I find I am in a place where I feel I need to leave my current job. This is a really hard decision. Mostly because of money.
I make an ok living right now. Leaving would mean taking a cut. I also have amazing benefits ........ the places I have been looking have decent benefits - so not the end of the world.
Why am I feeling this way?
I am a road agent. I deliver insurance to people's homes and work in the dealerships registering new cars. I am a slave to the phone and the calendar. Never really knowing how my day will unfold. My hours are long. I am scheduled for 10 - 12 hours on the days that I work. There is a lot of hurry up and wait in my job. Sitting in a car waiting for the next phone call to tell me where I am going next.
Today it is raining. Delivering insurance in the rain is the worst! House to house - door to door - people not remembering their appointment.
House numbers not clearly marked. Brass!!! FYI - brass or copper numbers, no matter what they are on, are difficult to see!!! House numbers are also never in the same place on each house. When its dark, its sometimes impossible to find a house. Especially when they forget to leave their light on!
Every time my work phone rings, it means I need to go somewhere. Pick up what I am doing. Sometimes, stop what I am doing, and go wherever the voice on the other end of the phone tells me. If I am at a dealership, I am required to keep an eye on the calendar, update every 15-20 mins my actions of where I am in my transaction, if there is another to follow, when i am finished. I have to keep an eye on deliveries to make sure they are getting done when they are supposed expected to be. There is a team of us on the road, but if we are all busy and another dealership calls..........or a home delivery needs to be done ........ but you are trapped. Being held or in the middle of a transaction with a client - who will go? You finish with your client, check the calendar and toss your mobile office in your bags, race out the door to the next call. All the while, being organized with your paperwork. Making sure its all together, nothing forgotten, no mistakes, copies made and given to the business office. Time is of the essence - and you need to be fast.
Lunch - you never know when you will get lunch. On SAturdays, you are lucky to get lunch at all! Never mind that during, what they call, lunch break, the office can and does call to send you to your next dealership. When you think you are going to get your hour lunch and 15 minutes in there is a call from the office, telling you its only a half break now and when you are done you need to go to XXX.
12 hour shifts. Whenever during the week. Its 160 hours a month. Wherever those fall is up to the manager. I put in a couple years ago, that I no longer can work Sundays. I needed a reset day. I needed a day every week, every month, that I knew fersure was going to be my day off.
12 hour shifts means, if you work 4 in a row, you are a bag of shit for your first day off. If you are lucky enough to get 2 days in a row off - you spend the first one recouping from the last 4 days. Now keep in mind. The house work has waited and multiplied for you too during your days on. There is no before work or after work when you can run a vacuum or toss laundry in. Maybe have a dinner date with your husband or a girlfriend. Go the to gym. All the little things, all the little things that we do to fill our evenings before bed all now has to happen on the days off that have now become so precious.
Being a road agent means, you never really know what time you are done. I have had occasion when I have started at 9AM and been caught at a dealership - not to be home until 10:30/11! or the 10AM start that gets you home at 11:30! that was my latest - you just never know. There is no way to predict. Fridays and Saturdays are good. They are only 10hour scheduled days - the dealerships close at 6. BUT - if there is a deal - we stay. so a 6PM close has the possibility of an 8PM home time. Its exhausting. The not knowing is exhausting and stressful.
Being a wife and a mother to a young adult -
I look at my life and my daughter who is 18 with a steady boyfriend and 2 jobs and working on a career. I think, she will get married one day. She will have children. Will I be there?
The woman is the cornerstone of the home of the family. When she is missing from it, the family dynamic is lost.
So I look for a new job. I need to be back in the home.
Truth is - I've never been totally happy with my job, my career, since my accident and I had to leave the restaurant behind. But I am old for that now too. And my body is so out of shape.
I do enjoy lots about road running. The dealerships - each one with its own quirk. The sales people, the sales managers, business managers ........ i have a friendship with each of them. That will be soooo hard to leave. I've been doing this 3years now and have established myself as Queen in the dealerships. It feels good. It feels good to walk in and I can do no wrong they love me so much. I like most of the kids I work with on the road. My team. Their youth keeps me young too! Not being stuck in the same place all the time is also a benefit. I get my energy from people. I did when I was serving, I do now with all the different people buying cars. All the different dealerships. All the different personalities. They keep me alive and rejuvenate me. I do really, really enjoy that part of it. That's the part I have been hanging on to.
The stress of the road has been getting to me since 2015. I tried to get off the road then. There was a position open in the office in the back. My sales manager denied me the position because I was too good. to valuable on the road. My sales are too good for them to lose me. So I stuffed it down and sucked it up and kept going. Now that I am sober ....... oh yes! Still sober!! I don't have an escape. The work hard play hard escape of every successful sales rep, booze. I guess I could escape in a healthy way. Work it out at the gym ..... oh no wait ...... i can't. There is no time for the gym in this new life I have of no predictable schedule. When its been a particularly rough day on the road, after driving in traffic for 11 hours .... who wants to go to the gym? There is no gym time in that day. You want a Glass of Wine DAmn it!!!
So tomorrow, I have another interview.
Tomorrow I hope the numbers that come across from the area manager are enough to make me say 'yes' right on the spot. Tomorrow ..........
