As I said previously, I was out in Columbus on Thursday and Friday as we are opening an office out there next week. So, the computer equipment, phones, faxes, etc., needed to be setup. I had all the equipment that needed to be transported in Clarksburg but, unfortunately, Enterprise didn't have any large vehicles so we ended up getting a van from a smaller company in town. That minor detail is now regretted...
Left Thursday morning and arrived in Columbus without much fanfare. Located the office without too much hassle and a co-worker from Charleston was already there. Not a bad building. They hadn't cleared the sidewalks though...which meant we were dragging equipment through some slippery areas but we didn't have any problems. Unloaded all the equipment and started setting everything up. The phone guy arrived and ran the lines...we just had to patch them through. He hooked up the DSL lines but said that he didn't hook up the DSL modem...someone else handled that. Snag one...we called back to the man in charge of this project and he said the modem was shipped and should be at the office. It wasn't...so we went to Circuit City and purchased one. Hooked it up and it worked. But then AT&T said they shipped one and it was at UPS and we would need to pick it up...that the one we purchased would void the warranty. Argh...it was after 6:00 so we would have to pick it up on Friday.
Left the office and headed up one of the streets in downtown Columbus and the van started making a thump, thump, thump sound. Flat tire. Now, I'll be honest, in all my years of driving and travel, I have never had a flat tire, let alone change one. So, I pulled out the invoice I had received from the rental company and attempted to call the 6 phone numbers they listed. No answer at any of them. (If you rent from Enterprise, you can call them and they will come pick you up in another rental and let you us it until they can repair your vehicle...I had hoped my rental offered something similar.) I got out to look for the spare tire and couldn't find it. So, I called my boss...he said "there has to be a spare," so I looked again. It was under the van.
I found the directions to changing the tire and it said to find the hexnut to lower the tire from the bottom of the van. I could not find the hexnut...searched and searched and couldn't find it. By now, I was freezing...it was like 20-degrees out. I called my co-worker and told him that he would have to come find me. He did and he looked for the hexnut and couldn't find it. It was beginning to get very frustrating. I called my boss back and asked him to find the number for a tow company or something. He gave me a number and I tried to call them and they were closed. It was approaching 8:00 now and I hadn't eaten all day so Keith and I decided to go eat and leave the van in a parking lot and hope it wasn't towed.
After we left, I remembered something...I have AAA. Hmmm...wonder if they could help. So I found the number for AAA and gave them a call and, sure enough, they said to call when I got to the van and they would come out and change the tire. So, we ate and got back to the van at 10:00. AAA arrived in about 20 minutes and the guy, after looking for 10 minutes, found the hexnut (see, I'm not stupid...it was hard to find). He changed the tire which was awesome. And I drove it back to the office and rode with Keith to the hotel.
Next morning, get a call from my boss wanting to know what I was going to do about the van. Told him I would just drive it back on the spare...I'd just have to drive slow. He called the rental company and called me back. Change the tire...they're going to charge us regardless. WHAT? I get a flat and they're going to charge me to change it? That's ridiculous. So, I took it to a tire place and told them I wanted the cheapest tire they had. "I don't care if the thing disintegrates after 250-miles...and, while you have it in the garage, beat the hell out of that van." Apparently the guy didn't understand the cheap part because it came to $120.00. Just isn't right.
Anyway, the furniture arrived and we thought we'd be out by 2:00 or so. Well, as we test the computers one last time and call back home to say we're leaving, the operations manager said to wait for the locksmith. Well, when is the locksmith arriving? Well, not soon because no one has called him yet. What? The locksmith didn't arrive until 3:30 and didn't have keys ready until 4:30. I picked up the van at 5:00 and didn't get back in town until 9:00. While in Columbus, I had to buy a DSL modem, 3 business phones and a tire for a van. My travel report came out to $866.67, which might be the most expensive voucher I've turned in.
Overall, it was not a very enjoyable trip. Oh, I forgot to mention that the cleaning lady barged in my room Friday morning before my wakeup call...which I thought was a little bad too. But, hey, it kinda summed up the entire trip really. Stupid mini-van. From now on, it's major rental companies or no trip at all...I can't handle this again.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment