What a pain in the arse! As of yesterday (Saturday - 8/14), I said goodbye to the rat hole CPM generously provided for me in exchange for my rent. Bye bye creaky floor made of rotten hardwood hastily covered by thin (cheap) carpet. Bye bye poorly painted walls and ceilings. Bye bye funky smells that never would go away no matter how much I cleaned and Lysoled.
Interestingly enough, it took us almost a week to move out because of CPM's "bending over backwards to help us". First they posted a note on our door telling us that our move-out date was changed. No details. No phonecalls. Just call Kelli. Well, Kelli went home and didn't bother to let anyone else in the office know what the score was, so we found out Sunday, the day before we were going to move that Shawn's new place wasn't ready and he had to wait a week. Good for me, more time to move. Bad for him because he's stuck without parents or a car to help move.
On the other hand, B and Ryan have to be out on Thursday so we start taking loads over Monday. Let's just say the going was VERY slow. Half loads were taken. Nothing was packed. Some of it was being unpacked as it arrived, instead of simply leaving it boxed until the real job was done. Regardless of the frustrations, my back was sore every night, especially after a full day of work each day before we started moving. So Wednesday comes around and we're looking at a LOT of work to do in an increasingly short period of time, so the powers that be decide to "stop fucking around" and get the work done, which was nice. The only problem is that it lead to fatigue and frustration. When people get tired, they get pissed, and if they don't get their way, they bitch, which leads to more frustration. Kind of a vicious cycle. Interestingly enough, I think it actually helped make all of us work harder to finish the move just to have an end to the obnoxiousness. Ryan decided it was time for a short vacation in D-town, so he left Thursday evening.
B decided it was also time for a short vacation but not in D-town, so he left Friday evening for C-dale. Thankfully, B stayed to help me get moved Friday while I had to work. He packed up all my crap in my room (and pretty well, since I've been unloading it) and my kitchen and moved it for me. It was perfect timing, since my car's brakes sounded awful and required a trip back to Midas to get some attention from the guys who gave me a warranty on the brake pads and rotors that were offending my ears. I got it to them at 4:30 so they had to keep it overnight, meaning I couldn't move anything til they got it fixed Saturday. Que pena (en el culo)! So, B's decision to stay in town an extra day and help me move saved my bacon, and I tried to say thanks with dinner. However, without a car, it's difficult to get places around here =) so we went to this Mexican restaraunt about a block away from our new apartment called Fiesta Cafe. It wasn't bad. My chicken quesodilla was perfect, although B's tamales weren't tasty, so he ate half of mine because I wasn't letting him leave with an empty stomach. I don't know if Ebert is a food critic as well as a movie critic but I think he'd give the place a thumbs up.
Anyway, back to the moving saga. Saturday morning, time to help Shawn move, get the last of my crap out of my apartment, get the place cleaned and get the keys turned in before we get fined. CPM decides to help expedite matters by making Shawn's new apartment available four hours later than we were told so Adam's (Shawn's new roomie) parents, Adam, Shawn, and I are all sitting out in the parking lot with 3 full car loads waiting for the cleaning crew (ie, 2 underpaid hispanic kids) to get done. Stanley Steemer broke their schedule with CPM and steam cleaned the carpets two weeks early because they were onsite and ready to work, which was really nice of them and more convenient for Shawn and Adam to not have to move all their stuff later. With the five of us there, we had all their stuff moved in 4 hours, it was fantastic organization. No BS. No flaring tempers. Shawn hooked me up with my WC3 CD before he left and made arrangements to settle the $250 he owes me, so everything was good. Quick once over of 57 John St #4 (we left the place looking immaculate) and 4PM, we head over to turn in our keys.
This is the good part. We walk up to the desk and this fat frat-boy is absent, putting his mack down openly requisitioning sex from his coworker in the most "professional" way possible. A couple of cleared throats gets his attention and I turn in my keys. Shawn, however, can't. His keys are in the mail from China, express shipment. He accidently left them there and had them sent Monday expecting them here by the 16th or 17th. He explains the situation to the fratboy who gives fratboys a bad name and received a lecture about being irresponsible and how it wasn't CPM's job to cover for him. I attempted to interceed, saying that Shawn had acted responsibly and quickly and had made the effort to work with CPM to acheive an agreeable result and asked for the date of the new tenants' move in. He says the 21st. Great, four days is more than enough to turn over an apartment. I used to turn over several in one day, and knowing first-hand that CPM doesn't spend a quarter of the time I used to spend on an apartment, I figure, hey, we're set and everyone's happy. Fratboy says no, he has to have the keys by the 16th. Shawn says he can guarantee the 16th or the 17th, and fratboy says he'll have the locks changed and charge Shawn for it. I again ask for a little leniancy, suggesting that perhaps they move that complex's turnover back one day to accomodate, and save their maintenance crews the hassle of changing the lock. Fratboy says "we have bent over backwards for you people" so we need to suck it up. My blood pressure starts to rise and my mouth starts to open, but I force myself to shut up, since this is Shawn's argument, not mine. Needless to say, we left shortly thereafter just a little annoyed.
"Bent over backwards?" The only bending over was CPM bending Shawn over and omitting the lube. They give us no notice of change of move out. They refuse to do any maintenance all year unless called multiple times. They switch the move-in time again on move-in day because they can't get their cleaning crews done, leaving us out in the parking lot and Adam's parents checking their watches for rush hour delays on their trip back to Chicagoland. They weren't going to steam clean the carpets for two weeks, and to top it off, they didn't even have enough mattresses in the apartment! Was he supposed to sleep on the damn couch? "Bent over backwards" is the understatement of the year! In fact, his only argument was that usually tenants are put up in hotels during the transition time and Shawn was "generously allowed to stay in his own apartment" is a moot point because the apartment was available anyway because the new tenants aren't moving in for another week! If it wasn't convenient for them, he would not have been allowed to stay. They have in
no way helped us. I honestly wish I had fratboy's name so I could tell his manager's what an ass he was, especially the sexual harrassment part and the arguing with the customer part. There's not a company in the world that wants front-line workers doing that.
Anyway, I got my car back Saturday morning. Here's a shocker. My brakes sound like a combination of nails on a chalkboard and a saw mill and nothing's wrong with them. Thing is, the parts look new. I personally looked at them. The rotors aren't pitted. The pads look like the ones straight out of the box. The mechanics didn't have a clue. They took the car out and listened to it, so they heard what I heard, but they didn't have a clue why. They suggested it was the lack of a dust shield on all Dodge models and the heavy front end and I was inclined to believe them. It's just annoying that those things are so damn loud. They offered to put new ceramic brake pads on under the warranty and pro-rate the cost of the parts with the cost of the ones I purchased in April. Talk about bending over backwards to help a customer. These guys sure did! I'm thinking I'm going to take the offer and see if it helps.
Anyway, this blog is long as hell, so I'll say adieu until later.
