Look in the hole

"I'm so tired..." 

Sing it to "Fancy" and you've got me. 

I got up, depressed.  For a change, I skipped the shower and did my God Time.  I looked fine, but I knew I'd be too tired to do my God Time when I got home.  I had a really long day. 

We went to work, and met our repairman, who did some lock magic.  He took a cheap lock and installed it into the "Beast" the bottled vendor going back to Austin. 

We never wanted the cursed thing to begin with.  We were forced into taking it.  It has been a terrible headache for over 5 years. 

A few examples, the coin mech would never accept coins.  Ever.  Even if I got it to work they'd start jamming and ripping people off. 

We finally had to buy a whole new mech. 

We also had a lot of issues with dropped bottles, product not delivering, etc. 

I want happy customers.  If they're walking away unhappy we have failed them.  

I can't emphasize that enough: I live and die on sales.  If they aren't shopping with us, we are out in the street.  That's one reason I always, personally, thank people when they make a purchase.

Ron laughs at my passion, but he respects it.  Sales prove me right. 

So, I was very happy when they showed up with the new vending machine.  That's right, new. 

It was rather surreal, listening to the warehouse guy "arguing" with our boss, because the boss thought "our" machine was a used piece of crap with over $4K in repairs, already! 

Nope, "our" machine was a brand new unit.  The other vendors have one and they really like it. 

At first, I couldn't find the manual.  Two other guys couldn't find it either, but I did locate it while stocking.  It wasn't terribly helpful. 

However, most vending machines are pretty standard.  You find the mode button and press that to enter the service menu. 

First, you have to find the coin load menu, and enter the mode.  Add the coins, as the computer realizes it is getting change.  Otherwise it won't work, because it thinks it's empty, even if you filled it. 

Yeah.  I have to do this every time I add change, on these type machines (including 2 snack machines and both food machines). 

Then I have to figure out pricing.  In my case I had limited time.  It was preset to $1 for the entire machine.  We sell 20 ounce bottles of water for $1, so I threw some water at it. 

Tomorrow, I will figure out how to program rows (you can program a bottled vendor for whole machine, whole row, or one selection), and program some soda rows.  It shouldn't be too bad. 

I had trouble installing the lock.  Ron and I have a family of locks, all working on the same key.  He wanted to use one in the bottled vendor, and handed it over. 

Good, but I couldn't get it in there.  I prayed about it, then got the bright idea to look in the hole.  Sure enough, I found a bent wire in the hole.  I took that out.  The cylinder installed pretty easily after that, and a little more praying.  I couldn't leave the machine open; I HAD to install that lock! 

So, leaving, it had some water.  The change bank is full.  I did a test vend and it worked. 

Good.  We did way more than that today but that was the significant event. 

We went to the bank, made a deposit, I got paid.  Ron had loaned the business some money and got paid back. 

We went home.  I tried to take a nap but that didn't work out.  Sometimes a person rides around the neighborhood, playing very loud music.  They did that today for a while, keeping me up. 

I guess God wants me to get a regular sleep only, tonight.