The Service Trifecta

City workers installing a new curb

LaGrange is a very strange place.  It is filled with service people who actually want to provide service.  It's really quite amazing and every time it happens I am still surprised.  Let me explain.

Back in Silicon Valley, one the worst things that can happen to a homeowner is a small problem, like a leaky faucet, or a light switch which needs replacement.  You would think that the simpler the repair the easier it would be to find a service person to fix it.  You would be wrong.  

The rapid rise in Silicon Valley home prices, has led to an explosion of home improvement projects.  Homes are so expensive, it is usually far more cost effective to renovate your current home, than sell it and buy another home. And in the crazy Silicon Valley world, if you can't find a house which fits your taste, you simply buy a home in a location you like, tear it down and build your dream house from scratch.  The effect of all of this is that every contractor, electrician, plumber and painter has more work than he or she can possibly do.

So if you are an unlucky homeowner with a small project like a faucet replacement, getting a plumber to come out and fix your problem is much akin to winning the lottery.  You reason, that much like the lottery, the more people you call (or tickets you buy) the better your chance of getting someone to call you back.  We have had to call three to five different plumbers to even have a chance of one of them calling us back.  And if you are lucky enough to have one call you back, you probably have to wait a week or two until they can fit you into their schedule. You then wait and hope they actually show up when they said they would.  Everyone acts like this is completely normal and never apologizes for the delay.  After all, who wants to do a small job when all of those major building projects are available.  I know some people who once they find a responsive electrician or plumber (not me), won't even give their names to friends for fear that the next time they need help, the plumber will be too busy to come by.

When we moved into our home in LaGrange, the cold water faucet for the washing machine leaked.  I called my landlord who said they would have a plumber get back to me.  I started to wonder about the location of the nearest laundromat, knowing that I might be in for a long wait.  An hour later the plumber called.  I explained my problem and he said, "I am sorry that I can't make it out this afternoon, would first thing tomorrow morning be alright?"  I was so shocked I actually asked him to confirm that he meant the next morning, not the next week.  He assured me I had heard correctly and sure enough at 9am the next morning the plumber arrived and quickly fixed the problem. 

The next day was my appointment for the cable company to install our internet connection.  When they didn't arrive at the appointed time, I started to feel a little better, maybe LaGrange was not so different.  I called and after a few minutes on the phone, the customer service person apologized and explained that somehow my order had been cancelled which is why no one had shown up.  They then went on to ask if it would be all right if an installer came the next morning to set up my internet service.  Again, the service person arrived at 9am and within a few hours our orders were again flowing smoothly into Amazon.com.  Later that afternoon, a supervisor from the cable company came by to check to see if  everything went well.

This amazing service ethic, even seems to extend to public service workers.  A few days later, I got a knock on the door in the morning.  A city worker told me that they the city was replacing the curb in front of our house.  I looked out and there were at least five people, ripping out the old curb, digging the ditch and installing the forms for the concrete to be poured etc.  Every time I looked out the window, all of the workers were actually working.  I did not see a manager standing around watching the work, I did not see two people standing on the street with stop signs directing traffic.  All I saw were workers doing work.  The sun went down around 5pm; lights were brought out and by 7:30 the concrete for the new curb was poured.  The next day the project was complete.

I no longer dread something going wrong in the house and the accompanying stress of trying to find someone to fix it, I simply pick up the phone, call a service person and smile when they arrive within the next 24 hours.  I have won the service Trifecta - prompt, quality and reasonably priced service!

The STORE

Back in Silicon Valley when you told someone "you were going to the store," they would probably then ask "which store?"  Food shopping would be at Safeway or Draegers (having not yet accepted Whole Foods as my personal food savior), clothing at Stanford Mall or Santana Row, hardware at Los Altos Hardware or Orchard, furniture at Macy's or Scandinavian Design, you get the picture.

In LaGrange, "going to the Store" almost always means you are going to Walmart.  Regardless of what you are looking for, most likely Walmart has it.  From clothing to furniture, from food & vegetables to televisions, from hardware to guns and ammo, from sporting goods to cosmetics, Walmart has it all in one convenient place and it is all available 24/7.  

The LaGrange Walmart is immense, it is not just a Walmart, but a Walmart Supercenter. According to Walmart it is somewhere between 178,000 to 260,000 square feet.  To give you a sense of scale, my old Los Altos Safeway was 41,000 square feet.  

