Early Halloweens

You all have most likely, at one point in time, seen a hearse. Either because you were just driving and happened to see one or you were in a funeral procession and it was leading it. But have you ever thought about what it would be like to drive one or be in one? Each time one comes in, I get chills. Let me tell you, first hand, it's really unnerving to get in those cars and drive them. I think, for myself at least, what makes it "eerie" is the fact that dead bodies have been in the car. I have always been extremely uncomfortable being around or seeing a dead body. I don't know why, I've just always been like that. I've seen dead bodies before. I saw one when I did a ride along back when I was a police explorer. But that is another story all together, I'll share it if people want me to. Now, if you work at a car wash and a hearse comes in, there are a number of things that a person can do. One thing is check inside the car to see if theres a casket. Two, just clean it regardless if a casket is in it or not. Or, just not clean it at all and let everyone else do it. That last one, not really the best idea because no one appreciates it when you do that. Personally, I do the first one almost every time. I guess I do it because its kind of suspenseful to see if there is going to be a body in the car. One time I checked, there actually was a casket. When I saw the casket my mind began to race with all kinds of thoughts. Was it an old person? An young person? Man, women? What did they die of? Old age? Murder? Disease? I wanted to know but I never asked. I wanted to know but at the same time I didn't. After all, curiosity killed the cat. hahaha. When the hearse with the casket came in, I was the lucky one that had to pull it into our "prep-bay." The driver even joked with me about the casket being in there. I cant remember what he said but I remember nervously laughing at it.

Hearses come to the car wash all year round. And all year round, I get all the those feelings I mentioned above. Each time they come. I'm sure some of you are saying to yourselves, that I probably was crying when I had to pull the hearse in with the casket but I am telling you truthfully that I was not. I was being very manly and just got in and pulled it into our prep-bay. No tears involved. It's just another car. It's just a car that has a dead person in it. I don't think I've had to pull a hearse or seen a hearse around halloween before. Even though I've been at the car wash for close to 2 years. So having a hearse come in around halloween....yeah. I kinda want to see a hearse come in with a bunch of halloween decorations on it. I just think that would be really interesting and really freaky to see.

Things TO do and NOT to do at the car wash

I've been thinking. There are a mass of people who don't know how to properly conduct themselves at the car wash. It is very important that you act properly while you are there because depending on your actions and or words, there may be consequences. I figured it would be fitting to describe some things that you should do and should not do and list some of the consequences that I have seen and may have done. 

1. First impressions are always important. When you pull up to the back, DON'T stop 2 car lengths back from the line. Doing this just annoys us employees. Yes, its not that big of a deal, especially if its just one or two BUT when its 20 cars a day at least, it gets kinda old and frustrating. Every time someone does this, we have to move the car up to where it needs to be so we can vacuum it. The consequence for this could be, depending how frustrated we get or how many times it has happened prior for the day, a lack of an attempt on the vacuum.

2. This kinda goes along with the first one. When you pull the car up, PLEASE DON'T turn the car off. This gets really annoying. You're not saving enough gas to make it worth while. We turn the cars off before we send them down the line. All you do when you turn the car off, especially when you get an exterior wash, is waste our time. It's annoying when we have to get in a car, maybe pull it up, turn it back on move it into our prep bay, then turn it off. 

3. Again, when you pull up to the back and get out of your car. Be POLITE! Don't be a inconsiderate jerk. Don't get out and start snapping at us when we haven't done anything to you. I can promise you, if you are a jerk right off the back, we will not take very good care of your car and you will most likely get charged extra fees depending on what kind of vehicle you drive. This one time, a customer came to the car wash when I was in the back selling and from the moment he got out of his car he was being a jerk. He just started demanding and saying how much we have sucked in the past. He also demanding that we vacuum his trunk. I told him that we would. We did but I also charged him the dollar trunk vacuum charge. The guy took his receipt and walked away, he came back like a minute later and asked me what the charge was for. I told him that we're supposed to charge for the trunk vacuum because we don't normally do them. He told me that it was ridiculous and he was never going to come back to our car wash. All I responded with was, "ok. Have a nice day sir." Finished vacuuming his car and sent it down the line. Normally I would never charge someone for a trunk vacuum, but he was being a jerk so he earned it. Another possible consequence of being a jerk to the people who vacuum your car is that they will "forget" to prep something before they send it down the line.

4. When your car is being dried off up in the front, DON'T go into the tunnel and start drying off your own car. Don't dry your own car off at all. Us employees do not appreciate this at all for a number of reasons. We all see this as an insult. We feel like you are saying that you don't like how we do our job and that we suck. Besides the insult, we all have our own routine for drying the cars and when you come up, grab one of our towels and start drying off your car, you mess us up. We lose track of what we have already dried off or done. It takes us longer to finish your car. Also, most people that do this tend to tip less which, in turn, makes us want to do a worse job on your car. 

5. When we are done drying your car off in the front. You should never, come up to us and tell us that everything looks like crap. That we do a terrible job. This will just anger us and we WILL remember you the next time you come in and the next time you do come in we WILL get our revenge. 

These are just the basic things that you should not do when you're at the car wash. It will always make your life and our lives easier and better if everyone follows these guidelines.

Random Songs

Today I heard the most random song that made me laugh. Mostly because it's such a funny song but also because I remember this song from sunday school when I was a wee lad. The song Who Built the Ark?  Who remembers this song? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Hahaha. I think the worst part of hearing this song again was that it kinda got stuck in my head and I could not shake it. I think I got it stuck in a few of my co-workers heads as well hahaha.

