“Crap crap crap,” I needed to find parking; I was running late for the 8 A.M. Jeep Wrangler mild hybrid thermal system meeting that I was leading. “There’s a spot! No, wait. There’s a Fiat 500 in it!” Eventually, after a long search, I parked my Jeep Cherokee XJ on the top of the full parking garage, then sprinted by the enormous, chock-full lot on the north side of the world’s second largest office building, the Chrysler Technical Center in Auburn Hills, Michigan. I stood in line at the turnstiles, swiped my card, and tried to avoid bumping into any of the khaki-wearing engineers whose hands wrapped around the extended batteries of their oversize laptops. This was my normal morning at the bustling “CTC” back when I worked there between 2013 and 2015. The energy was palpable; recent college graduates like myself were leading entire teams trying to build some of Chrysler’s greatest products ever. It was a golden era when every desk was filled, the microwave in the hallway had a line of folks waiting to heat up leftovers, and finding open offices for your cooling system meetings was a downright chore. Things aren’t like that anymore — not even close, as I just found when I stopped by my former workplace yesterday. It looked like a ghost town.
I think we all know deep down that the COVID-19 pandemic changed the world permanently. Some of us are a bit in denial, hoping that things return to how they once were. Perhaps the idea of such rapid and uncontrolled change scares us — instills in us a realization that the firm bedrock upon which we’d built our entire worldview is — and, really, always was — actually a fragile foundation endlessly teetering in unstable equilibrium.
These are the thoughts that shot through my head the other day as I drove past my former workplace, the Chrysler Tech Center — a 5.4 million square-foot headquarters meant to house some of the most talented automotive engineers, designers, businesspeople, and technicians on the planet. And entire car company under a single roof. It was hard to shake off the melancholy, even though I know that many people are happier working from home these days; mine wasn’t a particularly logical emotional reaction, but then, feelings rarely are.
I remember feeling similarly when I lived on the east side of Detroit and regularly drove through completely abandoned neighborhoods. Why was that so upsetting? The people in those homes hadn’t died, they’d just moved 25 miles north to the ‘burbs. They’re probably driving their Jeep Grand Cherokees to Whole Foods right now, doing just fine.
I think, on some level, it’s just nostalgia — humans’ bizarre illusion that things before were much better even when they really weren’t. Driving down the east side’s Schoenherr Road or through run-down Belle Isle, and thinking about how the once-booming neighborhoods and once-bustling park now sat derelict — there was just something sad about that, just as there was something sad about looking at the CTC and its empty parking lot. A fall from grace.
But I don’t think it was pure nostalgia, because I think part of what made me feel sad in both cases was knowing that the reasons for these exoduses involved immeasurable suffering. Racial conflict in one case, and a pandemic that has killed millions of people in the other. An empty building itself isn’t sad — buildings don’t have feelings — but the context that causes change is impossible to divorce from the change itself.
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I don’t mean to imply any sort of equivalency between Detroit’s plight and Chrysler’s workers now logging in on their computers remotely, nor do I want to make it seem like this even matters in the context of over 6 million people perishing from the earth, but it’s just something that’s on my mind: The Chrysler Technical Center in Auburn Hills will never be the same. It will almost certainly never be filled with 11,000 engineers, designers, marketers, PR professionals, and technicians. That experience that my friends and I share trying to figure out how to build cars, all together in that one high-energy building, is gone forever. Engineers will swing by Chrysler’s (err, Stellantis’s) facilities whenever they need to interact with hardware (i.e. testing and other physical assessments), or when they need to fill up their M-plate’s gas tank (free gas!), [Editor’s Note: Wait, you got free gas? – JT] but by and large, the Chrysler Technical Center will remain largely empty. Any attempt to force employees back into the office will almost certainly be met with resistance. People want to see their families more and deal with awful commutes less. I don’t think Chrysler wants to risk losing talent by requiring in-person attendance, so it’s no surprise that rumors have been swirling about Chrysler leasing out parts of the Tech Center as office space.
