Date: Wed, 20 Aug 2003 20:16:55 -0400
Reply-To: The Bus Depot <vanagon@BUSDEPOT.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: The Bus Depot <vanagon@BUSDEPOT.COM>
Subject: A Bad Week Here at the Bus Depot
In-Reply-To: <410-22003832023484880@earthlink.net>
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For those who have ordrs at the Bus Depot, just a quick note that you
can expect them toward the end of the 7-10 working days that we quote
for ground orders. If you ordered via Expedited (Red label, Blue Label,
3-day) your order should ship as scheduled and arrive as promised. A
huge run of bad luck has put us in this state, whereas for the last 9
months we were averaging half the quoted time for most ground
deliveries.
We have been upgrading many customers to air delivery at no additional
charge, and are all working mondo hours to get out from under, so the
7-10 still stands. But if you need your part sooner, try using Expedited
shipping for the next week, by which time we should be easily caught up.
The worst is definitely over.
For those who care about a week in the life of a small business owner,
look at this timeline and imagine how many gray hairs I've gained...
Day 1: I learn that a container from Europe that we've been waiting for
has been delayed because of a Customs paperwork snafu.
Day 2: My store manager and another employee leave for vacation.
Day 3: The container shows up. We're already two men down because
they're on vacation. A third's car breaks down and he never makes it in.
Day 4: We miraculously manage to get everything from the container put
away, even with a skeleton crew, and think we're back on easy street.
Day 5: A flash flood submerges the front 20% of our shop in 3 inches of
water (and the front entrance in nearly a foot of water). We manage to
save all of our parts from water damage, but it takes the better part of
two days to relocate the parts, bring in a bunch of duhumidifiers, peel
up the soaked carpet, etc.
Day 6: We discover the new W32 virus on one of our workstations during a
routine Norton Antivirus scan. It hasn't done any damage yet, so we
install the repair utility and consider ourselves lucky. We try to
install the Microsoft update so that we won't be vulnerable anymore, but
this requires an update to our Windows 2000 O.S.
Day 7: We install the latest Windows 2000 Service Pack on all of our
computers, so that we won't be vulnerable to W32 again.
Day 8: Our entire computer network goes down.
Day 10 (Today): After having spent 2 days dimantling everything and
trying to figure out why our network is working at a
S--N--A--I--L--S-----P--A--C--E, we are almost ready to give up, except
that this is not an option. After a ton of troubleshooting, we had come
to the conclusion that we must have another virus that Norton is not
detecting, as all of the hardware is working properly, and the settings
are right. But we can't find any viruses. Then one of my employees has a
brainstorm - the problem occurred shortly after we updated our Windows
2000 to the latest service pack. He tries uninstalling the update one
computer at a time, and everything starts working. Thanks, Microsoft!!
Day 10 (Today): After all of my employees have spent the
week-from-hell, between wading through flood water, unloading a 40 foot
container by themselves, and putting up with their computers going down
every 10 minutes as we tried to troubleshoot our computer problems, they
still have about 3 days of frantic work ahead of them to get us caught
up again. They will, too. They're a great crew. But please go easy on
them if you call, as we're all about ready to collapse...
So, such are the trials and tribulations of running a small Volkswagen
parts business. When it rains, it pours, I guess. (Literally, in this
case!). As I said, we're still sticking to the 7-10 as promised in
almost all cases, even though it's going to cost me deep in the pocket
in upgraded shipping costs. And expedites are still shipping same-day if
called in early enough, so it could have been worse. By next week, it
will all be a bad - a really bad - memory.
And now I'm going to go home and get good and drunk. :-)
- Ron Salmon
The Bus Depot, Inc.
www.busdepot.com
(215) 234-VWVW
_____________________________________________
Toll-Free for Orders by PART # : 1-866-BUS-DEPOT