Monday, August 17, 2015

Lazaroff Stories


                                                                  LAZAROFF STORIES

                                                                             2015

     For anyone doing research on the Lazaroff family in the New Haven area please see the following Howard Yasgar Stories.

1.       The Escape from Russia Story

2.       The Grandpa Eddies bus story

3.       The cutting of Lil’s bushes story

4.           

The Magnetic Computer Tape Story


                                             The Magnetic Computer Tape Story
                                                                1965
                      A true story about doing business with the wrong kinds of people
                                     Written 1/2010 and Re-written 02/12/2016
                                                         Howard Yasgar

     Over the years, there have been many business lessons that I have learned, and this story is about one of them.
     Fortunately it is one that I learned early on, it taught me that not every business deal is a good one, and not everyone is a nice person to deal with.
     I always knew that for a business deal to be successful all parties need to be happy with the results. However sometimes things don’t work out like they are supposed to. This was one of those situations.
     In 1965, I was twenty six years old and a junior partner in an automotive parts rebuilding company in Hialeah Florida.
     I had bought into the company in late 1963, and by 1965, I was calling on customers from Miami, all the way down to the city of Homestead.
     My Partner’s had a son named Don and he covered our sales in  the Miami area.
    Sometimes, to make an extra buck, Don and I would buy something together and then share a booth at a flea market to sell it on the weekends.
    Don’s dad, who owned the company, didn’t mind if we made extra money on the weekends, as long as it didn’t conflict with our normal business duties.
     Every Wednesday, I would make a sales trip,  I called on all of the auto parts stores heading South along US 1 from Miami.
     Once I reached the city of Homestead, I always stopped in to see a junk dealer, who had a scrap yard right outside Homestead Air force Base.
     I stopped to see him for several reasons, one was because he had a  contract with the
Air force called a “Term sale”, which meant he bought all the scrap off the Homestead Air force Base, for a whole year for 2 cents a pound.
    Sometimes the scrap he bought had used starters and generators that I could buy from him.
   Another reason that I always stopped to see him was because he was buying all the scrap off  the Air Force Base, so he never knew what interesting junk he would get in, it
was always interesting just to walk around just to see what he had.
   Sometimes he would pick up a truckload of absolute trash and he would take it straight to the dump. However that was unusual, as he usually brought the junk to his own scrap yard, where a steady stream of people like me would pick through it.
    Usually every week when I stopped by, he already had a pile of used starters and generator waiting for me, which I would buy.
   The problem I has was the junk dealer was a problematic kind of guy, he always had a sour disposition, and he was never satisfied with the priced that I paid him.
    I had been buying from him for over three years, and every week it was the same routine, he made me negotiate with him, and he was always pushing for more money.
    I always paid  a fair market price so quite frankly it was distasteful doing business with him.
     One day I drove into his yard, it was filled with stacks and stacks of boxes of magnetic computer tapes.
     Each box was about 2 feet square and about 1-1/2inches thick.
     Inside there was an aluminum reel filled with hundreds of feet of magnetic computer tape.
     The colorful boxes were from companies like IBM, and 3M.
     It appeared that Homestead Air Force Base, had converted their old reel to reel computer tape over the more modern floppy discs.
     Apparently they had erased all the reels of magnetic tapes and then threw them in the trash for the junkman to pick up.  
     The owner of the junk yard saw me looking at them and came over to see me.
     I asked him what he was going to do with all the computer reels. He said he was getting ready to haul them all to the dump.
     He said that by the time he took all the aluminum reels out of their boxes and then tried to get the magnetic tape off them, it would cost him more then the aluminum reels
were worth in scrap. He said that he had over 2500 boxes of  them.
     According to him, hauling in the magnetic tapes was a losing proposition for him as he would have to bring them all to the city trash dump and pay to dump them.
     I told him not to be too hasty throwing the magnetic tapes into the dump.
     I told him, let me take a sample and perhaps I could sell them to someone.
     In the back of my mind I had remembered seeing similar aluminum reels many years ago at a surplus dealer’s warehouse in New York City.
    When I got home, I dug around and found the business card of the company in New York and I called them up.
     They said they were very happy to hear from me, and yes they always bought magnetic tapes on aluminum reels.
