Tales of a Moneypit

When I turned the key to start the VW, the engine turned over in a way that seemed like it wasn’t engaging.  The motor started, but ran very rough, as if it was going to die any minute.  Moments before, I had talked with my friend Jim about how the VW just needed to last me another year or so, the $7000 I owed yet on the car preventing me from trading it.  The VW wasn’t worth much, but I chose to spend another $900 at the beginning of the month to get it running right, with the hope that it would be reliable for the 30 mile commute I would be starting on the 19th.  Honestly, it felt like I was betting against the odds, the history of the car in the somewhat brief 3.5 years it had been mine proof that there wasn’t much life left in it.  I took to calling the car “VW Moneypit” rather than Tiguan, my way of deflecting the frustration of spending roughly $12,000 to keep the car running.

The uneven lope of the engine as I left the restaurant’s parking lot seemed like a struggle to stay alive, the last few gasps of someone who just wanted to make it home before they give up the ghost.  Thankfully, the restaurant my friends and I choose for our Friday night “therapy” is only a few minutes from my house, two stoplights.  At each stoplight on the way home, I found myself praying that the car would get me home.  Despite the car’s history, it always managed to get me home, refused to strand me on the side of the road.  VW designs a limp into their cars, I think.  That’s great, because their cars NEED that feature.  True to design, the Moneypit crawled into my driveway, begging for mercy until I turned the key to shut it down.

I waiting a few seconds before I turned the key again.  Just as before, the engine spun without engaging, this time not engaging at all, not starting.

Oh noooooo…. not now, you turd.  I have to start my new job on Monday, have to commute 60 miles.  Don’t do this!

But it was doing it.  After a few minutes of trying to start the car, letting it rest, then trying again, I knew that trying to start the car was futile.  I called my mechanic and left him a woeful message (he’s used to it from me) that I would be having the car towed to him over the weekend.  Resigned, I locked the car up, told my friend and her son my plan (they had walked up while I was trying to start the car).  I was taking my friend to the airport the next day, Saturday, for her two week trip to Italy (lucky her).  We would have to take her car, instead of mine.  Fortunately for me, that meant I had a vehicle at my disposal.  I would like to say it’s chance that she just happened to be leaving and didn’t need her car, but sometimes I think it’s God’s way of showing me he has my back.  Through the whole challenge with the car, I had a peace and trust from experience that all would work out.

It did, but I don’t want to get ahead of myself.

Short story on the VW Moneypit — my mechanic confirmed on the following Monday that the timing chain had slipped and the valves were damaged.  Fixing the engine would require a new head and more, a very expensive proposition.  He left me with encouragement, told me he would hang on to the car until I figured things out.

So I did indeed figure things out, although it took some fortitude to take the steps I needed to take.  Monday evening, I visited the CarMax dealership where I had purchased the Moneypit and several other vehicles.  They really weren’t interested in helping me, told me that the $7000 I owed on the VW would make it tough to trade the car.  If I could have the car towed to them, it might help the situation.

Seriously?  Bull puckey!  They didn’t need the car to work on a solution.  It was just a tactic to force me to make them my only choice.

I have been considering car replacements for a while, knowing that the VW Moneypit wasn’t long for this world.  At the top of my list was the Subaru Crosstrek.  Everything I had read talked about its reliability.  As a mountain biker, it has the utility I need for my bike and stuff.

Long story short — the local Subaru dealership, after about an hour of back and forth negotiation, found a payment solution I can accept.

So, here is my new-to-me ride, a used 2016 Subaru Crosstrek!  It’s black, which is not the color I wanted.  These cars are hard to come by as they are very popular.

 

On 50% Pay Cuts

One bit of information that I failed to include in yesterday’s blog — my now previous employer decided against the unpaid furlough for August.  As I said, Dave (my boss) tends to be a pessimist.  Although the subsidiary was having a substandard year, we were definitely busy and money was coming in.  Key to the substandard year was the loss or poor performance of several critical customers.  Our sales to smaller customers was up, something that kept me very busy — and one of the reasons (if my guess is correct) that my boss opted to ask me to accept a 50% pay cut for the month of August, with a chance the pay cut would continue into October.  Come October or until the cash situation improved, I would then have to be willing to accept a 20% pay cut.

I am certain Dave knew what would happen, probably intended for it to happen as the loss of my salary expense would free up more cash in the subsidiary’s shrinking cash account.  There are doubts that will make that much of a difference, but it is what it is.  Along with the 50% cut in pay went a change to a cut in hours, so my last days with the company, basically the first two weeks of August, were spent working half days.  My personal cash flow isn’t that great either, but I had enough put aside to survive a month.  With my new job, my first paycheck will also be complimented by my final check from my now previous employer, who has to pay me for the 7 days of vacation I didn’t take this year.