For those of you who do not remember or know this song. Here is a link for it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1E7qs0bAbg

The Bored Games

When working at a car wash, there will be periods of downtime where you sit around and do nothing and just wait. It gets quite boring when you are just sitting there doing nothing. Sometimes, during these times we, the employees, come up with the most random games to entertain ourselves. They may seem really lame or stupid but when you're extremely bored, they are a blast. 

One game that we play is when we are in the back. Back by where we vacuum the cars. We have this little rock pit with two black "man hole" cover type things. The object of the game is to toss the rocks onto the man hole covers. Its harder than you might think. The rules are simple. You have to kneel or squat on the side walk next to the building(the farthest point from the covers) and toss the rocks trying to get them to stay on the covers without falling off. For each one you get on the cover is 1 point. The most points win.

A second game that we play, and we just came up with this game today and is still in the making. This game is also played in the back but it is played in our prep bay. In our prep bay we have a bunch of sponges that we use to get bugs and other stuff off cars, (they sit in barrels of water all day so they get pretty clean). The object of this game is also very simple. You are simply to take a wet sponge, bounce it off a car and hit the other person. If you hit the person you get one point. Most points win. This game may sound really dull and lame but it is actually quite addictive and fun. especially when its warm and hot out.

These are all the games that I know of as of now. As I learn of more I will blog about them.

Let me know what you think of these games.

"Favorite" Quotes

So there is a wide variety of people that come to the car wash. Rich, not so rich, old, young, middle aged, college students, high school students, military people, asians, caucasian, african american, polish, indian, jew, catholic and so on and so forth. All these different people are all unique as you can imagine with the  way the talk and the things they say. Certain people say their own things but a lot of people say the same thing over and over. Here are a number of my "favorite" things that people say to me when I'm selling.

-(Me) "Hi, what kind I get for you?"
-(customer) "A wash"
-(Me) ".......ok"

- "Give me a wersh"

- "I just got back from (insert a state/city) and I got a lot of bugs on my car can you clean them off?"
(We remove bugs off cars automatically. No need to ask)

- "I have a lot of sand/dirt/mud/sticks in my trunk because.....(full story). Can you vaccuum it out?"

- "The exterior wash doesn't come with a vaccuum?" **(probably the best/most common)

This is only a start of the things that people will say to me. Some of these things drive me nuts others are just hilarious to me cause its so stupid. The last quote is a perfect example of something that drives me both nuts and cracks me up. Why people think an EXTERIOR wash comes with a vaccuum is beyond me. I mean, if it came with a vaccuum we wouldn't call it an exterior wash and charge $5.95 for it. People are so funny sometimes.

People and Tips

So during my 1.9 years of working at the car wash, I have had my share of tips. Good tips, bad tips, normal tips, no tips. All different kinds of tips. I've gotten pretty good at tell who will give a good tip or a bad tip just by looking at someones car or the person themselves. Most elderly people tend to be bad tippers. They normally give about $2 or $3 for most kinds of washes. Young people, ie high school/college aged, also tend to give $2 tips for most washes. Middle aged people vary. Middle aged people are the people that will either stiff (not tip) you or will tip you a good amount($10) for a Executive Wash(24.95). They keep you guessing but if they come in often enough you know who gives what kind of tip for what service. For example, there is this one costumer that comes to the car wash on a regular basis because he has a vip package. It doesn't matter what you do to his vehicle, you will only get tipped $1. Whenever I get stuck doing his car, I don't work as hard on it because I know I'm only going to get that $1 so why do I need to break my back drying his car off. The Best tips come from people that actually work for tips because they understand what it is like to do a lot of hard/dirty work and get a poor tip. So these are the people that tend to tip around 20% and up! Myself, I tend to tip at minimum 20% for that very reason previously stated. Now, the worst tips come from, believe it or not, christians and people with children. These are the people that you can always expect to get either $1 or $2 for any wash. The people that are supposed to be helping other people in need with resources that we have and teaching the next generation to live good lives, are making it difficult for the people who work for tips and depend on tips to make a living to actually make a living. What tends to make it worse with these people is that most of them drive mini vans. Mini vans are the one car that all car wash employees hate washing! they are big and difficult to move around in because most people will have lots of stuff in their vans and we have to climb around all these things and it gets cramped. Even when they are empty it still gets cramped to move around and clean all the interior windows. My point for all this rambling is that one good tip(more than 15%) or one bad tip (less than 15%) can make our day or ruin our day, especially if we get consecutive bad tips, and remember, that we are working for less than minimum wage. We rely on tips to pay our bills and to pay for school.

Car Wash Experience

So I have been working at the car wash for about a year and 9 months now and I have seen so many strange things that people have in their cars and I have seen what people leave behind in their cars/on their cars. Here is a list of things that I have found or seen on someones car.

 Baseball bats
 Machettes
 Bags of money(large amount)
 Crow Bars
 Batons(metal and wooden)
 Hunting Knifes
 Other Large Knives(non hunting knives)s
 Vomit
 Drug Paraphernalia
 Bullets
 Guns
 Used Tissues
 Rats/Mice
 Frogs(2x)
 Pepper Spray
 Months worth of fast food garbage
 Candy
 4 day old spilled milk
 quarry of rocks
 Diapers
 Condoms
 Tampons



I could keep this list going. The amount i've seen is vast. I've seen the most disgusting things that people keep in their cars and dont think that they need to take car of getting cleaned up anytime soon. You name it i've probably seen it in a car or cleaned it out of a car. Since i've started working at the car wash, my bodily cleanliness has become a importance to me. I cannot eat if I dont wash my hands, after all I have to touch everything thats in a car and all the dirt, gunk, and everything people do/leave in their cars. Not to mention, my hands get covered in all the chemicals we use to clean the cars and make them look shiny.