      I think that they were very excited to hear that I had 2500 pieces available and they asked if I could send them a sample, yes I said, I would sent them a sample by express mail the next day, which I did.
     About a week later I received a letter from them in the mail with a purchase order in it that they could buy all two thousand five hundred of the reels @ $1.00 ea. I was so excited that I could hardly talk.
     I went to work and told Don, about the deal. If he helped me ship the tapes we could share in the profit equally, he was as excited as I was.
    That very afternoon, we both drove down to Homestead together to see the junk yard owner.
     Once we were there, I proudly took out the purchase order from New York and I showed it to him.
     He read clearly that we had an offer of $1.00 each, so I said I could pay him fifty cents each, and my partner Don and I would pay for the packaging and cost of  shipping to New York.
     After he closely studied the purchase order again, the surplus dealer asked me, “How do you know they will pay you?” Well, I said, I had done business with them in the past and I never had a problem with them, they always had appeared to be honest.
     O K, he said, “How do you guys want to do it”.
     Well, I said, my partner Don and I need to rent a U haul trailer and bring all the tapes to Miami where we can box them up.
     Then we need to call a freight company to come and pick them up to ship them to New York.
     The junk dealer said, “I think you should pay me more”. I explained that the U haul trailer and the packing and the freight to New York, left Don and myself only a very little profit.  
     What I was really thinking was, here, this bum had gotten the stuff for almost free, and it was going to cost him hundreds of dollars to take it to the dump.
     The next day, Don and I rented a U-Haul trailer and we made two trips to the
 Homestead junk yard. We hand loading all the tapes into the U-Haul.  
     That weekend in Miami we spent all day Saturday and Sunday packaging up the boxes of magnetic tapes into corrugated cardboard cartons and then we strapped tight each box with metal banding.
     It was summer, and it was very hot, but we finally had all the magnetic tapes packed up.
     I called a local Miami trucker named Southern Transport, and they said they would haul the whole lot to New York for $300.00, so the next day they came to pick the stuff up, but somehow they had forgotten to send a truck with a lift gate, so we had to load the entire shipment by hand.
      At this point we both agreed that the profit we would earn wasn’t enough to cover the costs and all the labor.
     The next day I called the buyers in New York to tell them that the shipment was on its way, and I asked them how long it would take them to pay us the $2500.00.
     There was silence on the other end of the phone, finally he said, $2500.00, where did you get that figure from?
     From your purchase order, I replied. I have it right here, you offered us $1.00 each. “No we didn’t he said, we offered you 10 cents each”.
      I said, it’s impossible for you to offer us 10 cents each when the freight alone  to send it to you costs more than 10 cents.
      I looked at the purchase order, and I saw they had written $ .100 ea. I said, you purposely wrote it on your purchase order to look like $1.00 ea. Well that’s your problem the fellow in New York said to me.
      I hung up the phone, and when my heart stopped pounding, I immediately called the trucking company, and the dispatcher said, I was in luck, the shipment was only in Atlanta Georgia, and they can turn it around, and return it for a cost of about $100.00.
     As I had no alternative, I had them return it all to us. The next day the truck arrived in Miami and we both unloaded it.
     But this time Don rented a much larger and much more expensive U haul truck. And we drove the entire load of tapes back down to the Homestead junk yard.
     Once we were there, I explained to the junk yard guy what had happened, and I took out the purchase order from New York, and we all looked at it again. He agreed that it looked like they would pay $1.00 ea.
      I told him that I was sorry, but Don and I were out the cost of the freight to Atlanta, the cost of the U haul trucks, not to mention the packaging labor we had.
     I said, as long as we had all the tapes on the U haul truck, did he want us to take them to the dump for him for free, and I offered to pay the dumping fee.
     I told him I felt really bad about the situation and even though Don and I had lost quite a bit of money, I would pay for dumping the stuff at the dump, which I knew was his intention in the first place.
    He said, “No leave it all here, I can dump it after you give me the $1250.00.” you owe me.
    Don and I unloaded the U Haul truck, we did it by hand again, and I again apologized to the junk yard guy.
    I said, look Don and I already have lost way over $500.00. I’m sorry for what happened, but I don’t intend on losing any more money. Especially since you really didn’t lose anything, so let’s all shake hands and remain friends, he didn’t want to, and needless to say I never went to see him again.
   It was indeed my worst mistake I had ever made back then in 1965, and I am sure I learned something back then, however, to be honest, I think I may have made some worse  mistakes since then.                                    

