Little Known Facts About W.L. May And A Funny Story

A vintage image of the W.L. May storefront.

Here are a few little known facts about W.L. May Company...

• W.L. May used to be located on the scenic Park Blocks of Downtown Portland.
• At one time our main warehouse was a bakery for the Fred Meyer grocery chain. You can still see flour on some of the hard to reach rafters.
• In 1923, W.L. May company started out as a small appliance repair company, parts sales came later.
• W.L.May Parts experts have weekly training sessions to keep our skills up to date.
• Hidden in our building is a bulkhead door like you might see on a submarine that accesses an underground stream.
• The intersection of 11th and Madison, (the back side of our building) was home to the first asylum in Oregon- Some say there are still some crazy people at that intersection-crazy good parts experts!

Here is a funny story...

This story was told to me years ago by an old timer tech, who has long since retired, Ben in Cave Junction, OR.

Ben had gone out on a call for what was likely a problem with the defrost timer. When he arrived at the customers home he was taken aback by the filthy conditions, but went ahead with the job to satisfy his customers. He tore into the refrigerator and  got a look at the old timer. Now, some of you will recall the older defrost timers that had a little window that allowed you to see that the mechanism was advancing. As he looked into the window to see if it was advancing properly he saw that there was a cockroach that had gotten jammed into the works and was plainly visible through the little window.

It was right about then that the homeowner stepped into the kitchen and asked Ben if he had figured out the problem and could fix it. With a little bit of a chuckle, Ben replied, "Oh yes, I can fix this easily. Here is the problem. This piece is a little motor", he explained showing the timer to the customer, "see this little window here, if you look inside you can see that the engineer who drives it has died."

Its probably not a true story, but still pretty funny. What is the worst thing YOU have found on a service call? Tell us about in the comments. We hope you have a great day out there and don't come across any little 6-legged defrost timer engineers!



For more from education and entertainment from W.L. May Company click...HERE