We have been training everyday this week preparing for our jobs as roving storage unit managers. Our days are spent renting storage units, taking payments and closing accounts as the people "move out". Our shifts are 9am to 6pm but we usually don't get away from the office until around 6:30. We are both getting the hang of things but there sure is a lot to learn :-o.
Today was a bit different, we were scheduled to have an auction at 1pm. We stayed busy with our "normal" duties as well as having to answer call after call from people asking about the auction. We can't give out a lot info just time, place and procedures. several tried to pump us for the number and content of "units" we had up for bidding but we are not allowed to release any of that info. Rudee and I had no idea anyway so we were just as curious as the bidders were. :-)
The bidders started rolling in shortly after noon and we had about 30 people participating. The auctioneer laid out the ground rules and then we all paraded to the first unit. My job was to remove the lock, break the seal that had been attached to the latch and open the unit for the bidders to inspect. The rules are just like on the TV show Storage Wars. They have 5 minutes to look in the locker but they cannot touch anything or go inside the unit. Once everyone has gotten to look inside the auctioneer sells the contents to the highest bidder.
I enjoyed watching the bidders and had fun trying to figure out who the "pros" were.
We sold a total of 8 storage units. A couple of them were pretty sparse and one of the "pros" bought one for $5.00. There were several boxes, a decent looking kitchen table and 2 chairs. Right after he won the unit he reached in and picked up a gold bracelet that was on the floor next to one of the boxes which turned out to be a heavy chain made out of 14 carat gold. Not a bad find for $5.00!
Once all the units were sold the winning bidders all came to the office and paid for their unit. They have 24 hours to clean out the locker and most of them spent the remaining afternoon doing just that.
Tomorrow I get to sweep all the emptied lockers out so they are ready for new renters, lucky me! :-)
We have not gotten any information on our first assignment but our training will be completed tomorrow. OMG! Are we ready to do this on our own? :-o
I guess we'll find out pretty soon.
Our plan is to move the 5th wheel out of the storage lot Saturday and will probably find a campground close by with full hook ups. Our black and grey tanks are starting to get a little full. :-) I'll keep you posted.
Thursday, September 13, 2012
Tuesday, September 11, 2012
rocky start
Saturday evening all the kids and grandkids met at our site for a taco buffet, campfire and mini birthday party for moi :-). We had a really nice time but the night just flew by and then it was time to say goodbye to them for awhile. That is probably the toughest part of this lifestyle, all the "see ya laters" :-(
We will be getting together again in 5 weeks for our sons wedding but, again, it will be too short of a visit.
We took our time Sunday morning getting on the road. We were headed for Elkhart Indiana where we would spend the night. We planned to arrive before 4pm but even the best laid plans go astray. We were about 50 miles away when one of tires on the 5er threw it's tread off :-o
I pulled over right away and was able to get the spare installed in fairly short order. We do have Good Sam Emergency Road Service but using the air supply on the truck and my impact gun I can change a tire pretty easily. No sense sitting on the side of the road waiting for what could be a long time when I can be back on the road in 20 minutes myself. :-)
The tires we had were Goodyear Marathons and you don't have to search long to find a lot of people having problems with them. Rudee and I discussed it and decided to go ahead and replace all of the tires on the 5er with heavier duty ones. I knew it was going to be expensive but since this is the 2nd blow out in less than a year we had to do something.
I have weighed the rig and we are within specifications for the existing axles and tires but heavier tires with a better speed and weight rating will give us better piece of mind (I hope). The tires we are buying are 14 ply Goodyear G614 radials with "Made in the USA" stamped on them. No more Chinese rubber for me!
Monday morning I called Goodyear and reported having problems and they directed me to a nearby dealer. I called them and they had the type and size of tires I wanted so we packed everything up and headed over.
The manager came out and inspected the old tires and called Goodyear with his findings. He spent the better part of an hour just communicating back and forth with them before saying they would only warranty one of the old tires for a whopping $50! The one that threw the tread caused some minor damage to a floor cross member and the fender molding so that has to be handled separately. I was not too happy with their decision and will be addressing it with corporate soon.
