We just reached a milestone in our RV adventure, eight whole days accident or incident free!!! Okay, we have spent the last plus week in Lakeland, Florida but it was a nice reprieve. So, we leave Lakeland heading to Lancaster, PA. We are traveling a beautiful scenic road that winds through some mountains. We start climbing uphill and the further we climb, the higher the thermostat rises. All of sudden, an alarm sounds. The alarm is loud and persistent but it certainly gets your attention just like it was intended to do. We pull off the first exit which luckily is just a mile up the road. And, our luck is holding, as we pull off the highway into the only business on this off-ramp we behold, a combo service station/mini mart and as if it were a sign from the heavens, a huge billboard advertising a shop that works on diesel trucks.
Dave calls the shop and explains that we are in an overheated 40' diesel pusher that is parked right under their billboard just a few miles from their establishment. The gentleman at the other end of the line proceeds to tell Dave that "We don't work on campers". Dave tried to explain that it was a 450 hp diesel engine, just like the ones on long haul trucks, but to no avail. The response was still, "We don't work on campers".
There we sat in the parking lot trying to figure out what to do and realizing that if we couldn't get a quick resolution, we might miss our next show. After sitting for about a half hour, Dave's cell phone rings.
Another representative from the fine establishment of "We don't do campers" was calling to see if he could come out and take a look at our situation. A young man arrives, covered in grease from head to toe and obviously not overly concerned with personal hygiene or dental care. He proceeds to diagnose our problem, a burst hose that he was able to cut out a section and reattach. He must have worked for about an hour and we were charged $300.00.
It turns out, the gentleman that originally answered the phone when we called, was the owner. He had two service technicians at the shop with him and they were all sitting around watching TV because they didn't have any work. One of his technicians, tired of sitting around, took some initiative and asked his boss if he could come out and look at our RV to break up the boredom.
I think this might be one good example why businesses find it so hard to survive.