Anyway, back to my visit to the Tech Center; see this area at the very back of the enormous parking lot? This is where people who don’t drive Chrysler vehicles had to park, and then walk far in the cold Michigan winters. Yes, Chrysler punished you if you didn’t drive their cars; it’s pretty silly. Now instead of cool JDM machines and VW GTIs, there are literally zero cars there:
Here’s the big parking garage that was almost always full — there’s not a whole lot going on in there:
This is the main lot on the north side. At 3:30 on a Thursday, this place used to be packed:
And what do we have here? Looks like at least eight competitive vehicles in the Chrysler-only lot! This would not have stood pre-pandemic; it was a crime that I’m pretty sure was punishable by death — or at the very least, a month of solitary confinement in a 2007 Dodge Caliber. Or an hour in a climatic chamber.
Look at these prime parking spots right near the entrance — these would be full back in the day, and folks would be walking around this area, some trying to avoid being attacked by Canada Geese (each year, Chrysler’s HR team sent out an email warning employees about the aggressive Canada Geese on the property).
The south entrance on the other side of the building had a few more cars in the lot, since this is where the engine/vehicle testing happens. Plus, that’s where the thermal simulation team hangs out, and trust me: Those are some hard-working folks. Still, the lot was mostly empty:
Obviously, what I’m describing here doesn’t just apply to Chrysler. I stopped by Ford’s HQ a few months back, and saw that the company was apparently using the employee parking lot as a staging yard for new vehicles. Just look at this sea of new Fords:
A huge part of of many our lives — where and how we work — has changed forever. Offices all around the world have become ghost towns, and the big, energetic workplace is, in many cases, gone forever. And while there’s a nostalgic aspect to this that makes me a bit sad, the dominant feelings as I stood there in an empty lot of the second largest office building on earth (second to the Pentagon) — where I’d once worked — were: 1. This world can pivot in an instant, and whatever control I thought I had over that was an illusion and 2. Socially, this is a huge change.
I already talked about the first point involving “control.” I think many of us have struggled with this post-pandemic. The second one is something we have to come to grips with, too: In some ways, the world has become less social. I’ve been working online for the past seven years, and before the pandemic I began thinking about changing that — about returning to a real office. There’s just no substitute for in-person human interaction, and now, during a large part of our day, many of us won’t get that. To me, that daily interaction that I used to have with scores of people at the Chrysler Technical Center had a lot of inherent value. It wasn’t just that I was around people during those eight hours a day, it was that being with them tended to facilitate the growth of friendships outside of work. Even after I left Chrysler, I still hung out with the friends I’d made there, and they regularly introduced me to many new people whom they’d met at the office. Since the pandemic, I don’t see that same level of interaction — folks don’t seem to be hanging out with their coworkers like before. What once represented a great opportunity to build relationships has shriveled.
None of this is a complaint, and certainly, many folks (especially those with families and sweet houses) are loving this new setup, and I think that’s great. I just wanted to talk about what it was like to travel back to that Tech Center, because standing there in that lot and seeing tumbleweeds blow across the once-thriving workplace was a powerful reminder of just how capricious this world can be.
Well, that’s funny. I dunno if you put the sign up or your co-workers, but I see the “Rick Moranis or David Tracy?” stuck to your cubicle. Now I can’t unsee it.
There are many benefits to remote work. Not dealing directly with certain coworkers is one of them. And indirectly, this is one of the reasons why – some coworkers have no tact.
Now if you put it up yourself, that’s different.
That was a guy named Jim Repp. He calls me “dumbass.” He also gets mad when I call him “The Father of the Rubicon.”(It’s true; he and another guy came up with the idea for the Wrangler Rubicon trim. Just accept the honor, Jim!).
Jim is a wealth of Jeep lore and information. I’m glad to know that guy.
It really is a different world. I’m a building design engineer (I design the electrical and lighting systems for buildings), and our industry (architects, civil, structural, mechanical, and electrical engineers) is still navigating what the new work-from-home means to our field. Our company has made a nice balance where we can work from home 3 days a week, but everyone works from the office on the other 2 days. We need the collaboration and interaction, especially for the younger engineers.
Some other firms have forced everyone back. Some are doing hoteling desks to reduce how much space they need to rent. Some have pretty much closed their offices and have everyone work from home.
The challenge right now is what happens to all the office space out there. Does it downsize? Is it converted to housing? Some offices are actually adding more amenity spaces to encourage people to come in. Things like gyms, kitchens, lounging space, etc. Developers and business owners are still trying to navigate all of that.