The manager said it would take them about 1 1/2 hours to change all 4 tires and the spare so we decided to get an early lunch to kill some time. We were hoping to get on the road by noon and he was estimating we would be done by 12:30 so no problem. Unfortunately the manager was a bit optimistic on his time estimation :-(. We were gone for well over an hour getting lunch and when we returned the right side wheels had been removed and they were waiting on the tires to arrive from their "warehouse". The technician said the warehouse was nearby and the manager was picking them up, He told me it shouldn't take him more than 1 1/2 hours once the tires arrived. Yep, another 1 1/2 hours ..... crap! The tires finally arrived and were mounted, balanced and put on the 5er. We pulled out of the lot at 2:30pm only took them 3 hours and 45 minutes to replace my 5 tires. Yep, Goodyear is gonna hear about that one too. So if you are ever in the RV capitol of Elkhart, Indiana and need tires, I would not recommend Masten Goodyear unless you really want to make a day of it!
Once back on the road we made decent time and arrived in Lavonia, Michigan in about 4 hours. We were a little later than we planned but you just have to roll with the punches I guess.
While deployed at a storage facility we will be parked on site. Each facility is a little different and this one has some challenges. The first was getting parked near the electric plug in. They installed a 50 amp RV hook up but it is at the rear of one of the storage buildings down a narrow alleyway with very little room to maneuver. I swear I don't know how we did it but we managed to shoe horn our rig into position. Poor Rudee was running from one side of the rig to the other helping me. There is no water or sewer hook ups but we will be fine for the few days we are here.
Tuesday will be our first training day and looks to be busy since there will be an auction here later this week. Wish us luck! I'll keep you posted.
We will be getting together again in 5 weeks for our sons wedding but, again, it will be too short of a visit.
We took our time Sunday morning getting on the road. We were headed for Elkhart Indiana where we would spend the night. We planned to arrive before 4pm but even the best laid plans go astray. We were about 50 miles away when one of tires on the 5er threw it's tread off :-o
I pulled over right away and was able to get the spare installed in fairly short order. We do have Good Sam Emergency Road Service but using the air supply on the truck and my impact gun I can change a tire pretty easily. No sense sitting on the side of the road waiting for what could be a long time when I can be back on the road in 20 minutes myself. :-)
The tires we had were Goodyear Marathons and you don't have to search long to find a lot of people having problems with them. Rudee and I discussed it and decided to go ahead and replace all of the tires on the 5er with heavier duty ones. I knew it was going to be expensive but since this is the 2nd blow out in less than a year we had to do something.
I have weighed the rig and we are within specifications for the existing axles and tires but heavier tires with a better speed and weight rating will give us better piece of mind (I hope). The tires we are buying are 14 ply Goodyear G614 radials with "Made in the USA" stamped on them. No more Chinese rubber for me!
Monday morning I called Goodyear and reported having problems and they directed me to a nearby dealer. I called them and they had the type and size of tires I wanted so we packed everything up and headed over.
The manager came out and inspected the old tires and called Goodyear with his findings. He spent the better part of an hour just communicating back and forth with them before saying they would only warranty one of the old tires for a whopping $50! The one that threw the tread caused some minor damage to a floor cross member and the fender molding so that has to be handled separately. I was not too happy with their decision and will be addressing it with corporate soon.
The manager said it would take them about 1 1/2 hours to change all 4 tires and the spare so we decided to get an early lunch to kill some time. We were hoping to get on the road by noon and he was estimating we would be done by 12:30 so no problem. Unfortunately the manager was a bit optimistic on his time estimation :-(. We were gone for well over an hour getting lunch and when we returned the right side wheels had been removed and they were waiting on the tires to arrive from their "warehouse". The technician said the warehouse was nearby and the manager was picking them up, He told me it shouldn't take him more than 1 1/2 hours once the tires arrived. Yep, another 1 1/2 hours ..... crap! The tires finally arrived and were mounted, balanced and put on the 5er. We pulled out of the lot at 2:30pm only took them 3 hours and 45 minutes to replace my 5 tires. Yep, Goodyear is gonna hear about that one too. So if you are ever in the RV capitol of Elkhart, Indiana and need tires, I would not recommend Masten Goodyear unless you really want to make a day of it!
