Time to Re-calibrate Part 1

Enchantress

Time to Re-calibrate Part 1

It's been over a year since my last post (that certainly wasn't my plan). So much has happened! My daughter graduated from high school, participated in her first community theater production, dove into her first year of college "undeclared" and ended her freshman year "declaring" her wish to become a teacher. She will begin her sophomore year in the education program and I couldn't be prouder.

My youngest made it through her first year as a junior high kid practically unscathed (7th grade year is noted for being the toughest year of school). She, also participated in her first community theater production, Aida, and is currently rehearsing for her second (Newsies).  She grew four inches and now towers over everyone in the family. It's quite a sight!

My hubby has been working insane hours, which nearly put me into therapy. His normal schedule goes as follows: two days on, then two days off:

2:30am - Wake up, get ready and leave for Salt Lake
3:00am - Arrive at the "business" building to workout, shower and get into uniform
6:00am - Clock in and arrive for debriefing
6:00pm - Clock out and head home/to the gym
8:00pm - (work in the yard until this time, if already home) Home and prep for the next day

 Most recently, he's been working one if not both of his days off as well as adding four hour shifts to his regular schedule. So, instead of getting off at 6:00pm, he gets off at 10:00pm. When I say it nearly sent me into therapy, I mean it. How can a relationship be nurtured if there's no one around to nurture it?

We finally had a talk and he's agreed to ease up on the hours. I completely understand why he's so driven; in less than two years, he will be retired and I suspect he's bulking up the savings just in case falling into another profession doesn't happen as quickly as we need  him too.

In early June, we made plans for a summer vacation and decided to use an Airbnb for the very first time. The pictures were enticing, the reviews were encouraging and the price was just right. We headed out the first Sunday of June at around 4:30am (better to hit the road early and avoid driving through the Nevada and California desserts at the hottest times of the day). The thing about California is the nature of their traffic; Sundays make no difference. We hit San Bernardino at around 4:00pm along with their afternoon rush hour and a collision. Great. We arrived in Orange and our lovely condo at around 5:30pm.

Now, we did our homework. The management office that owns the floor of units where we would be staying, emailed us information on how to get into the building, our room and thereby gain access to the building fobs. Not only was it verbally described, but we were sent a YouTube video of how to do everything. Cool!

We were able to get into the garage and quickly found a space to park. The instructions said that, temporarily parking in a space until we got into the building was fine. Then, we could move our car after getting the fobs. The first step was entering a code at the main door but, wait! The main door was all covered in "Do Not Enter" tape and "Door Out Of Order" signs. What?!

We walked around to the front of the building and found that the main doors were closed. Of course! It was a Sunday after 5:00pm. A side door had a code box, but it too was out of order.  I went to my email and found a number to call. The first person I spoke to was very apologetic and let me know that there was no communication or any notes about the door being inoperable. She would contact emergency maintenance and have them come let us in.

Meanwhile, a man and woman appear and ask if we'd had any success getting into the building. They were also booking with Airbnb and hadn't been able to get in either. The man got on the phone while we chatted with the woman.  Time crept by (40 minutes) and after waiting to see if any of the cars that arrived were maintenance (no luck), we called the company again.

This time, a gentleman answered with a very thick, Indian accent. Uh, oh. Could it be the system kicked over to India after hours? NO!!!! Alfred was kind, but I knew he wouldn't be able to do much to help us...especially after explaining that he had no way to contact the managers, other than an online system and that they wouldn't be available again until 9:00am PST. He indicated that he would get security to us as quickly as possible. (So, what happened to maintenance?)

Time went on, and the lady decided to take matters into her own hands. She crept in behind one of the residents and found her unit. As an aside, we didn't do this because there were cameras everywhere and all we would need is to have the police haul me and my family away for breaking and entering. I just didn't want to take the risk. So, the lady puts her code into the keypad on the door and it doesn't work. They ended up calling Alfred who, fortunately enough, was able to reprogram their door remotely and give them access. He asked them to help "the other family that's there" by taking them up the elevator to their unit to get in and get their fobs. We were way ahead of Alfred, since they were already taking us up by the time he asked them to help us.

We got to our room and our code worked! Hallelujah! We grabbed our fobs, left the girls and attempted to head back to the parking garage. The building was a crazy labyrinth! We ended up on the opposite side of the garage where there were very few cars and no way to get to the other side of the garage. It was around that time that I discovered that I didn't have the car key. Ugh!

So, back to the room we went. Our girls were confused because we'd been gone so long, but still didn't have the bags. Well, no one could blame me for being scattered. I grabbed the key and off we went; this time, taking an alternate route which took us back to our garage. We found the elevator and away we went until...

 Where's the car?! OMG! Where's the car?!! Yep. Car towed. We'd been dicking around with trying to get into the building for so long (three hours) that the car had been towed. Awesome!

I contacted the management company (in tears at this point) and relayed what had happened. It was already close to 11:00pm by this time. We were hungry, tired and over it! We went to bed and waited till morning to resolve the issues.

The next morning, I called the management group. I spoke to a new lady who was well aware of who I was (I'm sure there were all sorts of notes in front of her when she got in, that morning). Like all the others, she was very apologetic and promised to have management call me as soon as they got in, which would have been 30 minutes from our phone call. I waited and didn't hear, so I called back. This time, she took matters into her own hands and rectified the situation:

1.) They would pay for the Uber to get us to the towing company
2.) They would reimburse us the cost for the tow of our rental car
3.) They would reimburse us for the first night of our stay

This was, by far, the worse start to a trip I've ever experienced; however, we were taken care of at the end and the rest of the vacation went much more smoothly. I was vocal with everyone involved about the lack of communication between the management company and the leasing office of the building (why didn't they have a guest access, back-up plan for Airbnb guests? What would we have done if the nice couple, who got us up stairs, had never appeared? What happened to all these services - maintenance and security - that never showed up?). I hope they listened and will be better prepared the next time there are issues with the building.

We had cooler temps than we were anticipating, but still had a great time - games, beaching, swimming, museums, zoos, and tons of eating. More on that tomorrow.