For now, the design and construction industry is very busy, but construction is getting incredibly expensive and lead times for materials are beyond a year on many things, so it doesn’t seem sustainable. There are a ton of challenges out there for the building owners and their tenants.
I don’t miss that long walk from Lot 10 (through Deck 60) in the middle of winter – we switched to parking in Lot 11 as it was marginally closer (and you could still cut through the deck if it was raining)…but it was a guaranteed 1/2 mile walk each day simply having to walk so far from the car.
That said…working from home is 150% better than in-person. Given I grew up in the digital age with instant messaging (AIM!), I have no trouble fostering and growing relationships over Microsoft Teams, and my group, at least (no longer at CTC, but rather “CTC South”) does get together on a not-uncommon occasion.
Canada Geese, my dude. They don’t establish nationality.
Really large office spaces are going to be an interesting thing to watch going forward to see if the owners try for black box tax rates the way some big box and mall owners have. “Tax us like we’re an unoccupied building or we’ll make it an unoccupied building” is a heck of a gambit.
Given your age, you’d most likely have seen a drop in work socialization regardless, just because you’re in the settling down years. Happens to everyone, then you sit around at work reminiscing about going out with work friends before you all leave to get your kids. It sucks, particularly if you haven’t hit that mode yet, but it’s natural.
I am decidedly disappointed in the lack of references to The Specials.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZ2oXzrnti4
FYI, the song is about similar urban decay in Coventry, home of everyone’s favorite Jaaaaaaag.
I’m sure you meant to say aggressive *Canada* geese. These are a well-known occurrence. But Canadian geese are unfailingly polite.
True, but you Canadians still have your Loonies.*
*For those of you who don’t get the joke…..here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loonie
And if you go a problem with Canada gooses you got a problem with me and I suggest you let that marinate!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6GG4ghkfQ0
It will be interesting to look back in a few years after this huge forced social experiment has been underway for awhile. It will have so many consequences that we have yet to understand. While I love the flexibility that I have now working remotely, the value of constant human interaction is hard to measure – socially or business-wise. Now, if you want social interaction, you have to make an effort to reach out, and many are not going to do that if not forced to. Working with others in an office forced me to talk to people more, and even conversations that started out casually often led to productive problem-solving. Also, putting a face to a name IN PERSON, not on Teams, and getting to know people on a more personal level pays dividends in their willingness to prioritize things that you need to get your job done. I also see it dividing the classes even more. I don’t have to commute to work, which opens up more time to work out, see the kids/wife, take care of my house, and results in an even higher quality of life even without taking the higher pay into account when compared to folks that have to actually be at their jobs (in my case, the people on the factory floor in my company). It also creates a situation where white collar people no longer need to interact with blue collar people as much, and that is not good, as they are the ones dealing with the solutions you come up with most of the time and it is already tough to deal with the “Us vs Them” mentality between hourly and management.
Ah yes, the constant argument about social interaction. The keyword there is never uttered. Forced. Forced social interaction at a place you are forced to be at for at least 8 hours a day if you are full time. Forced interaction is trash and the “thought leaders” who actually think that your workplace creates a “community” or a wonderful utopia of “social interaction” are completely broken individuals who need to get help. The others are just gaslighting everyone. Your actual community that you live in has plenty of things going on that allows for plenty of social interaction that you can choose for yourself. None of this completely idiotic forced team building with people you may or may not stand to be around. Arguments can be made for voluntary options to go back to some hellscape office full of gross food smells and harsh lighting with people who are loud and annoying and that’s where it should stay. Voluntary.
This!
I’ve always seen the “community” and “family” environment of the workplace as HR bullshit to placate employees into working a longer day without added compensation or worse to brainwash employees into a corporate cult.
I agree with you completely but, trying to find a middle ground, have people come to the office for a reason. If you believe in person meetings or team building are important, designate a day for people to come in, have in person meetings, have impromptu conversations, etc. Don’t just require people to go in every day just for the sake of going in. It’s not a zero sum game, there is a cost to having to constantly be in the office.
Managers and executives also sometimes forget that many employees actually need to do work sometimes. Not everyone makes their living in meetings all day. Some people actually need to sit and have uninterrupted periods of concentration on what they’re doing in order to produce quality results.
I miss the office some days too, but man for as long as I have small kids, working from home is utterly fantastic.
