22 Keynotes October 2024 aloa.org SPOTLIGHT SAFE & VAULT What a Day! Gene Gyure Jr., CRL, GSA-T, CAI, relays a drama-filled safe installation job. L AST WEEK WAS MOSTLY … Well, let’s just say it was a really bad week. I thought that a nice weekend would allow me to recuperate, and everything would be great this week. How wrong was I? Well, let me tell you. We were scheduled to pick up a Can- non wide-body safe from the local Trac- tor Supply and deliver and install it in a house I looked at a couple of weeks ago. We loaded up the truck and trailer, grabbed my big guy, Alex, and off we went. When we arrived at Tractor Supply, nobody knew anything about the safe. Nobody at the counter, nobody working in the store … nobody. Finally, some- one working in the back room said they would look for a safe tagged for our cus- tomer. Nope, couldn’t find it. After several minutes of this, another employee called up from the warehouse to say it was buried and would take a few minutes to retrieve. Eventually, this same employee came up to the counter area where Alex and I are waiting and started asking questions. “So, what kind of truck do you have?” “A pickup truck pulling a trailer.” I was trying my best to avoid being snarky. He looked out the front at my Lift-A- Load parked outside. “Are we going to lay it down?” I replied that “I never lay safes down unless it is absolutely neces- sary, and a with a safe like this, it should never be necessary.” This back-and-forth went on for a minute, and finally I said, “We do this for a living.” He gave me a sideways glance and asked how were we “going to get the safe on the trailer?” I smugly replied, “That trailer will go flat on the ground.” He gave me a look as if he didn’t believe me, and I said again, “We do this for living.” With another look of disbelief, he turned and wandered off to the back of the store to find the wayward safe. Finally, after what seemed like an eter- nity, the guy came wheeling around the side of the store with a big gun safe cov- ered by its cardboard shipping container. He stopped behind my trailer, which was now sitting flat on the ground, ready to be loaded. I told him he could drive his heavy forklift onto the ramp only. “Really?” he asked. Like I had just told him an impossible thing. Shaking my head affirmatively, he again gave me a sideways glance and stated matter-of- factly, “Never seen anything like that before.” I really wanted to tell him again, “We do this for a living.” But I bit my lip and just stepped back. At some point, I contemplated remov- ing the box to examine the safe but thought, “Nah, the customer has prob- ably already looked at it and approved it.” I had been sitting there long enough and was in a hurry to get a move on. So, we quickly loaded up and hit the road for the six-mile journey to our customer’s home. An Unexpected Journey Approximately one mile from our destination, I made a wrong turn and decided to do a U-turn to get back on track. Immediately after completing the U-turn, the truck acted like the elec- tric brakes had all but locked up on the trailer. As I was turning onto a very busy street, the truck started sputtering. It was at that point I realized that the trailer wasn’t the issue but rather my truck. As the truck died, we coasted into the center left-turn lane. Here we sat, blocking the exit from a strip mall on our left and a convenience store/gas station on our right. After I put the shifter into park and turned the key, the engine came to life but sputtered and acted like it couldn’t get any fuel. I was contemplating such things as vapor lock, bad gas, failed fuel pump and other automotive nightmares. All the while, I would intermittently try to restart the engine, which ultimately ended in failure. Admitting defeat, I realized it was time to call a tow truck. A friend of mine owns a local company, and they arrived within minutes of my call. By this time, Amanda was trying to call a local garage to see if they could possibly squeeze us in — at least to do a diagnosis of our issue. The tow truck got us hooked up, and it was necessary for him to back up about 65 feet to allow him to make the turn into a large parking lot. Not only did he have to back up with my truck attached but also with my trailer attached to my
