Earlier this week I failed to tie down a 12’ (24’) extension ladder which I was transporting with one end in my 5’ pickup bed and the other end sticking up over the cab. At 65 mph, on Interstate 8, no less, I suddenly hear a bad noise and look in my rearview mirror to see my ladder putting in some impressive hangtime before crashing onto the freeway. Thank God I was in the right lane and the ladder landed near the shoulder, and also there were no vehicles so close behind me that they couldn’t avoid hitting the ladder or being hit by the ladder. Unfortunately by the time I was able to exit the freeway, backtrack, and get back to the place where it happened, someone had helped themselves to a not-inexpensive Werner extension ladder.
So then this morning I was working at a brand-new account, a Denny’s restaurant, very first time. I got one window done inside, stepped backward off the booth seat and kicked over my Ettore 6-gallon bucket. Good news was that at 5:00 a.m. there was only one customer in the place, I only had 3 gallons of water in the bucket, and the one server on duty was very nice and helped mop up as much of the water as she could. Bad news was that it took me at least 20 minutes and half my dry towels to clean up the spill.
Sadly, my downward spiral was not yet complete. The last job of the day was a residence. I recognized the name and knew right where the house was. It was an exterior-only job, the owner was expecting us, and we had that thing done lickety split. I rang the doorbell to let the owner know we were finished. It was one of those new video doorbells that lets the owner see who’s at the door and have a two-way conversation using their smartphone. I told her we were finished cleaning the windows. Dead silence. Finally she said, “I don’t remember us scheduling our windows to be done today.” Right then I knew my bad week had just gotten worse. Sure enough, it was NOT the house I thought it was, we had washed windows at the wrong house! Amazingly, the owner went ahead and paid me even though she had no obligation tto do so. Naturally I had to call the
customer we were SUPPOSED to clean and reschedule, which thankfully they were very understanding and willing to do.
I’m REALLY glad we don’t work on Saturdays!