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We had a very frightening incident I want to relate as briefly as I can. Please bear with me.
We had a thaw about two weeks ago. A long-time customer (74 years old) scraped the slush from his driveway and made a pyramid out of it at the street, where we normally pile all of his snow with the trucks.
We found out about it during the next plow, at -20 degrees. Bang. The Basset Hound co-pilot almost went onto the dash again - but he's getting used to that. I beavered away at that pile for 5 minutes, and then said, piss on it, the list is still 65 names deep, and I'm going to break a wing off. My usual option is to get the backhoe and root it out, and forward an additional-service charge to the gentleman. But the backhoe was at the shop, 45 minutes away, and the roads were salty. I didn't want to spend 2 hours in the backhoe and then have to spend another hour washing it. In hindsight, I will do that in the future.
Anyway, a friend was plowing for another company a short distance away, on Dec 29th. I asked him to take a poke at the ice with the 950 Cat loader on his way to my place to enjoy a New Year's beer.
He did as I asked, and came for the beer. Five hours later, I got a call from a very irate old man, claiming we ripped up his lawn and dumped salt and sand all over the grass. No problem I said, we'll deal with that if its a problem.
This is where I got worried. He told me that when he saw the 950 at work, he went down stairs, "loaded my high-power hunting rifle and went back upstairs to shoot the guy that did that to my lawn". The loader was leaving down the street when he came out of his house and ran across his lawn in 16" of snow. A neighbour stopped him on the lawn and asked him what was going on with the gun. He went back in the house, and, I guess, stewed for 5 hours before calling me.
I explained the reason for the loader, I'll take care of the damage, if any, and reminded him that we usually push his banks with the backhoe as normal course.
I then thought, and told him we will no longer, under the circumstances, service his address anymore, and sent him a final statement.
The next day, after a bad night's sleep, I went to the police station to report the event. I didn't want the next person, be it the newspaper kid or, even a mailman, to be his next target if they crumple the grass. Before I even got done my interview with the cop, two other cops were on their way to his house to investigate. They called later to say they were satisfied with his sanity and storage of the weapons, but also recommended we not do business anymore.
This really made us think. We will do some things alittle different now - along the notification avenue.
Has anyone had a similar experience? Sorry to be so long. Be careful out there.
We had a thaw about two weeks ago. A long-time customer (74 years old) scraped the slush from his driveway and made a pyramid out of it at the street, where we normally pile all of his snow with the trucks.
We found out about it during the next plow, at -20 degrees. Bang. The Basset Hound co-pilot almost went onto the dash again - but he's getting used to that. I beavered away at that pile for 5 minutes, and then said, piss on it, the list is still 65 names deep, and I'm going to break a wing off. My usual option is to get the backhoe and root it out, and forward an additional-service charge to the gentleman. But the backhoe was at the shop, 45 minutes away, and the roads were salty. I didn't want to spend 2 hours in the backhoe and then have to spend another hour washing it. In hindsight, I will do that in the future.
Anyway, a friend was plowing for another company a short distance away, on Dec 29th. I asked him to take a poke at the ice with the 950 Cat loader on his way to my place to enjoy a New Year's beer.
He did as I asked, and came for the beer. Five hours later, I got a call from a very irate old man, claiming we ripped up his lawn and dumped salt and sand all over the grass. No problem I said, we'll deal with that if its a problem.
This is where I got worried. He told me that when he saw the 950 at work, he went down stairs, "loaded my high-power hunting rifle and went back upstairs to shoot the guy that did that to my lawn". The loader was leaving down the street when he came out of his house and ran across his lawn in 16" of snow. A neighbour stopped him on the lawn and asked him what was going on with the gun. He went back in the house, and, I guess, stewed for 5 hours before calling me.
I explained the reason for the loader, I'll take care of the damage, if any, and reminded him that we usually push his banks with the backhoe as normal course.
I then thought, and told him we will no longer, under the circumstances, service his address anymore, and sent him a final statement.
The next day, after a bad night's sleep, I went to the police station to report the event. I didn't want the next person, be it the newspaper kid or, even a mailman, to be his next target if they crumple the grass. Before I even got done my interview with the cop, two other cops were on their way to his house to investigate. They called later to say they were satisfied with his sanity and storage of the weapons, but also recommended we not do business anymore.
This really made us think. We will do some things alittle different now - along the notification avenue.
Has anyone had a similar experience? Sorry to be so long. Be careful out there.