No more rushing to pick them up, no more arguing with my wife about who’s going to be late that morning because they have to drop the kids off at day care, no more missing activities when I’m stuck in traffic, etc.
I went there for a job interview about 3 years ago…I was almost late because I couldn’t find a damn parking spot!!
Wasn’t CTC originally designed with the intention that if Chrysler ever stopped using it, it could pivot easily to being a shopping mall? Interesting that both potential uses are on equally precarious footing.
I believe that’s an urban legend
In the late odds, the very day Chrysler declared bankruptcy, I was (by chance) filming some interviews at the CTC. The PR team themselves were joking about the shopping mall backup plan, but kind of as a true thing.
It might be an urban legend but the building does look the part…
Side note. What shocked me the most was seeing full size minivans driving around… inside the office space!
Yeah, there’s a good chance I caught the initial rumor and missed the later follow-up that it wasn’t true.
I guess it’s apt that the facade of a building in this industry would basically be a parking garage.
Hypothetical (or maybe not) question. Let’s say you were running the technical centre and the opportunity arose to hire some of the best, most talented engineers that could give your company a major competitive advantage. But…
…they did not or could not drive for some reason. I guess that would have made them unemployable in a place like this. Ah, American myopia.
I don’t think that someone that works for one of the Big 3 is going to be someone anti-car enough to willingly choose to not drive. They may not be able to, but that will normally be due to physical disability, and there are services that allow one to be shuttled around for that.
Heck until the current generation a young person not wanting a car or not wanting to drive was as rare as hens teeth
I got my driver’s license on the morning of my 16th birthday. My daughter is 19 and only recently got her learners permit. I don’t get it at all.
It’s because with older generations a license meant freedom. The world was now wide open for you to do as you pleased. With the current generation it’s a 2 fold reason as to why they don’t care. Primarily, most of their lives are centered around social media. To a point of living primarily on the web vs. in reality. Additionally, thanks to Uber/Lyft and other mobility companies (e-scooters), freedom to move arounds is there without doing any of the work. Those two things combined and why bother driving?
Not saying I like it or agree with it but that’s at least the rational.
Also, spoiled shits. I needed a car to get to my part time job after High School so I could earn enough money…. to spend on my car…. wait a minute….
The hardest part is convincing the best, most talented to live in Detroit. That was cited as one of the reasons VWoA left for Tennessee. They couldn’t recruit and retain enough employees for Auburn Hills.
Funny thing about that, I’m an industrial designer, always believed in Tesla’s mission statement, investor since 2013, would love to work for them, but no way in hell I’m moving to overpriced crowded ass California. Pandemic, working remotely, maybe?? Musk said no remote work. So. I guess nah. lol.
I would take Detroit over Tennessee any day.
I ended up driving cross-country pretty much at the peak of the worst of the recession that started in ’08. Seeing the small towns that were just… empty was sobering and a bit scary.
Many “experts” have been predicting a move away from traditional office work since the dawn of computers, but it took an outside catalyst (the pandemic) to precipitate the change and it will be a while before we reach a new stable mode.
I worked in the insurance business for many years, and when I talk to old friends at the home office they tell me that it’s a virtual ghost town there.
There are a lot of layers of management who suddenly don’t know how to justify their existence
Absolutely. The amount of people paid to essentially wander around, seagull on people actually working, and manipulate bullshit is aggravating. This also counts for other realms, like schools. You wanna fix education budgets? Hire more teachers and fewer admins, and assume that functional adults don’t need hand-holding.
This is so true. Whenever new employees see other co workers they don’t recognize who they are I respond oh that’s middle management. That’s code for they don’t do anything.
They do something – they take credit and assign blame. If you meant nothing productive, yes you were right. 😉
Every company goes through a trajectory. They go up and ewventually go down.
Throughout my career as a Manufacturing Engineer and Technical Writer, every company I have worked for was already on the downhill side, except for this latest (and hopefully) last one. Boeing Aerospace, Garrett Pneumatics, Aerojet, HP, and Grass Valley Group were all on the downhill slide. There were enough old-timers were still around to regale us with tales of the heady high times. It is very interesting and refreshing to be with a company that is on the uphill side of the trajectory.
First, I am shocked at that level of desertion. If it was such a wonderful place to be, some people would show up.