I make an ok living right now. Leaving would mean taking a cut. I also have amazing benefits ........ the places I have been looking have decent benefits - so not the end of the world.
Why am I feeling this way?
I am a road agent. I deliver insurance to people's homes and work in the dealerships registering new cars. I am a slave to the phone and the calendar. Never really knowing how my day will unfold. My hours are long. I am scheduled for 10 - 12 hours on the days that I work. There is a lot of hurry up and wait in my job. Sitting in a car waiting for the next phone call to tell me where I am going next.
Today it is raining. Delivering insurance in the rain is the worst! House to house - door to door - people not remembering their appointment.
House numbers not clearly marked. Brass!!! FYI - brass or copper numbers, no matter what they are on, are difficult to see!!! House numbers are also never in the same place on each house. When its dark, its sometimes impossible to find a house. Especially when they forget to leave their light on!
Every time my work phone rings, it means I need to go somewhere. Pick up what I am doing. Sometimes, stop what I am doing, and go wherever the voice on the other end of the phone tells me. If I am at a dealership, I am required to keep an eye on the calendar, update every 15-20 mins my actions of where I am in my transaction, if there is another to follow, when i am finished. I have to keep an eye on deliveries to make sure they are getting done when they are supposed expected to be. There is a team of us on the road, but if we are all busy and another dealership calls..........or a home delivery needs to be done ........ but you are trapped. Being held or in the middle of a transaction with a client - who will go? You finish with your client, check the calendar and toss your mobile office in your bags, race out the door to the next call. All the while, being organized with your paperwork. Making sure its all together, nothing forgotten, no mistakes, copies made and given to the business office. Time is of the essence - and you need to be fast.
Lunch - you never know when you will get lunch. On SAturdays, you are lucky to get lunch at all! Never mind that during, what they call, lunch break, the office can and does call to send you to your next dealership. When you think you are going to get your hour lunch and 15 minutes in there is a call from the office, telling you its only a half break now and when you are done you need to go to XXX.
12 hour shifts. Whenever during the week. Its 160 hours a month. Wherever those fall is up to the manager. I put in a couple years ago, that I no longer can work Sundays. I needed a reset day. I needed a day every week, every month, that I knew fersure was going to be my day off.
12 hour shifts means, if you work 4 in a row, you are a bag of shit for your first day off. If you are lucky enough to get 2 days in a row off - you spend the first one recouping from the last 4 days. Now keep in mind. The house work has waited and multiplied for you too during your days on. There is no before work or after work when you can run a vacuum or toss laundry in. Maybe have a dinner date with your husband or a girlfriend. Go the to gym. All the little things, all the little things that we do to fill our evenings before bed all now has to happen on the days off that have now become so precious.
Being a road agent means, you never really know what time you are done. I have had occasion when I have started at 9AM and been caught at a dealership - not to be home until 10:30/11! or the 10AM start that gets you home at 11:30! that was my latest - you just never know. There is no way to predict. Fridays and Saturdays are good. They are only 10hour scheduled days - the dealerships close at 6. BUT - if there is a deal - we stay. so a 6PM close has the possibility of an 8PM home time. Its exhausting. The not knowing is exhausting and stressful.
Being a wife and a mother to a young adult -
I look at my life and my daughter who is 18 with a steady boyfriend and 2 jobs and working on a career. I think, she will get married one day. She will have children. Will I be there?
The woman is the cornerstone of the home of the family. When she is missing from it, the family dynamic is lost.
So I look for a new job. I need to be back in the home.
Truth is - I've never been totally happy with my job, my career, since my accident and I had to leave the restaurant behind. But I am old for that now too. And my body is so out of shape.
I do enjoy lots about road running. The dealerships - each one with its own quirk. The sales people, the sales managers, business managers ........ i have a friendship with each of them. That will be soooo hard to leave. I've been doing this 3years now and have established myself as Queen in the dealerships. It feels good. It feels good to walk in and I can do no wrong they love me so much. I like most of the kids I work with on the road. My team. Their youth keeps me young too! Not being stuck in the same place all the time is also a benefit. I get my energy from people. I did when I was serving, I do now with all the different people buying cars. All the different dealerships. All the different personalities. They keep me alive and rejuvenate me. I do really, really enjoy that part of it. That's the part I have been hanging on to.
The stress of the road has been getting to me since 2015. I tried to get off the road then. There was a position open in the office in the back. My sales manager denied me the position because I was too good. to valuable on the road. My sales are too good for them to lose me. So I stuffed it down and sucked it up and kept going. Now that I am sober ....... oh yes! Still sober!! I don't have an escape. The work hard play hard escape of every successful sales rep, booze. I guess I could escape in a healthy way. Work it out at the gym ..... oh no wait ...... i can't. There is no time for the gym in this new life I have of no predictable schedule. When its been a particularly rough day on the road, after driving in traffic for 11 hours .... who wants to go to the gym? There is no gym time in that day. You want a Glass of Wine DAmn it!!!
So tomorrow, I have another interview.
Tomorrow I hope the numbers that come across from the area manager are enough to make me say 'yes' right on the spot. Tomorrow ..........
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