U-Haul - Hoooooooo!!!!

I got an e-mail at work on Monday stating that The Marriott Hotel was giving away free beds to who ever would come and pick them up. I have a few housing clients who are in desparate need of beds. So the next day (Tuesday) I rented a u-haul with our petty cash, and took some co-workers to pick up as many matresses as I could.

Unfortunately, when we got to the Marriott there were two or three families loading up their trucks with what was left of the matresses. The staff at the hotel told us to come back the next day because they get a new shipment every day at 10:00 a.m.

So we parked the u-haul truck and came tried again on Wednesday. When we got to the Marriott Wednesday at 9:45 a.m. there was another family loading up the matresses! There were only three left and they weren't in the best of shape, but I wasn't going to leave empty-handed. My co-worker and I loaded the three matresses into the truck and drove back to work to drop them off.

After asking multiple people where we could put the matresses for safe-keeping, and not getting a straight answer the security gaurd allowed us to store them in a large closet for a few days. Aparently we asked one too many people where to store the matresses because my boss called me into her office and chewed me out (for asking -- which it was my co-worker that aparently was asking everyone, while I was looking for clients to help unload the matresses).

Then a client broke into the u-haul (which I had locked) and was trying to hot-wire the truck when I came down with the security guard.

And to make matters worse, when I went to fill the truck up with gas, after going only 38 miles, it cost me $50.00! Apparently the tank appeared to be full, when it the tank can, in fact hold 8 more gallons past "full".

So when I dropped off the truck to the U-Haul company I complained and he credited me $33.00. The whole thing cost my company $60.01, for 3 matresses.

One client has already come to pick up her matress. When she got it they put it on top of their van and did not tie it down. I was pretty bugged about that, after all I went through to get her the matress in the first place. They were just going to chance getting it home by driving really slow. She only lives maybe two miles away, but I was still annoyed.

I will never do that again. Sometimes I make my job harder than it needs to be. The plus-side is that I learned that I can drive a u-haul!