new machines provided substantial value to customers, but he understood now that a salesman could not responsibly talk about ownership without discussing service capacity and access. He began asking his own managers for clearer lifetime-support estimates. Some welcomed the questions, while others thought he was complicating conversations that were difficult enough already.
Brandon drove through Tribune in February and stopped for coffee at a gas station where he happened to see Frank Odell. They exchanged greetings, then spent fifteen minutes talking about the cooperative's older fleet. Frank described repairs that had been costly and improvements that had made the machines more dependable. Brandon admitted that service expenses on certain newer units were rising faster than buyers had expected. The conversation was neither vindication nor confession. It was two men working in different parts of the same industry recognizing that the truth was more complicated than their original positions had allowed.
Doug's controller completed the winter service analysis in early March. The diagnostic labor rate on some specialized work had reached $247 an hour, while scheduled maintenance rates in the relevant service category were running around $218. Only eighteen months earlier Doug had been using approximately $145 per hour as his planning figure for diagnostic labor, and the increase was impossible to reconcile with the margins in his purchase model. He read the report twice at home, then looked at the kitchen clock and realized he had a choice between defending the decision he had made and asking for help from the man he had publicly criticized. Pride held him for one more evening, and then the arithmetic won.
On a Wednesday morning in March 2016, Doug called Calvin at 7:15. Calvin was already in his office, drinking coffee and examining a report from Frank, and the early call told him more about the urgency than Doug's first words. "Calvin, I need to talk to you," Doug said. Calvin answered, "Good morning, Doug," then moved Frank's report aside. He knew the conversation he had dreaded on behalf of his neighboring cooperative had finally arrived.
"Our diagnostic rate is two hundred forty-seven dollars an hour," Doug said without introduction. "Scheduled maintenance is running two hundred eighteen. Eighteen months ago I was budgeting one hundred forty-five for diagnostic labor." Calvin listened.
"That's a large increase." Doug gave a humorless laugh. "Large doesn't cover it. I've got forty-two machines, almost fifteen million dollars in equipment debt, and annual service expenses that are about three hundred forty thousand dollars above where the numbers were supposed to be."
Calvin asked how much of the burden came from new hourly rates and how much from the increasing number of jobs that required an authorized technician. Doug answered that it was both, compounded by travel, waiting, and occasional rentals during outages. "It eliminates our operating margin," he said. "I've got machines that still perform beautifully in the field, and every time something complicated goes wrong I discover how little choice I have about who puts them back into service." He stopped speaking for a moment, and Calvin could hear papers shifting on the other end of the line.