We used to take our oil delivery service and auto refill for granted. That is until we had a problem. Like most people, we don’t want to spend more than we have to on heating oil.
We shopped for the best price, switched companies, and signed up for auto delivery. Everything went smoothly for awhile, until I noticed that the gauge was getting very low.
I called our oil delivery service and asked them to come over as soon as possible to refill our tank. They refused, despite the fact that we were on auto refill and they had forgotten to fill us up.
They made us wait a week for their regularly scheduled visit to our town. We got by, thanks to our wood stove but if the tank had gone dry it could have damaged the oil boiler and the oil filter.
We learned to make it a point to check the level in the tank every single week and to never count on an oil delivery service.
This past weekend we had a very positive experience and with the oil delivery person we had previously taken for granted. We provide property management and get calls in the middle of the night from security companies. This one was a low temp alarm.
The tank was empty. We called the oil company, the one we had recommended to our clients as being reliable. They came right out on a cold & windy Sunday night.
They didn’t make excuses or blame the client. They simply admitted that they had made a mistake. That is how it should be and it is absolutely worth paying a little more for their oil.
Moral of the story – Choose a reliable delivery service and also check the tank once a week, just to be sure. Even good honest people make mistakes sometimes. It is too bad to make them come out in the cold on a snowy Sunday night at dinner time. It costs them their hard earned money and time, not to mention the fact that it can be very difficult to manoeuvre those trucks on narrow snow covered roads after dark.
These are the unsung heroes, the people who work hard to make our lives easier. Rather than take them for granted, we should be showing them the respect they deserve and do what we can to make their lives easier.