Bad Day at the Office

[MiniDave]

I have a part time gig driving wholesale and auction  cars for a local dealer group, we move cars from several dealerships around the city to a central location, and from there to the auction after they've been evaluated as potential retail units for the buy here pay here store. The longest drives are about 40 miles one way and the auction drive is about 12 miles. I drive the chase van some days and the cars themselves on other days....it's kinda fun at times as you drive a wide variety of cars in an equally wide variety of miles and condition - highest mileage I've had was 369K - on a Prius!

Most of the cars we get from the Acura store are pretty nice, they've all been cleaned although flat tires, dead batteries and empty gas tanks are common ....the cars we get from the Honda and Toyota stores OTOH are usually absolute shit, filthy dirty, worn out, high mileage, body damage etc are common on their cars.

Yesterday I was scheduled to drive the chase van (actually I wasn't - we're supposed to move auction cars on Thursday but they didn't have them ready, plus we had freezing rain and snow on Thursday so it got moved to Friday, and the guy who was supposed to drive Thursday couldn't drive Friday, so I got drafted.) and it was all of 5* and the cars were iced over, so in addition to scraping ice off the windows so we could drive we had the usual dead batteries, flat tires and empty tanks to deal with too - on top of that we couldn't get the hoods open to jump start the dead ones, our lic plates are on those rubber hangers and are supposed to be hung off the decklid but we couldn't get the trunks open and of course the doors were frozen shut too......

Lastly - we're all older retired folks, none of us exactly spry - the youngest in our group is 65, the oldest is 84 - and one of our drivers slipped on the ice and fell, breaking her leg and dislocating her shoulder. It took 4 EMT guys to lift her onto the gurney as she's not exactly slender and she screamed in pain the whole time as they moved her. She's supposed to have surgery on her leg tomorrow and who knows about her shoulder.....she'll be out for months if she comes back at all.

So yeah, it was a long damn day in freezing ass cold weather to say the least.

Monday I'm scheduled to drive the van again and move auction cars (auction cars are the short drive - only 12 miles) and it's supposed to snow about 2" Monday morning during our drive time. That wouldn't bother me but I don't know about the skills of some of our drivers - some used to live in northern climates and will do fine, others I'm not so sure....so I'll have to be choosy about who I pick for that day.

could be another "interesting " day.

Oh and to top it off, somebody in our group gave me a nice cold........ ::)

[94touring]

Yikes that is rough.  When my grandmother fell down some stairs breaking a leg and collar bone, that put her out for over a year recovering. Old bones heal slow.

[MiniDave]

Yeah, none of us are in the prime of our lives now.....so anything that happens is potentially a real problem.

[MiniDave]

Well, I'm scheduled to go back to work next week, the woman who fell is in 9 weeks of rehab for her knee so I won't be seeing her for a while....I don't know if I'll be able to go back or not, but so far it's looking a little better after today's Dr. visit.

[BruceK]

....but so far it's looking a little better after today's Dr. visit.

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[gr8kornholio]

Good to hear on the improvement front!

[MiniDave]

Here we are 6 months later and she's still in rehab. They wanted her shoulder to heal naturally, till it does she's in a wheelchair as she can't use crutches. Obviously all her medical bills are being taken care of by our insurance company, but I wonder what kind of a settlement she's going to get from them once she's well again?

[gr8kornholio]

I'm sure there is a dollar amount that may help with that pain, but I don't know what that'd be.  Especially if it's one of those things that never goes away. 

[MiniDave]

Forgot to update this, Mollye passed away about a month ago from her injuries. She was a really sweet person and I've missed her the past year or so. I went to her service and met her family and most of our drivers showed up to pay their respects too.

RIP Mollye Smith

[jeff10049]

Sorry to hear that. Were the injuries the ones from the fall nearly 2 years ago? I hope she wasn't miserable the whole time.

[MiniDave]

Yes, she never got out of rehab/assisted living after they did surgery on her leg...... she had lots of other health issues ongoing too. Like all of us, it was just her time.