Second, I would expect that a large number of engineers and marketing people would need access to physical test rigs, simulators, prototypes, high speed design computers, etc. How is that work getting done?
Third, it amazes me that companies were able to pivot so quickly to work from home and maintain a reasonable level of productivity.
Fourth, if people could effectively work from home, why the heck were/are companies building and paying for such monstrous office buildings?
Fifth, I feel the same pangs of nostalgia/FOMO/sorrow/ennui when I see places I used to live, work, or recreate. It doesn’t make any sense but it is wired into us.
Sixth, that is one ugly parking lot.
2: For testing and prototypes, yes, but most of the work done by designers and engineers is digital these days. The techs assembling prototypes and making things IRL are a very small % of employees in product development overall.
3. Personally, I am more productive. I sleep in later, and feel more rested. I can caffeinate constantly without paying $2 for some crappy mountain dew, and I’m not interrupted by random conversations and door chimes and informal meetings. Another big thing is hours; with WFH I attend all my meetings but my actual work time is more flexible, so I find myself working late into the night, which I never, EVER did pre pandemic. Some nights I’m up til midnight or 2am, just because I feel in the zone. Then I work fewer hours the next day, to help balance everything.
YMMV
“Third, it amazes me that companies were able to pivot so quickly to work from home and maintain a reasonable level of productivity”
That’s a big assumption
“Fourth, if people could effectively work from home, why the heck were/are companies building and paying for such monstrous office buildings?” Inertia. We’d been doing it that way, and it seemed like we would just continue. Until covid, there wasn’t a big enough push to change.
“Third, it amazes me that companies were able to pivot so quickly to work from home and maintain a reasonable level of productivity.” I don’t know about you, but in my experience a lot of time is wasted in the office. Maybe Dave wants to tell you all about his weekend. Maybe you are waiting on Sarah to get you the latest numbers. Or maybe you’re posting comments on an automotive website, like me. Most of the work that could pivot to being done from home didn’t need a lot of face-to-face interactions, but we built in extra time for them because we had always done that.
I worked at CTC 96-99. I had to park all the way back in the non-Chrysler lot with my Bronco II, 280Z or Econoline van. That was a hellish hike in winter but luckily I was 4th floor North so close to my cubicle once I got in the back entrance. However a quick satellite view looks like non corporate vehicle parking is even worse now, there are buildings where there used to be parking.
However one nice thing about CTC that almost everything was under one roof, I was just a quick escalator ride down to the bumper impact lab. The other automakers I’ve worked at have facilities spread across many different buildings or even cities!
Lovely story, David. It is kinda sad seeing a building like that just going to waste. That said, I’ve worked from home as an online University professor for 6 years now, and as an extreme introvert, I couldn’t be happier. But I get how sad it is for all the extroverts out there (you’re the majority by a long shot, after all) when office buildings and other communal working spaces get shut down.
Anyway, this sentence caught my eye: “There’s a spot! No, wait. There’s a Fiat 500 in it!”
As the frequent driver of our 500e, this is my constant nightmare. No matter where I park, unless it’s in a charging spot, and even sometimes then, I’m invariably between two giganto-mobiles and my car is almost literally invisible. I always worry that someone is going to swoop in on the “empty” spot in their Canyonero and crush my tiny Fiat. I’ve taken to parking as far out as I can to hopefully avoid this fate. So far-so good.
I have to do the same with my Honda Fit, and have grown used to parking with a good 3rd of the parking space open in front of my car at Costco. As a bonus it lets the F250s on either side open their doors pretty easily.
Also a Fit owner, I call it shallow parking.
Fit driver here too.
I get a little frisson of excitement knowing I disappointed some Canyonero driver when I’m in a space they think is available. Almost makes up for their bullying me.
Also, thank the goddess for backup cameras.
The first time I saw a ForTwo in person, it had been run into by a truck that didn’t realize it was in the parking spot.
My car isn’t tiny, but I still observe “good guy small car” parking rules. Just better for everyone.
No motorcycles in the deck? BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Fuck it! They can ride around the turnstile or park in the same space as that Fiat 500 trying to troll you into thinking it’s empty 😛
At least the people who can;t work remotely will be able to find a parking space now 😀
Also, most remote workers used to live in expensive areas (NYC, SF, etc) and moved to cheaper areas, but in Michigan, it shouldn’t be a problem since the Detroit area seems to be the cheapest housing market anyway LOL
I had the same reaction to the motorcycle sign. Sorry, Sir. I rode my motorcycle to work because my bloody Chrysler wouldn’t start….again!