Once back on the road we made decent time and arrived in Lavonia, Michigan in about 4 hours. We were a little later than we planned but you just have to roll with the punches I guess.
While deployed at a storage facility we will be parked on site. Each facility is a little different and this one has some challenges. The first was getting parked near the electric plug in. They installed a 50 amp RV hook up but it is at the rear of one of the storage buildings down a narrow alleyway with very little room to maneuver. I swear I don't know how we did it but we managed to shoe horn our rig into position. Poor Rudee was running from one side of the rig to the other helping me. There is no water or sewer hook ups but we will be fine for the few days we are here.
Tuesday will be our first training day and looks to be busy since there will be an auction here later this week. Wish us luck! I'll keep you posted.
Saturday, September 8, 2012
and the adventure begins!
Time to let the kitty out of the burlap. :-)
Rudee and I applied and have been hired as roving managers for a storage company. The storage facilities are in several states (not all) across the U.S. and we will be paid to travel to the sites where the current managers have left the company and new managers have yet to be hired. We will run the facilities until replacements are found and trained. Eventually we will be the ones doing the training but need to get comfortable doing the jobs ourselves first.
Our training begins Monday when we travel to the suburbs of Detroit to a facility where we will assist with an auction :-o. I have heard the auctions are the hardest part of the job, with the "corporate" team coming in and hanging out with you for a day or two to make sure all goes well. We like the TV show "Storage Wars" where they show all the fun and excitement of auctioning off the contents of the storage units but don't think it will be all "fun and excitement" for us :-). Who knows maybe I'll get to meet Brandi from the show someday :-) ........ YUUUUP!
This job will take away some of our freedom since it will be a 40 hour a week job when we are on assignment but will still give us some opportunity to explore some new areas and still make a nice chunk of $$. They even reimburse us for our medical insurance! Cool!
One big downside is a lot of the states they do business in are cold in the winter. Shoveling snow, or even seeing snow for that matter, is not what I wanted for this lifestyle but we have spent cold winters in the 5er before so don't see that as a deal breaker. We still have all of our cold weather "stuff" so we are prepared for it, just not looking forward to it :-).
Both of us are excited for this new chapter and our bank account sure can use the boost. We will be saying goodbye to the family today :-( and heading north tomorrow. I'll keep you posted.
Rudee and I applied and have been hired as roving managers for a storage company. The storage facilities are in several states (not all) across the U.S. and we will be paid to travel to the sites where the current managers have left the company and new managers have yet to be hired. We will run the facilities until replacements are found and trained. Eventually we will be the ones doing the training but need to get comfortable doing the jobs ourselves first.
Our training begins Monday when we travel to the suburbs of Detroit to a facility where we will assist with an auction :-o. I have heard the auctions are the hardest part of the job, with the "corporate" team coming in and hanging out with you for a day or two to make sure all goes well. We like the TV show "Storage Wars" where they show all the fun and excitement of auctioning off the contents of the storage units but don't think it will be all "fun and excitement" for us :-). Who knows maybe I'll get to meet Brandi from the show someday :-) ........ YUUUUP!
This job will take away some of our freedom since it will be a 40 hour a week job when we are on assignment but will still give us some opportunity to explore some new areas and still make a nice chunk of $$. They even reimburse us for our medical insurance! Cool!
One big downside is a lot of the states they do business in are cold in the winter. Shoveling snow, or even seeing snow for that matter, is not what I wanted for this lifestyle but we have spent cold winters in the 5er before so don't see that as a deal breaker. We still have all of our cold weather "stuff" so we are prepared for it, just not looking forward to it :-).
Both of us are excited for this new chapter and our bank account sure can use the boost. We will be saying goodbye to the family today :-( and heading north tomorrow. I'll keep you posted.
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