I also took one more trip for the company before I said adios.  At Dave’s suggestion, I traveled by car to Duluth for a few days and spent a few days with a sales rep there.  A steel plant, more accurately ‘mine’, had just bought several transmitters and controllers from the company and required training.  That was one of my responsibilities, something Dave does not and can not do, so he took advantage of me still being on board during my two week’s notice.  The sales rep likes to mountain bike, a reason for me to want to make the trip.  I made Wednesday a travel day, met him at my hotel mid afternoon and headed to the Piedmont and Brewer’s Park trails for a ride that evening.  We visited the mine the next day, spent all day there, then I rode the same trails again.  Friday was my day, so I spent five hours that day riding the COGGS Mission Creek trails.. a thoroughly relaxing and wonderful ride.  There was just enough challenge to those trails, a well marked system that didn’t over tax me physically, even with the amount of climbing this flat lander was subjected to.

When I find the pictures I took from the trail, I want to share them here.  There were some very cool, as well as scenic, trails in the Duluth area.  Hats off to COGGS, as I was very impressed with every trail I rode there.  I didn’t ride the downhill at Spirit Mountain, which I wanted to do, but I was very happy with the challenges at each trail.

My VW Moneypit (aka Tiguan) required a $900 repair before I left for Duluth.  There is more to that story, but I will just leave it there for now.  In the 3.5 years I have had that car, I have spent roughly $12,000 to keep it running.  That doesn’t include money spent on tires and routine maintenance, or the oil that the turbo engine consumed greedily.  It used a quart or more of oil with each tank of gas, more if I took a road trip.  On the Duluth trip, it used two quarts of oil.

Season of Change

Change amidst challenges is definitely the theme of the past two months, a whirlwind of what-do-I-do-now with the potential of peril.  Life is that way, at least it is for me.  Lately, it’s almost been necessary for me to wear a thick glove on my right hand, lest I scratch another hole in my head.

I’m right handed.  Most likely left brained (and I don’t know what that means).  I try to do my best to find the blessings amid the chaos, see God’s hand whenever I can, yet let the wails come out in private when the burdens seem to get too much.  The worries wash out with the tears most of the time.  Tears also take away the crud that keep me from being honest with myself and with God, and I welcome the tears that come because I often am able to make a decision when my soul is washed clean, when I am open to listen more to what God is trying to help me see.

I’m also melodramatic when I write.  If you continue to read on, you will see that it’s not that bad.  God has provided.  The blessings have prevailed.

One afternoon in June, my boss sauntered (actually, he shuffled.. that’s what he does) into my office, pulled up the little chair I keep in the corner in front of my desk so that he could lean on the front of my desk.  It was obvious what news he was about to impart, although the request was a bit outrageous, I suppose.  Dave is a pessimist, his cup always bitter, so he sees the dark side of a situation.  In the five years that I worked for him, he was always that way.  Our subsidiary office is having a bad year, the first since I started working for the company, and the first time we haven’t been the number one subsidiary globally.  I have heard Dave complain, moan, worry, fret all year about our numbers.  So, when he sat down in front of me, I had a good idea of the request he was going to make.

“Steve, it looks like we are only going to have enough cash to pay salaries until the end of July.  You are going to need to consider taking an unpaid furlough for the month of August.”

There was a lot more behind that request than Dave was letting on.  Ownership in Budapest thinks the Americans, especially yours truly, get paid too much.  They weren’t going to support us in our down year, and they were looking for a way to get me to accept at least a 20% pay cut.  Even better, ownership wanted me to be replaced with someone who would work for quite a bit less, travel and work as outside sales (odd, since I do perform that task and wear many more hats — and also because we have sales reps who sell for us).  But, well, in five years I also know how ownership thinks.  When I was offered Dave’s position last October, to be assumed in three years when he retires, the owner explained that he prefers to promote from within, said that he doesn’t have to pay someone as much when he does that (yes, he said basically that).

My reaction?  Updated my resume that evening, applied for several jobs right away.  My focus was on a job opportunity that a friend has been strongly encouraging me to consider.  It was that job opportunity that I accepted.  Today starts my second week with that company, a fresh new environment with a much larger company.  I get to learn new things in an industry different than I have been in the last thirty years — and I love it!

More to come.  It’s time to head down the street and clock in!