Thursday, December 9, 2010

An Epic Transformation

   The company truck is a humble machine, a Toyota 1ton.  They don't make them anymore because powerful and fuel efficient is not something the American people need as an option.  The truck is a member of the small truck brigade that litters the highways throughout the day hauling cardboard, supporting the various endeavors of gardeners and jacks and jills of all trades, and getting people and stuff from point a to point b.  I love this little truck.
   When I purchased it a few years ago, I thought that I was temporarily trading down from the F150 that I was driving.  Not so.  Fuel efficiency, load capacity, and upkeep for the 1ton have exceeded the F150 in spades.  I feel like the business has a secret weapon.  Even so, up until recently I was struggling with the 1ton.  For as much as it has been one of the most valuable assets to my work, I still felt ashamed to pull up for a meeting in it.
   This truck had serious damage to the body when I bought it and the paint was getting to look like someone pulled it out of sand dune.  For three years, finances barely covered wages and overhead.  There was no room for glamour.  The truck had a few costly repairs, but they were all mechanical.  Runs great, but looked like holy hell.  A few months ago, I started perusing the vehicle carcasses at the local pick & pulls.  It was hopeless.  People before me had already cannibalized the few 1tons that were no longer on the road.  I was ready to sell it for another set of unknown problems or hand over my list of improvements to a professional.
   Craigslist was the deciding factor.  I clicked around the selection of trucks and saw no decent replacement.  What I did see were folks offering trucks that my little 1ton could out perform every day of the week and twice on Sunday.  And they were not cheap.
   With the help of Ray at Unimax in San Leandro, I had the truck bed replaced.  He did a great job dealing with the parts supplier who was less than skillful in setting expectations or communicating clearly with employees responsible for pulling and delivery the bed.  Ray set a price and stuck to it.  And when we talked about paint, because the truck was in sore need of painting, he recommended Macco.  I appreciated his honesty about my truck needing a basic paint job instead of talking me into one of his custom super high end bullet proof paint services.
   Macco did not pan out.  Their math was sketchy and I was not in the mood to negotiate with someone who blatantly misrepresented posted pricing tiers.  So, I randomly stopped in to a another body shop who also had the integrity to turn away my business.  This body shop recommended Earl Scheib on 9th & International. The truck got a solid work truck paint job.  The scope of work and price were clearly explained and put in writing.  The work was done over Thanksgiving weekend.  When I picked up the 1ton, I choked up a bit.  It was so shiny and clean.
   And when I got rear-ended less than a week later, Ray repaired and painted the bumper like new for a reasonable price and Earl Scheid did the touch-ups (including a couple scrapes from the accident) for free.
   I have not considered myself preoccupied with status symbols or material wealth.  I'm hardly ever distracted by money in the form of ostentatious accumulation for the sake of accumulating.  Even when it comes to business, each purchase is considered based on usefulness and return on investment.   And so, it surprised me how much happiness I felt when I loaded up the 1ton for the first time after getting it fixed up.
   Personally, I love eating good food, taking off to visit friends and family, and having nice tools and nice socks.  And I l-o-v-e love the TLC-look of my smart, little, light blue 1ton.

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