Eye See You
The Village Idiot had his goods in storage at his brother’s workplace because the need to take care of Mom in her old age to make sure that her quality of life is the best it can be forced the parties to work together to make the best of things. Unfortunately the free office space at the company his brother part owned moved and so the goods had to go to storage. For simplicity’s sake the goods went to the storage place just up the road from the house. Fortunately The Village Idiot had all boxes organized with internal wrapping as well as external shrink wrapping so the move was efficient.
On a Sunday morning one month after moving in The Village Idiot entered the storage facility to put in a couple more items from the house. Much to his surprise a major roofing and refurbishment project that there had been no notification about from storage management was obviously underway. Upon entering the unit The Village Idiot noticed 1 box completely soaked with so much water that after peeling off the shrink wrap the multi-walled corrugated box peeled apart like tissue paper. Fortunately since The Village Idiot had individually bagged the books inside there was no permanent damage.
The Village Idiot went to the storage office management at the open of business Monday morning. The staff member who worked there saw the damage…looked at the roofing and said “Well, they’ve passed you so there won’t be any more damage.”
The Village Idiot said “Without getting on a ladder and looking at the back or pulling out stacks of boxes I can’t tell whether there is more damage. I’ll be back Wednesday at 1:00 PM to look further with the manager. Please let the manager know and to call me if that is not suitable.” The Village Idiot left. It’s not like the week wasn’t already planned out with other events and tasks to get done.
When The Village Idiot showed up Wednesday at 1:00 PM there was no staff to be found. However, when The Village Idiot opened the storage unit he found mass water damage. The whole left wall was covered in water; a box that had been dry 3 days prior was now collapsing the front stack because it was drenched in water.
Right then and there The Village Idiot knew he was fucked. Everything had to be dropped and the goods would have to be pulled out…unboxed…inspected…temporarily addressed until new special order boxes arrived…and then do the shit all over again. It would 2 days on job 1 and 2 days on job 2. Plus everything would have to be photographed and documented because there is always some corporate asshole who will be an utter dick about everything.
Stunned The Village Idiot walked around to show someone working construction the damage. The Village Idiot found a person slowly panting with a roller. The Village Idiot asked “Are you part of the re-roofing project?” and the reply received from the puffed out proud chest was “Well…I’m the general contractor in charge of everything so you could say I am part of the re-roofing project.”
The Village Idiot motioned for the GC to follow him and to see the damage. Upon seeing the damage the GC sighed and said “Gee,ya know, it’s just so hard to keep water out on a big roofing project like this.”
The Village Idiot couldn’t believe what he heard. The Village Idiot said “Gee, ya know, I find it hard to believe you have a contract that allows you to damage peoples goods while roofing.”
The GC started to say something and then thought better of it. The Village Idiot wasn’t born last night and he knew what was bit off. The GC was dying to laugh at The Village Idiot and to say “well my contract indemnifies me from all damage.”
What followed (in the opinion of The Village Idiot) was 18 months of bullshit that included 5 defense lawyers…a bullshit binding arbitration scenario…and a judge who never actually read any case documentation and who didn’t give a rat’s ass about any of the people who thought they have safe storage only to find themselves shit upon by some assholes.
This is the story of: EYE SEE YOU