It turns out that being able to get everything in one place is great.  No more arguments over which grocery or market has the best produce, or which department store has the best jeans selection; in LaGrange the answer is always Walmart.  Walmart always has what we need.  To our great amazement, we discovered even if we didn't find exactly what we wanted, we could actually live with a substitute item carried at Walmart.  Who knew?  I will admit that black truffles and caviar (which were often available at Draegers) were not in the grocery aisle, but then again I never bought them  anyways.  Now, if I really need them, there is always Amazon Prime.

One of the cool things Walmart offers is their "Savings Catcher."  Using the Walmart app, you simply scan your receipt when you leave the store.  Walmart maintains a comparison price database and compares the prices you paid to prices at other local stores.  If an item is available at a lower price at another store, the app give you a credit ("reward dollars") for the difference. 

Since we are setting up a new home, there were always things we need, so we end up at Walmart at least once a day, and sometimes even twice.  I guess we are too good a customer.  After the first four or five visits, we exceeded the app's weekly limit, and could not enter any more receipts till the next week.  I guess from now on we have to ration our Walmart trips to only a few times a week.  As of today our total reward dollars equal $4.98!

Moving to LaGrange???

Image © 2016 Nancy Laube

After over 20 years in Silicon Valley, my wife Nancy and I are relocating to a small town about 90 miles south of Atlanta.  We arrived in Los Altos Hills in 1991, at the dawn of the Internet, and were lucky enough to be a part of the most amazing technology revolution over the past 25 years. These years have been well beyond anything we could have imagined when we arrived here from New York.

Over the years, Nancy had often reminisced about her childhood in the mid-west and how being close to her family was so wonderful.  She talked about having coffee with her aunts, and extended family dinners with cousins, aunts, uncles and grandparents.  So one day when she was remembering such a moment, I said "why don't we just move near your sister in Georgia and be part of our  nieces' lives?"

From that moment, we started to consider if we could actually leave our friends, favorite restaurants and our lives here in Silicon Valley.  Turns out there are restaurants and good food everywhere, so that left us thinking about friends.

After 20 years, we have established a group of wonderful, interesting, exciting friends.  Could we leave them?  We first realized that some of them were leaving us.  Over the years, some of our best friends had moved on.  Some moved away and then moved back.  But we realized that we were able to maintain our friendships despite the distance.  Facebook, Twitter, Skype etc. allowed us to be part of their lives and they of ours, maintaining our connections between our visits and phone calls.

We also realized that our lives were so busy that we only physically visited with most of our friends every 6-8 weeks.  Nancy made the sly comment that we could move to Georgia and never even tell anyone!  If someone invited us to dinner (which usually was a few weeks out given our schedules) we could just fly back and see them, with no one being any the wiser.

Our decision made, we rented a house in LaGrange about 3 miles from my wife's sister, and in the first 10 days of staying there, we had 4 family dinners, had our nieces come by after school to do homework 3 times, and visited WalMart 9 times (but that is a story for another day).

The DMV

Tell anyone in California that you are going to the DMV and you get a knowing look of deep sympathy.  Visiting the DMV for any reason ranks somewhere between a root canal and spending an afternoon with a used car salesman.  The process of dealing with the California DMV is so bad, there are successful businesses which simply hire people to stand in line at the DMV on your behalf.

So it was with great dread I prepared for visiting the Georgia DDS (Department of Driver Services) to obtain my Georgia drivers license.  I first went to the DDS website to find the online appointment system.  In California no one in their right mind would attempt to simply walk into a DMV office without a pre-scheduled appointment.  Without an appointment you could expect to wait 3-4 hours for service.  Sadly my search of the DDS site found no online appointment system.  I did find a notice that my local DDS office was open Tuesday-Friday and the best days to visit would be Wednesday and Thursday.  I also discovered, to my surprise, that unlike any other state I have lived in, Georgia does not require a written test if you already have an out of state drivers license.

I planned to be at the DDS office on Wednesday as soon as it opened at 8am hoping to beat the crowds.  Having overslept that day I finally arrived around 10am.  I walked into a large room with about 50 folding chairs and about 5 service windows.  There was one person sitting on a chair filling out a form, 3 people behind 3 of the service windows and a receptionist.

I walked right up to the receptionist and after a few pleasantries (in the South, simply asking immediately for what you want is considered rude) I told her that I was here for a driver's license.  She said she would give me a number and then watch an electronic board for my number to appear and the service window I should go to.  She handed me my number and immediately said "just go on now to window 3"

The gentlemen behind the window took my documents, took my picture, and 10 minutes later I had a Georgia drivers license.  Total time from when I walked through the front door to license about 11 minutes.

I think I may really like small town southern living.