So a funny thing happened. I attended the Rotax iRMT Heavy Maintenance class at Lockwood this week. I walked in the door at 7:30am, and standing there in front of me was Morris from SLMA. At first, I recognized his face subconsciously, but it didn't click consciously yet. He immediately knew who I was, and addressed me by name. I'm sitting there trying to process what is happening, and I asked him how he knew who I was, given I've never met him before. And then I notice he has on a Rotax collared shirt, and I ask, wait, are you the instructor? He introduces himself as Morris, and yes, the instructor. And now it clicks. I think he was prepared for me to be hostile, but that's really not me. We discussed the disposition a bit and agreed that I'm here to learn and he is here to teach and we left it at that but agreed we should talk a bit later about things.
Class started and it's great. He is incredibly knowledgeable, and I got a lot out of it. He has a great sense of humor, and clearly cares a lot about doing things right. Meanwhile, I'm very engaged, and asking a lot of questions etc. I think this is some thing that caused both of us to reevaluate each other and maybe take a step back and say, "hey, maybe we got it wrong".
At the end of the first day, right as I was leaving, he asked me to stay and talk. So we did, for a while. We didn't come to any solutions at that time, but we came to a mutual understanding. I accept that Morris cares a lot about quality, and whatever happened isn't normal. I feel that Morris has accepted that I'm not scamming him, something legitimately happened here. I very much wish that we could have come to some of this understanding over the phone, but there is no sense in dwelling on that. There are two parts of this to me, there's the money part, and there is the accepting the truth of what happened part. I want us to be figuring out how this happened so that it can be prevented.
I won't share the details of our agreement, but Morris in the end made me a generous offer that more than compensates what happened without refunding me any money from the carb work. The money part is more than good on my end. In fact I feel that his offer was maybe too generous to the point that I feel bad taking advantage of it, but its also an opportunity to grow a friendship and learn a lot from him so I can't pass that up.
By the end of the class, I felt that we had found a lot of common ground and have a mutually positive feeling toward each other. It's a small world, and quite the coincidence how we ended up meeting face to face. Life is full of surprises.
I don't see a way to delete this whole thread now that this is resolved. If an admin sees this and chooses to delete it, I am good with that. But otherwise if it stays, I felt that this deserves a follow-up.
