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Yesterday was quite a day. The quantity of the calls was not a problem but the quality was very lacking. I am occassionally considered hard hearted to the plight of the members whose dues keep me in honest employment though I have never been overly tempted by the dubious benefits of welfare and unemployment.

One of the calltakers had been doing a 13 hour shift when the hammer dropped on him. I had sent a truck over to move a car from the street to a garage. Simple. Ten minutes tops. Piece of cake or just another satisfied member getting their moneies worth.

Not quite.

No keys.

Car's up on jacks--they were trying to move it. (That was not such a big deal.)

But--since about three to four months ago when we moved a car per member request only to discover car was the object of a domestic war of nerves and said member was not the title/registered owner AAA got acused of stealing a car. (My can't recall ever having THAT happen to me before. See very old blog.)

So--if no keys--registered member must be there. At this point I had little interest in who was with car just annoyed we were bothering with it--we've been trying to limit this sort of service (convenience tow vs. emergency type).

I actually got my best Sta 10 driver to go because he's a problem solver in moving vehicles without keys and causing no transmission damage etc.

Except--soon to be disgruntled member has the car door locked. With the paperwork inside.

Doesn't want us to open the car and check his name off.

The grizzley stirs. A scent of blood is in the air and he drools.

I advise the tow driver we can open the car and not charge the call on his record if THAT's the problem.

Member goes into Hulk smash mode and I have my driver withdrawn. Yes it would have been nice to wait a bit and sort it out

BUT--

Bozo had his voice mail on so I felt no burning desire to chit chat. The neighborhood was not the greatest and the sneaking aspect of a car theft in progress was tickling the brain cells. Plus he had friends with him looking askance.

Had he kept his cool instead of going into gangster rap mode all may well have worked out but when the language and attitude gets out of hand I always pull the driver lest it escalates into a TV news bite.

Now I had questioned the calltaker who took the call about the registration and I had been assured all was well. Now I like this calltaker but he is still learning the fine tuning of a problem call. To be honest I think he told me what I wanted to hear. Otherwise I would have known in advance the car was locked. Young calltakers--used to be more fun teaching them watching them grow.

Turns out car is member's wife and she's only ten minutes away and when we're done he's canceling the membership.

And my incentive to return to the scene of the Liar's Club meeting??!! He was taking it out on my calltaker--I was smiling thinking this just a bit justified for sloppy info collecting but my call taker turned on me wanting to know why I'll go to great lenghts for our members but not for the out of town members?!! This perception is a result of much drama queening over those pesky out of towners who should have the decency to break down in their own city and not take my tow trucks away from me for two hours when I need them here for my members. Bah humbug.

The simple answer he received is that I had been lied to and he lost it with the driver. The more important answer is that if I don't follow proper procedures with out of town members in my territory the home club may deny payment to us when we submit our bill. I have gotten quite creative over the years fixing procedures to benefit all parties but I will not reward temper tantrums. Well aware of serving God and mammon and the soul continues to shrivel.

Never did go back. About 10 minutes later I asked Travis if we were cool and for one of the very few times in an office environment got a sincere apology for the flare up. At the time I quietly pointed out to him his voice was rising and he was letting the member project thru him. Travis is a good man and he's learning quickly. And I like him more for it.