We're finishing the sad task of emptying Carolyn's apartments. She had two of them and also two Public Storage lockers…and while we were at it, we moved everything out of my Public Storage locker. I am here using the term "Public Storage" in its non-generic state, denoting the actual company by that name. I am not fond of that company at the moment.
For decades, I had a big unit — gosh, that sounds sexual — in one of their eight zillion facilities. It was on the ground floor of one wing of a huge building which is supposed to have guards, alarms, security cameras, impenetrable doors and secret access codes. Sometime between late Saturday night, April 8 and the following morning, it apparently only had a few of those things. One or more people (probably more) armed with axes broke into that wing and hacked into about fifty lockers, mine included.
The doors there are not metal. They have great, strong locks but what good is a great, strong lock when you can break into the door and literally chop the lock out? Each cubicle was ransacked. Neatly-stacked rows of boxes in mine were toppled and the contents emptied and strewn about. We re-boxed but I'm still trying to figure out what ain't there no more. If someone tries to sell you some old, mint-condition copies of Groo the Wanderer or any of my books and they're carrying an ax, you'll know where they got them.
My unhappiness with the company flows from their total disinterest in the whole matter. It pretty much comes down to "Talk to your insurance man and don't bother us." (I talked to my insurance man, who's actually an insurance lady. Turns out my homeowner's policy does cover this theft and they're figuring out if it covers the labor involved in paying others to re-box and rearrange. But either way, there is this $1,000 deductible…)
When pressed further by me, the manager of the storage facility insisted she had no power to do anything…which I believe. She told me to call Customer Service — which I did — and guess what! I got another person with no power to do anything.
When I insisted on knowing who in the company could actually do something, he said I'd have to talk to a Division Supervisor. I've left a couple of messages which are so far unreturned and I suspect always will be. Either that or they'll tell me they have no power to do anything.
Which is why this tenant of 30+ years has upped and moved his re-boxed boxes to a storage facility operated by another company…something I should have done years ago. It's cheaper, nicer, better-lit, cleaner, more secure, nearer to me and operated by people you can actually talk to and who will at least try to make things right. There, one does not find the disturbing trend in business these days to try and set things up such that if you have a complaint, too friggin' bad.
There's an e-mail address and maybe a phone number which asks you to leave a message and someone will get back to you…and then (of course) no one gets back to you. Or if by some chance they do, they either don't know anything or aren't empowered to do anything about it. This has been my problem every time I've flown United Airlines in the last decade or so. Something goes wrong…and it isn't that which irks me. It's that I can't get to anyone with the authority to do more than apologize to me on behalf of the company. They've set it up so no time or money has to be squandered fixing problems or (gasp!) granting refunds.
In an odd way, I almost don't blame companies that do this because we are way too tolerant of it when we can get a bargain. When United had that recent messiness with a passenger who was dragged off a flight and injured, a whole lot of folks were infuriated and said, "I'll never fly United again!" And this is a vow that most of them will keep until they have to go somewhere and United has the flight that's cheapest and/or most convenient. Then they'll say, "Well, when you get right down to it, all the airlines are the same." I am happy to say I've found that all storage facilities are not the same.
In a few days, I may write something here about what it's like to clean out the apartments and storage lockers of a departed loved one like I have this past week. If there's a human emotion I haven't experienced during the process, I can't think what it might be. Indifference, perhaps.