eeboater
Commander
- Joined
- Jul 19, 2004
- Messages
- 2,644
Im not sure if you guys knew about this or not but our company used to have a branch office in New Orleans. When Katrina blew through there, it blew the roof off our office and flooded the whole place. The guy who was in charge of that office fled to the Florida panhandle before the hurricane hit. His house ended up with over 2 feet of standing water in it when the levees broke. <br /><br />Well, we finally have the office rebuilt in New Orleans again. So, I am going on a road trip! We used to have a branch office in Naperville, IL, but due to some recent management changes, we closed that office. As a result, we have a whole office of computers, faxes, computers and furniture that is not being used. I get to haul all of that furniture down to New Orleans. My brother is going to be helping me out by joining me on the trip. So, next Monday, we begin our trip down! Its going to be very interesting to say the least as we will be traveling straight down the middle of Mississippi and ending in New Orleans. Were going to be poised with our cameras to take some photos. I have a feeling there are going to be some interesting sights. <br /><br />As of right now, were staying in the Embassy Suites which is right smack in downtown New Orleans. From what I can tell it is in the middle of the area that was all under water. According to Embassy Suites website, they only clean your hotel room every three days
and the pools are all closed. Since I have been in charge of pretty much every detail related to the re-setup of this location, I have been working with a lot of vendors in that area
printer, phones, cable. I had a long conversation with a phone vendor those people from Louisiana can talk your ear off if you let them and he stated that he is having a problem finding people to do work for him. He is currently backed up over 3 weeks with just his current customers even with him turning away all the new potential customers (like me) who had their phone systems decimated by the hurricane. He said he has plenty of techs that can do the high-level installations of the phone systems, what he is missing is the grunts
the people who just run cable through a building for a living. Since the hurricane, everyone who did those types of jobs decided to just leave the city and never return. <br /><br />You might ask why I am doing the driving instead of hiring a moving company. I spoke with several different moving companies about getting quotes to move all of the equipment down to Louisiana. The cheapest quote I received was for over $4500 nearly $2000 more than it would cost to have me drive it down. The reason they are so expensive is because of the same reason the phone guy gave. No one is willing to get paid to move stuff. A guy from Allied van lines said that they were offering guys $25 an hour to unload moving vans
no one accepted their offer.<br /><br />Anyways, I rambled a bit more than I anticipated
oh well, I thought it was interesting.<br /><br />Sean
