“ It took me 4 hours to install my first garbage disposal. It should have taken me 30 minutes!”
- Darrin Sullivan
Darrin: I remember one of my first tasks I did, I was so proud of because I was coming from a professional job to a working with your hands kind of job and I installed my first garbage disposal. I called my boss, and said“ listen, I just installed my first garbage disposal,” and he said,“ Alright! How did that go, how long did it take?” I said,“ About 4 hours!” I was so freaking proud of myself. Nobody helped me, and I screwed up a bunch of times before I got it right, but that really caught my attention. So I called my boss and he was like,“ way to go! It should have taken you about 30 minutes!”
Lannon: Believe it or not, my first day I will never forget, we found a deceased guy in the apartment next to the maintenance shop! Will never forget that, should have ran then!
Troy: I guess mine was a little while because I did that part time stuff and then I went into the restoration business but my mom was a groundskeeper on a property and she said they were hiring, so I went there and took the maintenance test and passed. So they hired me on and three days later the manager got fired and the maintenance supervisor got fired, so
I was left on a 408 unit place that was built in the early 70’ s. They had the old dishwashers where the motors slipped down from the pan from the top, and I had no idea what I was doing. I had never touched any stuff like that. I ended up figuring out all the issues that was wrong with it and replaced the motor, replaced the soap dispenser and I was pretty proud of myself that I figured it all out. It took me most of the day, but nobody was there to show me how to take it apart. It was pretty satisfying knowing that I fixed it. Especially when I didn’ t know anything about it.
Jeff: We didn’ t have YouTube back in the day.
Chris: Yeah, back then you just sort of took things apart and hoped for the best!
AAMD: Interesting – I was thinking there would have been four hours of orientation and then meetings for the last four. They just told you to go fix stuff. Go serve your residents.
Chris: I think we all still did orientation to a certain degree but that was back with the TV on the dolly with the VCR and all the tapes were geared towards office personnel and not necessarily toward maintenance. Like,“ don’ t leave the file cabinet open” kind of thing.
Lannon: There wasn’ t as much orientation for me- just on the job training, get your hands dirty, and on the spot lessons.
AAMD: From a maintenance perspective, what was the most useful tool that you had back then that is obsolete today?
Darrin: Pagers. I remember pagers. Then they evolved to where they could type on them and send you messages through there.
Lannon: The resources weren’ t on a smartphone, they were from your coworker, things you’ ve learned and making mistakes and learning how not to do things.
Troy: Maintenance, in a lot of respects, is maintenance, until it’ s not. The tasks are still similar, but the equipment we are working on is smarter. We have smart boards on our refrigerators or on furnaces and things like that, but maintenance guys are still doing work orders and doing make-readys and stuff like keeping the common areas lit and operational.
Jeff: Today, service is your number one priority. Service and taking care of the residents should always be your priority. I am not so sure that was the case back in the 90’ s. When a resident needs something now, the resident should get what they ask for within reason, but back then I don’ t think it was as much of a priority as it is today.
Troy: I mean it kind of goes into the same thing of how we are now with cell phones. Everything is now on demand. Our bosses expect answers now. Residents are a lot of the same way. They expect us to fix something right the first time we go to a unit, even though we still have to diagnose the problem. We may not have the part or it may be something beyond what we think it is. It is a different world now. Everybody wants everything immediate now.
Chris: I blame the microwave. We went from 20 minutes to boil water to a minute. Instant gratification became the norm and everything happens at a faster pace.
Darrin: We have the guys in the shops now that have the same skill level that www. aamdhq. org FEBRUARY MARCH 2018 • TRENDS | 21