Not Enough People

From the pandemic on, you can't just decide to take your car in to be serviced, not without all sorts of ridiculous long delays and wait times.

With this in mind, I set up an appointment to take one my cars in for servicing and an inspection.  The appointment was for Saturday morning with a local Firestone outlet. 

I've had cars serviced through Firestone for years with usually good results. 

But Saturday morning, I got a call before it was time to take my car in.   

Due to issues with too few people available to do too much work, they would not be able to get to my car.

Firestone had taken my reservation to work on my car.

They could not hold my reservation to work on my car.

Unlike Jerry Seinfeld, I did not get into a snit about it. I mean, what can I do? Shit happens sometimes, you know. 

And besides, this whole problem with too much work too do for too few people is not a new problem. 

A favorite restaurant for Andrea and I recently got brought down low by this problem. 

Ham's has been a dining staple in the Greensboro area for ages with some really great sandwiches. They had this really great sub loaded with roast beef, turkey and ham with onions, lettuce, tomato and spicy mustard which was a proverbial bitch to hold in your hands but damn it was good. 

The big thing Ham's made was their deep fried hot potato chips with ranch dipping sauce. As good as their sandwiches are, they are almost an after thought to those chips. 

Ham's started in a small building near mid-town Greensboro but then franchised out to other locations. Alas, the final location shut down a few weeks ago. 

The reason? Understaffing. 

The last couple of times Andrea and I went, the dining room section was closed off so we had to eat in the bar. Which was itself not that busy.  

The sandwiches were still good, the chips were excellent and our wait person was kind and efficient. But there was an emptiness about the place, not just in the dearth of people but in the spirit of the place. 

It was a shock but not a surprise to hear about 2 weeks after our last visit that had to close down.  

Well, shit happens.

And I still need to get my car serviced.