUSSELL: [Not able to leave well enough alone...] Are you trying to say I don’t know how to do my job?
PETE: [No longer willing to play nice] Well, sir, let me tell you… I have absolutely no training whatsoever in circuitry, wiring, or mechanics… but I got it to work just fine after about two minutes of playing with it. Hooking trailers to trucks is your job… so if I can do it, and you can’t, there’s obviously something wrong, isn’t there?
[Russell stops in his tracks as Pete continues to the counter]
PETE: I’d like to make a reservation for tomorrow morning.
CASHIER2: Sure.
PETE: [Audibly loud enough for everyone in the room to hear] And will there be another technician here tomorrow morning to help? I’m not all that confident in Russell’s abilities at this point.
CASHIER2: Yes, there will.
PETE: And will there be a manager here to speak with as well?
CASHIER2: I’m a manager.
PETE: [To Russell] I thought you said there weren’t any managers here.
RUSELL: Well, I…
CASHIER2: He probably meant the General Manager, she’s not in.
[Reservation details are worked out]
PETE: Now is there any way that y’all can give me a little break on the price for the trouble?
CASHIER2: What happened?
PETE: Well, when I was here earlier I was told that there was a problem with my truck that I’d have to take to get looked at, but there is no problem and I’ve wasted three hours of my day dealing with this when I should’ve been packing and loading stuff up, all because Russell couldn’t find a good ground on a vehicle and doesn’t realize what the indicators on the end of UHaul wiring are for–
RUSSELL: I checked it with my tester! It wasn’t working!
PETE: Really? Would you like to bring out your tester for me to try? I bet you the price of a rental that it’ll work for me.
RUSSELL: [stares incredulously and mumbles something about having said he was sorry]
PETE: Anyway, I was supposed to leave today, but it’s far too late for that now, and this has been a major inconvenience.
CASHIER2: Well, we really can’t do anything here, you’ll have to call corporate.
PETE: That’s fine, do you have their number handy?
CASHIER2: Yes, sir.
[The cashier finalizes the reservation and finds the number for the corporate office when a woman walks up]
CASHIER2: Well, the manager is here now! [motioning to the woman]
MANAGER: Is there some sort of problem?
[The cashier tries to explain the situation but is not doing a very good job]
PETE: Basically, ma’am, Russell told me that there was something wrong with my vehicle when the problem the entire time was the trailer and he didn’t know how to diagnose that properly.
RUSSELL: But I–
PETE: Do you mind if I finish talking? [Waits for a response, gets none]
PETE: So I’ve spent the better part of the afternoon trying to figure out what was wrong when there was nothing wrong the entire time. I was supposed to leave for Indiana today, but it’s too late for that now — I’m not even packed or loaded up yet.
MANAGER: [To Russell] Did you hook him up to a different trailer? [clearly meaning earlier]
RUSSELL: No, he says he doesn’t have time right now.
PETE: Yes, I really don’t have time for that this evening, I’m running behind as it is.
RUSSELL: Well what happens if you bring it back tomorrow and it still doesn’t work?
PETE: Well, we’ve pretty much proven — you saw it for yourself — that there is electricity coming out of every single one of the ports on that connector, except for the ground, so if the trailer lights aren’t lighting up, whose problem would that be? Clearly not mine. So maybe, before tomorrow morning, you ought to make sure there’s at least one trailer out there with good wiring and lights.
[Russell, unhappy for some reason, storms into the back of the store]
[Cashier finishes the reservation and slides it across the table]
CASHIER2: [To the manager] If he comes back tomorrow and it works, can I give him a discount?
MANAGER: Yes, you can go ahead and give him the VIP rate.
PETE: Thank you, I don’t mean to be ugly, but this is all just a little frustrating.
MANAGER: Don’t worry about it, we’re sorry for the trouble.

[EXIT Pete, victorious and not so upset that he has to leave a day later.]

So… that was a long, long post, but I hope it was a quick read… to summarize: the UHaul place is not incompetent… it’s just that one guy… who probably wishes that he had been a little less defensive. I’m pretty glad that he wasn’t, though, because the confrontation (and my resultant vindication and discount) will make the delay worth the trouble.