After it was all over, I knew I was going to have to write about it. I don’t know why. Perhaps I like re-reading my miserable days? Maybe there’s something inside of me that feels it necessary to document these things? My therapist asked me once why I write about my problems and then keep the results? Why don’t I write about them, then throw them away? I don’t know. Maybe that’s a good idea.
Yesterday on the way to work I tried to clear off the windshield and the wipers only twitched. Luckily it was a sunny morning, but there’s still the occasional puddle around and I got a little road splash on the windshield. Not until I tried to clear it, did I realize that I no longer had functioning wipers. Oh shit. Along with the fact that I had just sprayed the blue juice all over my windshield and would now have to drive to work looking through the resulting mess, I was worried.
I got to work and confirmed that I couldn’t move the wipers. My first thought was “I wonder if Guardian Glass can repair my windshield wipers when they replace the windshield on Friday. I thought it was a long-shot – but I knew this was going to have to be addressed.
My boss was spending half the week in the office this week, so things in the office were nice, but I was aware that the boss was sitting right there. I decided I would call Firestone and see if they could get me in before I asked for the afternoon off. I called and luckily spoke to Rich. He assured me that they could get me in if I could get the car up there between 1 and 2pm. Cool, I filled out my email to hr and waited. A bit later, the boss called me into the office with HR. What exactly was I asking for? (I knew that I had to have a week’s notice for personal time, and I was willing to make up the time I missed, so I suppose my request was unclear). I reiterated that I would make up the time in the evening, and they agreed that would be acceptable. I could leave at 1pm.
I IM’d Carrie and let her know I was leaving early and would call her from Firestone to let her know what this was going to cost.
I got back in the car to leave at 1 and immediately notice the crack in the windshield was bigger. By a lot. Just sitting in the sun had caused the crack to expand another five inches. Thank god I was getting this addressed on Friday.
I headed to Firestone and missed my exit. I intended to take the Jennings Freeway to I-90 and exit at 140th St, but I missed the exit and wound up getting off at State Road. On my way towards I-71 to get back on track I wound up on Pearl Road near the zoo. The roads were really shitty – just riddled with deep potholes and traffic was pissing me off.
I weaved my way through traffic and crossed the bridge over the zoo when I looked up and saw a cop with lights and siren behind me. My first thought was to get out of the way. Soon it became apparent he was after me, however.
So he pulls me over and walks up to the car with an attitude. He tells me that the speed limit was “25 not 55”. I goggled. There’s no way I was going 55, but I had to admit I wasn’t thinking about my speed at all. As I’m handing him my license and looking for my insurance card I mention that I’m headed to the garage to have my car worked on and “am just having the worst day”. He takes my info and says “Yeah, well it’s about to get worse”.
What an Asshole.
As I sit in the car waiting for what seemed an eternity for him to return all I could think about was how I was going to explain this to Carrie. At this point I’m trying to think how much a speeding ticket for going 55 in a 25mph zone was going to cost. I haven’t had a ticket in 20 years. So I’m imaging something ridiculous like over $1000. You know that feeling where you want your heart to beat so hard it just explodes out of your chest and you fade into the bright light? Yep. That was me.
Finally he comes back and he doesn’t have as much attitude. Maybe he got my records and saw I have been squeaky clean for over 20 years? For whatever reason, he surprises me with a citation for going 45 in a 25 (“Because if I said 55, I’d have to arrest you”) and a citation for an unsafe vehicle because of the crack in the windshield As a bonus he tacked on “Changing lanes without signaling”. (I’m sure I was trying to avoid the deep potholes threatening to do more damage to the car).
He then proceeds to tell me to take a picture of the windshield today and then take another picture when I get it replaced and then take those photos when I go to court (Go to court!?) and I can get the unsafe vehicle waived as well as the points. Points? What? I’m trying to understand why this guy who was just a complete asshole to me is sounding like he’s trying to help me.
Somehow I got to Firestone and related this story to Rich as I’m handing him the keys. He’s understanding and says they’ll see what they can do.
Now I have to call Carrie.
After speaking with her for a half-hour maybe I can tell she’s overwhelmed. As am I. She asks why every time we try to get ahead something comes along and shits all over us. I tell her I don’t know and feel twice as badly because this one was avoidable had I been paying closer attention.
A while later Rich comes out and tells me that the wiper motor is bad and one of the pivot arms is frozen (rusted). The bad part? Saturn stopped making the part. Yes, that’s right, I officially have a car you can’t buy parts for anymore. Rich is going to try to find a used motor or see what they can do about repairing the old one.
Rich then mentioned that Guardian Glass will have to do most of what they’ve already done (disassembling the dashboard) to replace the windshield. Would I like for them to replace the windshield? What? Firestone replaces windshields? Had I known this I would have contacted them more than a month ago. Rich even quoted me a price in the same range as Guardian Glass. Hell yeah, Rich – do it. At least one thing can go well for me today.
So Rich gets me keys to a loaner and I go home. I’m thinking as I pull in that it’s only 4pm. If I sign back into work, I’ll only have to make up three hours (rather than five). So after I get settled in, I sign in to work and send HR another time off request. One to ask to work from home tomorrow (why take Firestone’s car to Independence?) and the other for a personal day on Feb 26 for my brand-new court date.
Happily, both requests are approved soon after. Alex even IM’s me to ask what make/model car I have (I mentioned the part that isn’t made anymore) and directs me to a website that can track down parts. At least work isn’t adding to my shitty day. Well, at least not yet.
So the final part of this shitty day began when Dave at work IM’d me and asked if I could take a ticket he was working on (his first ticket). At this point, I’m happy that work has been the lone bright spot of my day, so I accept it. I even got my soft-phone on the home computer working, so I was anxious to try it out.
Mistake.
These guys could not figure out how to get me into their machine and insisted on a screen-share setup where they could watch me troubleshoot their OpenVPN that seg-faulted as soon as someone connected. The logs showed nothing, and as time wore on I discovered they were using a compiled version of OpenVPN from 2010 on CentOS 5.9. All of their shit needed to be updated and while they had backups, they couldn’t roll back because too many things had been changed.
Other than their OpenVPN breaking, that is.
After a shit day, on an evening I was not on-call – I sat on the phone with these yahoos for almost three hours and solved nothing. My evening didn’t start until 8:30. Ashley and Carrie had to go to McDonald’s for dinner and we didn’t eat until 9pm.
At least today, I’m working from home. I’m still waiting for word from Rich on what’s going on with the car, and I am on-call tonight. But if I can make it through today – I have a four-day, off-call weekend. Wisdom says I need to spend it drunk off my ass. I’m not doing another day like that again.