Integrity
It’s the Baby Boomer’s humble opinion that today as members of our American society the vast majority appear to lack integrity. “Back in the day”, the Baby Boomer believes the majority of folks displayed a high degree of integrity. I could go into great detail as to why we’ve experienced such a decline in integrity, but I’ll suffice to say it’s mainly due to the demise of the institutions of family, church, and education. We seemingly have lost all sense of structure, standards, and accountability in our society. By definition integrity is the “quality of being honest and having strong moral and ethical principles; moral uprightness”.
As the Baby Boomer and La Bear have gotten older, we’ve lost mobility to the point where it’s more difficult for us to get up and down the stairs at The Compound. With three levels of stairs from the pool deck to our master bedroom on the third floor climbing all those stairs can be a rather challenging endeavor. So, I came up with the idea of exploring the possibility of adding an elevator to our home.
Mind you the reason I’m bringing this up is to use this experience in order to reveal what I found to be a severe lack of integrity. My father was the epitome of man who “oozed” integrity and fortunately for me he passed that along. Hey, each morning that I’m fortunate enough to wake up and am forced to look at my ugly “mug” in the bathroom mirror, it’s so vitally important I’m able to tell myself that I’ve maintained my integrity! In fact, there’s nothing that is more important to me!
I received recommendations and attempted to contact seven firms to get an estimate for a three story/three stop residential elevator. Now, this is where the fun begins. Up front two of the companies are only in the commercial elevator business which just left five. Each of the remaining five, when called, I was told someone would be getting back to me by the next day. Well, that was a joke as only one of the five got back to me by the next day. The company that did get back to me was out of Danville, two and a half hours from The Compound, and said their salesman would make an appointment to visit us when he was in the area. Well, that was late October and it’s now December so I guess they ain’t interested–would’ve been the professional thing to just tell me so! Guess what? I let them know I was no longer interested and fired them before them before they were hired!
The following week, I called the other four companies once again, received an apology, and a guarantee that I would be contacted. One of the companies emailed me to say their salesperson would be reaching out the next day. Of course, that didn’t happen! So, I returned an email and was told via another email they had just made a business decision to no longer build residential elevators as they will just concentrate on the commercial side. Hmmm!
Now, we’re down to three potential companies and you’re already seeing the lack of integrity brewing. Again, not having heard back when I was told I’d hear back, I reached out for a last time letting each company know that they evidently weren’t interested in wanting to pursue this business opportunity. Folks, these elevators ain’t cheap–probably $80-$100K!! With that in mind, why in the world won’t these companies get back to me!
Finally, I’m getting some responses after they’ve been threatened. This one dude at one of the companies sent me some info and made an appointment to visit The Compound two days later. Ten minutes past the agreed upon time for the appointment, I get a call from him saying something had come up and could we reschedule for the next day. Hmmm! I asked why he waited to call ten minutes after our appointment to let me know something had come up and he really didn’t have a response. Oh, well, having to let him know I was having a difficult time trusting him and told him I didn’t think I could do business with him as he lacked integrity. He was fired before he was hired!
Another company got back to me sending some info which was difficult to decipher calling me two weeks later to see if I was interested and ready to make a decision based off of the info he had sent. It was obvious he had little intention of meeting with me and so I just told him I was no longer interested. I mean constructing a residential elevator is a major deal and you think I’m making a decision from info on an email without you checking on the logistics? Yep, fired before hired!
The last company got back to me and said they would send me some info the next day and made an appointment to come to The Compound also bringing a general contractor with him to size up the construction project. Things were beginning to finally look up!
That is, until they didn’t send me the information promised, whereby, I sent a text a week later asking why the promised material hadn’t been sent. Got some lame excuse in the email where the info was finally sent. The day prior to the appointment, I sent a text to confirm our scheduled 10AM appointment. The dude confirmed saying he’d see me at 10AM. Now, this is where integrity comes into the picture as I’m sitting on the front porch prior to 10AM when at 10:15AM I get a call from the dude saying he was on his way and would be there by 10:30AM which was the time he had on his calendar. Huh? What? I said okay knowing I had to immediately get off the phone in order to cool off ’cause the Baby Boomer was hot! After a moment or two when I had come to my senses not believing what I had just heard, I calmly called the dude back and asked if he had the GC with him? Of course, his response was a “no” with another lame excuse and I told him he damn right knew the appointment was at 10AM, that he had lied to me, didn’t have an ounce of integrity, and that his company was fired before it was hired, turn around and go home!!!
So, I’ve come to the conclusion that no one in our area wants to build a residential elevator although they’re in the residential elevator business. I’ve also come to the conclusion that none of those businesses have any integrity whatsoever. Hmmm!!!!
Hey, we all knew how devastating the coronavirus was back in 2020. Let the Baby Boomer tell you it also has totally changed the way people act–they ain’t got any integrity! I certainly am not able to put my finger on it, but things are really different and so much so that we had to escape what society had turned into by basically going in seclusion out in the country at The Compound.
When I was at W/M so, so many years ago, we put into place a policy which we called the “Sundown Rule” meaning if someone had reached out to you, it was your responsibility and commitment to reach back out to them by the time the sun went down the same day–no excuses!! It worked, allowed us to build trust, and created integrity.
The Baby Boomer has gotta tell you, life is about family and the respect and appreciation you show for one another, life is about the relationships you build with people outside your family and the respect you have for those you’ve built a relationship with, and in life there’s nothing more important than maintaining your integrity!!!!