Some Things are Better Left Alone

When it comes to speaking in public settings, confidence can help you overcome the nerves. Intuition can help you change a car tire or know when your steak is cooked to the temperature you like. Something that confidence and intuition cannot help you do is change a safe combination without proper instruction or the required tools. And if you do attempt to do it anyway, it can be a costly service to fix what you may think to be a small mistake.

The call seemed innocuous enough... "Our guy tried to change the combination on our safe and now we can't get it opened." They were very close so I said I would be right over. Immediately upon seeing the safe, I knew I was in for a treat. They had removed the case cover and relocker strap and left them lying on the top of the safe when they shut the door to test their work. Intuition doesn't inform you that you should always test combination changes with the door open. And once you do it incorrectly, there is no going back without professional help.

Knowing I would need at least 2 holes to manipulate each of the relocking devices back out of the way to get the door open again, I got my tools into position and started toiling away. All in all, it only took a little over 2 hours. This particular type of lockout is one I've had to do a few times but manipulating multiple locking components manually, and blindly, is always a little bit tricky.

I have always enjoyed puzzles. Sudoku, word scrambles, scrabble. I got into lock-picking as a hobby a few years before I started doing this professionally because it was (in my mind) the next step in the evolution of my puzzle love. Then, when that started to lose its glimmer, I took a shine to safes. There is little to me that is more satisfying than that feeling when I slip the final piece into place and that beautiful image (of an open door) unfolds itself in front of me.

After opening the safe, and patching everything up nicely, I installed a much more user friendly Electronic lock on the safe so that future combination changes could be done from the user interface... and hopefully I won't need to return to this one again, except to show someone how to change a battery.

Confidence and intuition can do a lot for you. Especially when combined with a little bit of determination and persistence. But it cannot get you back into a safe after this little mistake has been made. Some things are better left alone. And some things are better left to someone who knows.

- Dan Bailey

It's a Big One

A bank had me out when they went through a branch closure and one of their former managers, apparently upset about ongoing changes, decided to have several of the safes combinations changed. They neglected to leave a note or any other information related to the changes made and, because the bank had to verify that no confidential records or tangible assets were left inside the container, they needed to have the safe opened. When I asked the caller if he could give me any identifying information, he simply said, "It's a big one." I went out to assess their needs and quote the work. Time was of the essence as he was traveling from out of state and needed to finalize the closure within the next few days. We discussed the rate and scheduled the work for the following business day.

I was able to do the work in about 3 hours and leave the safe unrecognizably altered from the original state. The day concluded with a very satisfied banker. Not only were they able to verify that there were no important items unaccounted for, they also had their (very expensive) safe returned to them in working order for a fraction of the cost of replacement. Another successful service call in the book.