I was reminded of this story when my brother and I were driving through a local town and a business was getting a rental man-lift delivered and now I choose to share it with you.
At some level, even an Atheist assholes get theirs in the end. There are many different beliefs and many similar definitions attached to different words, all of which seem to center around what many call karma. For those unfamiliar with my definition of Karma:
The universe seeks to purge assholes and Karma is how it does it. Regrettably there are more assholes than Karma so it takes a while to get to them all.
This definition explains why Jamie Dimon is walking around free after committing his financial crimes of biblical proportions yet Bernie Madoff (who took an amount which isn’t even tip money when compared to Jamie Dimon’s theft while at the help of Chase) will die in prison. No, it doesn’t mean Bernie Madoff is a bigger asshole than Jamie Dimon, quite the opposite. It means Karma hasn’t gotten around to punishing Jamie Dimon in an appropriate manner.
You don’t have to be big and important to be an asshole. You can be poor and unimportant and be just as big an asshole. Oddly enough, it seems to be required for most sales positions. Who else could look you in the eye and say “trust me” while selling you a hunk of junk they know will kill both you and your family? Such was the person in this story. I never met the man but from things I’ve heard I view him as an evil Mr. Haney.
For many years I had owned a man-lift. It wasn’t a pretty thing, but it was functional and functional was all I needed. Yes, sometimes I would have to work on it for 2 days before I could use it, but that is because it sat outside much of the year unused.
Broken manlift from distance
Not that it matters, but I called it Manuel the Manlift. I told myself I would work on any part of it except the boom. When something appeared to need fixing on the boom I was going to get rid of it. As you can see by the images here, I didn’t quite get rid of it soon enough. That stuff hanging down near the end of the main section is what was left of the chain which makes it go in and out. It broke while I was scraping and painting a shed door. Too much time outside and an inability to oil all links of it cause a few to rust up stiff and snap when it came their turn to bend around a gear.
Yes, I knew my manlift didn’t have much life left, and had been shopping around for a different one. I had this thing a very long time and definitely got my money’s worth because the price of scrap steel had went up so much the recycling place paid me more for the scrap than I paid for the lift.
Our story really begins here, but, you needed to know the back story.
There is a large manlift and other equipment dealer not all that far from me. It is one of many dealers whose on-line listings I had been poking through looking for Manuel the Second. At this dealership was the salesman I had never met. A customer and someone who came with him showed up to look at a lift. The customer complained the lift the salesman was trying to sell him needed new hydraulic lines. The salesman became irritated, not wanting to put new lines on to make the sale because that would be thousands of dollars. Finally with irritation peaked the exchange went something like this:
salesman: There is nothing wrong with those *&^)(*&)(ing lines. Here, I’ll show ya! We’ll start it up and ride it to the top.
customer: I don’t know about that . . .
Once the lift was started.
salesman: Come on, get in this basket with me. We’ll take it all the way to the top and prove to you there is nothing wrong with this lift.
After some hem-hawing around the customer got in and the person who came with them stood back to watch. The lift went a long way up, but not all the way, before the lines popped and down it came. Both men died.
Whether I have the exchange verbatim or not doesn’t matter. It’s how I envisioned it and seems to coincide with the newspaper article I remember reading about the incident. It was a good number of years ago after all.
Sometimes Karma can’t avoid collateral damage.
I know I have never bought anything there after reading that. I chose to buy my bucket truck on-line from someone I had never met and I ran the lift all the way up from the ground control when it arrived. If there was something wrong with it I would either have a bit of repair work or something else for the recyclers to come get.
Bucket Truck
If you live long enough, Karma will find you. She is a woman that never forgets.