The Electrical Apprentice Story


The Electricians Apprentice Story
Written 04/2000 and Rewritten and condensed 08/2019
Howard Yasgar


This true story took place in 1959, when I was attending New Haven State Teachers College.
I had a difficult decision to make.
It was in my second year of teachers college, and we were told we would be required to go out and do substitute teaching. 
I felt that if I had to teach students that were like myself, I would probably kill one of them.
After a talk with my guidance councilor, she agreed that teaching probably wasn’t for me.
Actually I think the real reason I wanted to quit was that I was anxious to get out into the world and earn some real money.
I felt that my father was doing pretty good financially, he was a Journeyman Electrician, and also was a teacher in the Local 90 Electrical workers union in New Haven.
Of course dad said I was foolish, and he didn’t like the idea of my quitting college at all.
I told him I wanted to make some big money as a union electrician just like he did.
Eventually, dad relented and said he would get me in the Electrical Union as an apprentice. 
I couldn’t have been happier, I was now on the road to riches.
The first job they sent me to was working up on scaffolding and hanging florescent light fixtures.
Guess what, it was for a new addition to New Haven State Teachers College, the very same College I had just quit.
As I hung the fixtures, all my former classmates recognized me and waved as they went to their classes.
All the cat calls eventually stopped as the contractor sent me to downtown New haven where a new 16 floor apartment building called University Towers was being built.
I knew that working as an electricians helper on a major construction project had to be interesting work.
Boy did I have a lot to learn. 
Before each concrete floor was poured, the electricians had to put in all the electrical conduit first.     So my first job was down on the ground floor, pre bending hundreds of pieces of metal conduit. 
Once a bundle of  conduit was properly bent, a crane lifted it up to whatever floor the electricians were working on. 
The reason a crane was needed was because each bundle of conduit weighed from 150 lbs. to 250 lbs.
Eventually the construction reached the 16th floor, and that was the day that the lifting crane broke down.              
I wanted to help, I kind of felt that everyone depended on me.
As the crane remained broken, I was sure my efforts would be appreciated.
I hefted a 200 lb. bundle of conduit on my shoulders and I started climbing up the stairs to the 16th floor.
When I reached the 16th. Floor, I dropped the bundle of conduit right where it was needed, but I found I couldn’t straighten up my back, I was bent over like a hunchback. 
It took several weeks to recover, but eventually I was back again on the ground floor bending conduit.
One day I spotted the company business agent walking by, and I saw it as my opportunity.
When I got his attention, I said that I have been working for your company for several months and I have never received a raise.
He said, “Son, I have been watching you, you are doing a good job, He also said, I also know your dad, very well, please give him my best regards”.
“By the way he said, how much are you earning”?  $1.37 per hour I said.
Boy did I feel good, the business agent even knew my father.
Friday couldn’t come faster, I couldn’t wait as they handed out the paycheck envelopes.
I ripped my envelope open, my new hourly  pay was $1.37. ½ per hour. He had given me a ½ cent per hour raise.
The very next week I signed up with the University of New Haven, I couldn’t do it fast enough.
Boy were my mom and dad happy.