Finding a garage in Metro Detroit was hard too find. I ended up working on my motorcycle at the now defunct Tech Shop in Allen Park
Sitting here in my office reading this, continuously perplexed by how different other people’s lives are from mine
Sitting here in my condo reading this, continuously beaming that I’m retired.
I did three weeks of WFH in May 2020 that the company said was for our protection due to cases in my city and the factory. Two years later they talk about how the factory closed due to a lack of raw materials supply.
So on a professional side, life continued relatively unchanged when compared to my friends’ lives, yet my personal life stalled because it took until two months ago for an under 5 vaccine to be approved.
The last couple of years have been a wild ride.
This might repeat. I thought I posted the comment. So I used to work up the street from Chrysler. I have questions. The Test Track off of Squirrel Road is that still in use today? I saw it used sparingly 5-10 years ago. I know Chelsea is the larger test track so I figured more testing happens there. Second any weird or unique vehicles around? I remember driving around one day and seeing the Consumer Energy Natural Gas Ram 1500s on property.
I come back for business at least once a year and stay in Auburn Hills I saw a downturn in traffic but didn’t think much of it. I think its because I drive by the old Chrysler Museum and see what a waste it’s become.
Great piece, David. You’re tapping into a sociological phenomenon that most people haven’t realized yet.
I love the “exile” lot, that’s actually kind of cool. You don’t want your payroll going to the competish!
I wonder if there will be a commercial real estate crash when all these companies try to offload their empty office buildings.
I think we are already seeing this. Commercial construction will be next. There are so many big businesses in my area that are contracting their office footprint, yet I still see so much construction of retail and office space, there is no way it is sustainable. In a couple of years, anything other than warehouse space is going to be pretty much worthless if this continues.
In my area commercial property is being converted to residential.
Hopefully leading to rezoning and repurposing as residential properties. Or anything other than leaving them to rot. It’d be a hell of a project to convert these massive spaces to apartments, but could be worth it.
This is a major fear driving the “return to work” mantra. Millions of square feet of worthless formerly Class A, B and C office space will devastate REITs, trust funds and all sorts of other tax-advantageous holdings by the “owner class”.
Plus, how else will Chad be able to snoop on the secretary’s divorce proceedings or exert middle-management vibe with no shoulders to lean over?
Dave,
I understand what you’re saying and I can’t disagree. The single aspect I miss from working in the office is the human interaction. Now, does that outweigh the things I like working from home like making a fresh lunch, being able to go to the gym for 30 min before lunch, have the flexibility to run the kids places they need to be at odd times because camps and sport practices think during the summer, parents don’t work… I digress.
Human interaction was a large part about going into the office and I do miss that a lot. Going out for beers after work or hanging out with work friends. What I have found is with co-workers that are in the same area as me, get together once a month for beers on a Friday. Friends I used to work with, I’ve gotten in touch with and will help each other out with car fixes or home fixes, or just hang out and chat.
It is a less social world now and there are tons of people like yourself looking for ways to get in touch with new friends or meet back up with old ones. Without doing anything like this myself, my first thought if I were looking for some new friends would be local facebook groups or if it was a date I was looking for, I’m sure dating sites are still a thing in this day and age. Even if she turns out to be a new friend, she may introduce to you a new group of friends to hang out with.
It’s a brave new world now and everyone is still trying to figure out new ways of navigating it.
I work from home and got a taste of an office environment on a recent business trip. My initial reaction was that it was great, but I wouldn’t want to give up my conveniences to have it all the time.
Then I remembered that the last time I was in an office environment it was an “open office” with no assigned seats. I could never find anyone I needed, they couldn’t find me, and I didn’t talk to most of the people I sat next to by randomly finding an open spot somewhere. Open office had already killed all the comradery/collaboration of a real office environment.
The important question is: did your flier receive any affirmative responses?
My friend let me use his garage to install my lift kit. Was supposed to take a week. It took five. His wife was nice about it. Hell, she was even nice about picking me up when the Jeep broke down in the dead of winter in a McDonalds parking lot when she was seven months pregnant. I still feel guilty about that.