OFFHIRE
Roy’s mickey-taking customer thinks that he can dictate his terms beyond the original agreement, but soon finds out that he who laughs last laughs longest…
SMUG GLOW? R
ecently we had an individual in to our showroom asking for advice on how to undertake a job. The task
in hand was to break up and remove his concrete drive which, like the Arsenal Football team, had definitely seen better days.
Yours truly was tasked with the responsibility of highlighting the different machines. He left a wiser individual and I exuded a smug glow of self-satisfaction that I felt my knowledge to be superior.
Some weeks later I met the very man in our yard, waxing lyrical about the marvellous service we had given him from his initial enquiry with me through to the point that he had just placed his order and paid his deposit. Despite the fact that he knew full well that I was the owner of the company, he leant over and nudged me stating in a whisper, as if to impart some top military secret or to undertake a shady drug deal, “I’ve had a bit of a touch there, because they’ve not charged me for the Bank Holiday Monday, so I’ve got the machine for three days for the price of two”. At which, he scuttled off.
Somewhat surprised at his brazen attitude, I looked in bemusement at his bare-faced cheek as he disappeared out of the yard. However, if we’d allowed it to happen I guess it’s more fool us. Our Operations Manager shouted across “He’s a Cheeky Sod isn’t he? Indeed, a somewhat apt description of the fellow!
The Bank Holiday weekend came and went in archetypal miserable weather style, and we all returned to work. In typical plant hire fashion everything went pear-shaped on the first morning with cancellations, aborted collections, traffic jams… you know the norm in our game. As a result, this meant that Mr Cheeky Sod’s collection wasn’t going to be achieved that day. I phoned him, he
accepted it and agreed that the equipment was safe and not in the way.
But, as luck would have it, one of the team became unexpectedly free, so we sent our man over to collect the excavator and pecker, as we had a hire for the latter the following day. Within seconds of the driver arriving on site he was on the phone advising that the customer (Mr Cheeky Sod) had told him that he had an agreement with his boss (namely me) to keep the machine free of charge for the day!
Mr Cheeky Sod had in fact suddenly turned into Mr Urine Extractor of Questionable Parentage!
The machine was not on hire and was in fact due for collection, but then he had arbitrarily decided to misconstrue what was said and subsequently dictate to my staff when we could or could not gain access to our own asset and when we were able to charge for the very asset with which we earn mine and my team’s living.
This is a new low for me. Not only do we have to put up with commercial clients dictating the rates, damaging equipment and taking advantage on payment terms, but now we can add that privateers joining suit and defining how we conduct our business.
Suffice it to say that my glow of smug self-satisfaction has dimmed dramatically, but the old adage of what goes around comes around still rings true, as we’ve still got his £1,000.00 deposit!
Happy Hiring
48 Executive Hire News - Nov/Dec 2021
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