We boogied through Caldwell yesterday getting all but 4 completed, and that was after doing one blowout in Melba down along the river, and one out in the far end of Parma. In Caldwell there were two of those in a brand new subdivision we couldn’t find, one with valve boxes full of dirt, (gophers, don’t you love them), and one with aggressive dogs. In 21 years I have only found one dog I couldn’t control no matter how aggressive, so I wish I had that route yesterday. I would have let them know who’s boss. I love dogs, and so does Jesse, and most dogs sense that, and even the aggressive ones aren’t a problem. I have played fetch with what I was told was an aggressive dog more times than I can count. For the record, and from a liability standpoint, when we tell a customer we are coming, and their dogs are known to be aggressive and not put away, it becomes a major issue for this customer if someone is injured while on their property. Just a reminder, in our terms of service it states, “I understand that…..If I am not at home at the time of the sprinkler blowout, “The Maintenance Shop” will attempt to do the sprinkler blowout in my absense.” That means we have your permission to be on your property whether you are home or not. If your pets are known to be aggressive, put them away. Jesse will make another attempt at those today before heading for………..
Avimor, Hidden Springs, and Garden City here we come. Remember, for simplicity in routing I have grouped all of the 83714 into one of those three sections.
Justin will be starting in Avimor and then to Hidden Springs and finally Garden City. I believe there are only 4 in Avimor and 2 in Hidden Springs, so they should go quickly.
Yours truly will be taking the day off to catch up on paperwork, change the oil in my service truck, and hopefully change the spark plugs as well. Jesse and Justin are both fully capable of taking over as each have done a few thousand blowouts or more. It will take them awhile to catch my 15,000+ 🙂
Once we finish the 83714 we will head to the Meridian 83646………..
Sending an email of approximately where we are listed in the order of stops would definitely be helpful since we do have to be present when you arrive… early am, late am, etc.
Thanks for your comment. We actually stopped at your place on our first day out and could not get access so you were marked red on our datasheet. (Not a bad thing, just tells us we stopped by but couldn’t do the blowout because of locked gates, aggressive dogs, system issues, etc.)
We will be sure to get to you this time because we are working in Meridian until we clear up all those that have been waiting for quite awhile. At least 4 days or so as needed. Last year I tried using the order of stops and it worked somewhat, but then if someone was 6th on the list and we didn’t show up until early afternoon because some or all of the 5 before were problem systems that take up a lot of time, you would be waiting around for a long time and we didn’t show. This is exactly why we do not schedule actual appointments. It makes people angry when we aren’t there at the prescribed time. We hear from several customers that signed with us because their other company didn’t show up twice or more. In their defense, sprinkler blowouts is not an exact science, and there are many things that can happen during a blowout that slows everything WAY down. We accommodate when we can, though.
If you’ll remember when I first contacted you Steve, I specified that because of certain issues we DO need to be present, so had you called the night before as mentioned, one of us most certainly would have made it a point to be here. I realize your time cannot be exact, but even a possible approximate would be helpful since we both have work obligations.
Yep, noticed you wanted an email update instead of text, but you wrote that in the additional comments section for information regarding your sprinkler system. Since it is for system information, it is something we do not need to know until we get there, ie; valve box location, which gate to go through, pets in the yard, etc. It states above the additional information section of the form in large red letters, “We rarely get an opportunity to look at the additional information until we pull up to the property.” With hundreds of requests, and as many as 75 or more in a day, it is impossible to have time to read them all, so we don’t.
We don’t make phone calls during sprinkler blowouts. Not possible. If I talked to a 1,000 people for even 5 minutes on the phone to let them know we were coming, it would take 83 hours on the phone. I don’t have time for that with all I have to do to get ready for the next day. As it is, I am never caught up, which is why it can take me 3 or 4 days to answer someone’s email. Not to mention if I did have time to call it would be at 2 a.m. like it is closed to being now. I really don’t have time for this blog either, but it is the only way I can communicate with hundreds or thousands of people at one time. It takes a lot less time to have everyone look at what I post than to call 1,000 people to tell them all the same thing.
As for work obligations, I totally understand. Most people work the same hours we do. You gotta make a living. That is why 80% of our customers are not home during the day when we get there, but we still manage to blow out their sprinklers because they leave their gates accessible, garage codes, etc., so we can work. If you absolutely have to be there, (why?) we will try to accommodate you, but the best way to do that is through a text the night before which you did check the box for text notification, but didn’t leave a number. We’ll figure out a way to get you taken care of because that is what we do.