Goodness. It has been quite the ride recently. Not too much in the way of customers, but there have been one or two. Now that the other guy is back at work, I've gotten some time off, so to speak. It seems nobody ever explained what retirement means to my wife. But I guess that's about normal. The thing is that yesterday evening I got an appointment for next Monday. This one has to fall under one of two categories. The first is 'More dollars than sense' and the second possible deception. I mean someone explain this to me. I have an appointment on Monday morning. This job involves buying one of those realtor lock boxes, the kind they put on the door with a code so that all the realtors can access the home while they are selling it. Once I arrive, I meet and greet the realtor, put the box on the door and charge him/her $155+tax for doing it. The box costs $40 at Lowes. WHY would a realtor pay that much for a box he/she can buy for themselves, to be put on the front door of a house that's up for sale? The only thing I can think of is that the realtor is incredibly lazy, or they are going to try to pull that old, 'By the way. While you are here....' kind of thing and try to get me to do some things off the books. Well, that's not going to work. It's like back in the day when I was still doing dental work. Sometimes the doctor would ask if I could do something out of the norm. Like say, bump his case ahead of the others that I already had. I would always inform him,
"Yes. I can do that. But Doctor you have to understand that what you are asking falls into the 'special services' category. And special services ALWAYS come with special prices."
Most of the time they decided that their case wasn't THAT special. Like ABBA sang, 'Money, money, money. Always sunny. In a rich man's world.'
But that cuts both ways. The boss always wants us to 'upsell' on every job. At this time of year, students for the University of Florida are starting to move into town. Parents, especially parents of young ladies, want to be sure their children are safe. When they find an apartment for the kid, first thing they want is to be sure nobody else has a key to that apartment. It doesn't matter how much it costs. Just help me keep my daughter/son safe. Case in point. There was a call last Friday. Mom wanted the deadbolt on the front door replaced. She had already decided to have a Smart Key keypad lock installed. I told her it was a wise choice and explained how the only guy I ever knew who picked one had to invest over $400 for equipment and then it took 45 minutes to actually get the thing to turn. Also, the beauty of these things is that even if there are no batteries in the lock for the keypad, the key still works. That means if the young lady has a roommate that doesn't work out, she can evict them. If she has lost the instructions for re-programming the lock, just take the batteries out. She has the tool for re-keying the lock as well as the written instructions on how to do it. So as soon as the roomie is gone, rekey the lock and take out the batteries. Nobody is getting in. Mom liked that idea. She asked if I happened to have a non-keypad Smart Key for the back door. Why yes, I do. I carry a number of them in the van. Mom 'upsold' herself. Before I left, I had the daughter actually re-key the back door to the front door, so she knew how it was done. Now if the need arises, there is no need to call the locksmith, she can handle it herself. Each lock comes with its own set of keys, so if she has to do this, she already has a spare set of keys to re-key the lock to. Win-win. Mom is happy because daughter's apartment is now safer, and the boss is happy because I made more money for the company.
I must say that there was one surprise handed to me during the bi-weekly meeting we had last Monday. Please understand. I am and have always been a working man. You give me a job and I will get it done or die in the attempt. That's just the way I am. My word means a lot to me. During the meetings, I guess to inspire others to work harder, the top money earners for the last pay period are announced. Since I'm just part time, I don't pay much attention to that. Last Monday it caught my attention. In the previous pay period of two weeks, I worked only 7 days. Three one week and four the next. They said during that time I pulled down over $5,000 for the company. It made me the third highest earner for that period. That has got to embarrass these young full-timers. Having the part-time old fart out work all of them except two? That doesn't look too good for them. Well, the boss always said that the money was in the re-keys. I've done quite a few of them recently. I always told the boss, if you want me to get faster on the re-keys, you have to send me the work. After eight years I think the truth of what I've been saying all along has finally sunk in.