Friday, March 7, 2014

The Prominent Firm, The Unannounced Conspiracy

Three years ago, I worked a gig as a roving maintenance technician. I helped Catharine at an retirement apartment complex, as one of my charges. I was and am very fond of her. She was retired, divorced grandmother, but what a smart manager. She was a shrewd businesswoman who made her budgets balance. The building was clean and well-operated. Her renters loved her. She once chased a street person who stole a flower pot in front of her building four blocks until he quit running, gave it back and fled.

She had three or four rental shops on the first floor. She had public bathrooms in the lobby of the complex. Each set of bathrooms had stainless steel toilet paper dispensers with key locks. She was short on keys and wanted me to find her keys. I could have drilled out the locks but that may have destroyed the holders.

I went on line and researched the issue. After much reconnoitering and dead ends, I discovered that the holder were manufactured in the Philippines. The keys were plant-pressed by the manufacturer and the blanks were not available here. I was at an impasse.

I reported to the facilities director, and he sent me to a hardware firm, very old, very prominent, and very connected, to find a blank for the keys.

I called the owner of the firm, friendly and semi-retired, and he told me to come to the main locksmith situated at the work site at Bass Lake Road. He said they would get us cared for.

The next day I drove to the site.  Little did I know, that the owner really did not know what was going on in his own facility, and how little of his old-fashioned commitment to customer service was actually practiced by his staff.

I went up to the locksmith and handed him the blank. He said he did not have the blank. I asked him if he knew where I could get one similar, or a substitute that could be cut. He went through the motions, and hemmed and hawed for twenty minutes. He answered the phone and fiddled around at he desk. Finally he gave the blank back to me, and said there was nothing that he could do for me. I told him of my conversation with the owner, and he just shrugged the whole thing off.

I looked at him and asked quietly, "You are not going to help me, are you?" He jumped up and went into a rage, shouting, "Get the hell out of my building, right now." We argued for a minute, and I thought he was going to call the cops, so I started to leave. I looked around and behind counters were four or five coworkers glaring at me with anger and dead seriousness. Their body language was that they were going to jump the counter, and pound me into ground, like I was a shoplifter or writer of bad checks.

I was too much of an amateur, I thought, too poor and small beer for these high and mighty procurers for the big boys needing hundreds of locks rekeyed for them.

One of my finest skills is my doggedness. I refused to quit searching, I went to see Ted, a friendly locksmith in Bloomington. Ted looked at the toilet paper blank and said he should be able to find something to work, Just then, his superior, a mouthy, opinionated locksmith that is very insulting and bossy towards customers (He is very skilled, quite insufferable, but just one encounter with between this clown and my boss, got this guy banned from our office building.) looked over Ted's shoulder at the key, and ordered Ted to cease, for there was nothing to be done. Ted, backed off, handed the key to me, and said, "Sorry".

I drove immediately to Johnson Hardware store as my last resort. Within three minutes of my arrival, the nice old retired guy behind the counter looked at the key, and then found the blanks that matched, and cut six keys for me. They all worked perfectly. Catharine was elated.

I concluded that hardware stores and the big box stores have taken this piece of business away from locksmiths, and that they were angry and jealous. They have gotten together and agreed not to help unsuspecting, naive customers like me on how where to go and get the keys cut.

I believe the customer service is king. I believe that if business people will not help or cannot help the customer, at least direct them where to go--like the local hardware store.

It violates the Golden Rule on many levels to engage in a silent conspiracy to misdirect customers. I was shocked and still am by the way that I was treated. To this day I direct business away from that firm on Bass Lake Road.


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