I just about slept 12 hours last night. I went to bed super early around 7:30 maybe 8:00. My alarm went off around 6:00 am, but I sat up in bed thinking until about 7:00 or 7:30. I consider myself to be sleeping until I get out of the bed! I must have been really tired. I do know that my body is sore.
This weekend my brother took his family out of town to celebrate his wife's birthday. I was left to take care of the deliveries; by myself for the most part. It was the first time I did anything like that. Every other time my brother has gone out of town, he had someone help me out that knew how things worked. It was interesting.
On Friday, I had one delivery; when I left everyone was at the house and when I got back the house was empty. The bounce house went to a nice lady, she ran a day care out of her home. We had to go in the garage to plug the blower up it was oddly messy. The garage was mostly empty, but there was no room in it; stuff was scattered and strewn about all over the place. The funny part about it all was that she was embarrassed by it. She should see my garage at home. I brought up the fact that I was from Kentucky, I think it is because we were talking about grass and it is hard to call anything in Vegas grass coming from Kentucky. It is more like people are growing grass in their garden's than actually having a lawn. Therefore, I feel the constant need to clarify why my perspective is as it is: I'm not from here. She told me never to move to Vegas.
Saturday was a bit more intense. First of all I thought it was going to be an easy day. I had two rental agreement sheets for the day and one was early morning and the other was mid-afternoon. I delivered the first one and came home to find out what football games I could get on the TV. The only one I really wanted to watch was WKU's home opener, but I knew that would be highly unlikely. I was only at home for a little while and my brother calls asking me how far away from the delivery I am, the customer is calling. For a little bit of understanding, the customer is one of his biggest repeat clients. I have been there about seven times since July 7th. I can think of only one other customer that I have been to more than once since I have been here. Needless to say, I had made an invoice before my brother left and he intended on me making the rental agreement too. Currently his system is based mostly on handwritten paper contracts and he puts everything in the computer after delivery has been made and product has been paid for. Except for incidents where a customer needs an invoice and then he puts it into the computer before delivery. The way it is now, it seems more like two different systems than one. Needless to say, I threw the order on the truck and cut out. I got that taken care of and headed to pick up the first delivery off the day.
It was at this point that I almost smashed my brother's truck. I was in a bad area for traffic several roads merge together, I had already been there this morning, but there was no traffic at 7:30 am. I knew the exit I wanted was getting close, so I glanced at the GPS and when I glanced back to the road the cars in front of me were coming to a complete stop, on the interstate! Luck was on my side, somehow the truck came to a stop before going through a bumper.
At this point, I was determined to not make any more mistakes. So I went to the house and loaded up the next delivery and started trying to take care of them early. I called the customer and no answer. I waited a while and decided to just go and see. Well I get probably halfway there and my brother starts texting me. Apparently, the customer is not available and I need to call their friend to confirm delivery. Oh and he also has an add-on delivery that wants it immediately. So, even in trying to take care of it early, I managed to screw up. I now had to go all the way back to pick up the new delivery, then make both deliveries a.s.a.p. However, much to my dismay, I got through the day fine. The add-on delivery turned out to be a guy from Nicholasville, Ky that had lived in Vegas since 1992. He was a UofL fan, did not like UK, and knew who WKU was. I guess that turned out to be the highlight of my day. We had a good talk as I worked.
Sunday was the busiest day of the weekend. It turned out it was not even as bad as I anticipated. I started out with 5 deliveries, but another add-on a.s.a.p. came in about midday. No matter how hard I tried to prepare, I still made little mistakes. Like for the second delivery of the day, I loaded it on with the first delivery, but forgot the balloons that came with it. I spent a lot of time running around like I was behind when I really was doing just fine. By the time I started picking up the remaining deliveries at 6:00, I realized that most of the work was done and it was not going to be a long night, like I initially thought it would be. After all, I did scheduled the two deliveries that ended at 10pm for pickup Monday morning.
At the end of this long weekend there are several take-aways. The first is confidence. I can do this; the physical labor is the hardest part, setting up and taking down. This weekend I showed that I can do it alone. It is not as bad as I imagine. On Sunday when I delivered the add-on a.s.a.p. it was around 12:30-1:00 and I told the guy that I would be busy until at least 8:00pm. As it turned out, I was done before 8:00pm. Though I could have picked up 2 more at 10pm I saved them for Monday morning. Driving around a city that you do not know can be rough, but even when I miss my exit or just do not pay attention to the GPS and go straight when I should turn, it helps create connections that would not exist otherwise. This weekend I got a better understanding of where several roads are that I drive on regularly. I just never drove on them in the right place to make the geographical connection before.
Just reading this had me stressing out. Glad you were able to get thru it so well!
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