Good day, bad day, good day.

This is one of those days that I'll remember vividly if we ever get around to opening up another restaurant. 

It's amazing how quickly a good day can go to shite and back again. 

During a fairly innocuous meeting with our equipment sales rep he wanders over to our walk-in cooler area to have a look. He soon requests a tape measure and I can see a look of consternation take over. We measure the interior space where our walk-in, which is on a truck from god knows where, will be installed early next week. 

Interior space taped and it's determined that there's a very good chance that we spec'd the buildout of these new walls incorrectly and there's a good possibility that the only way to accommodate the cooler we've ordered is to move two walls - two walls that have just been anchored, framed, drywalled, screwed, taped, finished and were now, at that moment, being primed for paint. One wall contained a custom door frame and new power outlets that would need to be moved. All in all it was about 30 feet of new interior wall that we were suddenly forced to contemplate demolishing and starting over. 

Two thoughts kept swimming through my head - 1) how in the world did this happen; 2) how much would this cost and how much time would this set us back?

The tape measure started flying around - what if the walk-in swung the other way? what if we take out two panels of the walk-in? what if we strip the drywall off the inside of the wall - does that give us enough room? can we return the cooler that is on its way to us? 

can i crawl into a hole and forget this ever happened?

a volley of phone calls ensues - the contractor, the supervisor, the equipment rep who in turn calls the installer and the manufacturer and so on and so forth. 

i pull out the laptop and download the cooler specs. i needed to know if i was crazy or if i had told the architect the wrong specs - after all, with a problem this big and costly it would at least feel better to know i could point the finger at someone else. 

spec sheet tells me that our wall dimensions are correct based on the manufacturer's diagram. I feel slightly exonerated.

i'm on the phone to the rep - "how in the world can an 8x12' cooler, spec'd out for an 8x12' space not fit in what's been created?

there is no clear answer which just makes it that much worse. i'm forced to wait a couple of hours.

every phone call has me on edge. will it be bad news or very bad news?

finally after about an hour of pacing i receive a call from the equipment rep. he's spoken with the manufacturer, he's conferred with the installer and several of his colleagues.

the final verdict - the walls can stay. the cooler is actually a bit undersized so there should be no problem using that space and getting it installed.

though all turned out well it was not a fun way to spend the afternoon. this would have put me over the top in terms of bad things happening at inopportune times.  

and while i bitch and moan about little problems like this, to be honest, it's better than sitting behind my computer editing photos for hours on end. let's hope tomorrow is just a good day. however, i'm prepared for more bad news - after all it starts with the grease trap getting pumped out. i wonder what skeletons will surface during that process.