I’ve Been Busy…

 

Momma has been a busy girl this week.  I’ve racked up 13 hours of OT this week from Monday to Wednesday and I’m still going strong.  The paycheck will be nice, but man am I tired.  My territory was expanded to all of Bryan/College Station and the surrounding areas.  There is a lot of drive time for me now.  On Monday it was 5 hours roundtrip.  Yesterday I was in Somerville and I had a 4 hour drive time.  I had 3 appointments and I’m just not fast enough yet to do that.  I spent a couple of hours at home each morning at 4:00 doing paperwork.  It’s crazy.  I’m up anyway, so I might as well be paid for it!

The windshield time is the worst part.  Okay, maybe the climbing the roof itself is the worst part, but I don’t really like the driving either.  I don’t mind the actual time behind the wheel except that I can’t really talk to customers or get paperwork done when I’m spending all my time driving.  It’s a Catch 22.  Most of my co-workers have less than an hour drive time, but they drive in Houston so they hit traffic and the roofs are much steeper in their territories.  I have to drive but I get the rural older homes. 

We had a hail storm come thru this weekend and most of my co-workers claims are being picked up by our Catastrophe team.  My territory is so rural that they don’t bother picking those up.  So, my happy butt is driving and working them.  I haven’t clocked it yet, but I know I’ll put at least 1,000 miles on the van this week alone. 

But the upside is helping people.  I’ve really enjoyed that aspect of this job.  I get to meet with customers face to face and so far everyone has been really nice.  I have had one bitter old viper who wouldn’t talk to me.  She just stared at me the whole time then walked away muttering stuff under her breath.  I had to deal with her nephew she was so mean, but she’s been the only one.  Most of the people I’ve seen this week have had a lot of damage to their houses and cars.  We had golf ball sized hail and some of them had to be bigger than golf ball judging by the size of the dents on the roofs and cars. 

Meanwhile, Tommy has been manning the house and Erin.  I usually take her in the mornings but have had to leave too early to do it.  He’s been taking and picking her up.  It’s much easier doing this job with a supportive husband behind me.  He encourages me when I call him scared out of my mind when I pull up to a really steep one.  He always tells me I’ve got this.  Turns out most of the time I do!  Mr. Mom has also had to do some cooking and cleaning.  Shout out to him for not complaining (too much). 

This job has been an adjustment for all of us.  SF is having more openings come up in May and I may try to switch to inside homeowners (HCCS).  I would be doing more water leaks and inside stuff.  I really enjoy the simplicity of the job I’m doing now, but it’s hot and hard and I think I would prefer to do the inside gig.  Not even sure there will be openings for that position, but if there are, Momma is going to try.  I would really miss my teammates though.  I’ve gotten pretty close to 3 of them and really really like them.  But I’ve gotta do what’s best for me and I think moving inside instead of up on top might be my best option.  This outside weather stuff is brutal.

Stay tuned…