How Avery found his American Dream in Houston — Pro Stories

It’s 8 AM and Avery is getting ready for work. He just bought a spacious house in the suburbs of Houston with his wife. They adopted a dog, too. It’s like the perfect American dream, and for Avery, it is.

Avery has been a locksmith in Houston, Texas, for 5 years. He started as a freelancer, and now owns a locksmith company with 8 pros on his team. His van has some of the latest technology to make keys for all sorts of locks. He loves his job, and you can tell. As soon as Jobox matches him with a job on his phone, he jumps in the van and starts calling the customer. He verifies the issue and the address, and off he goes.

Avery drives over 200 miles a day, almost every day. He only takes off Saturday for religious reasons. The rest of the week, his phone is always on ready to help a customer in distress. That’s the part of the job he loves the most. “I just love it. I wake up in the morning and I like to go to work. Like you come to a car, no key at all. You make the key, the car starts, you’re making progress. Also lockouts, when people are stuck outside and you come in and help them. You solve problems. I just love it.”

He has an incredible ability to multitask. He can locate his customer in a crowded parking lot while solving a technical problem with one of his team members on the phone and driving. He jumps out of his van as soon as he parks and goes to introduce himself to the customer. He unlocks the car in less than 60 seconds and immediately starts working on the car’s dashboard. Within minutes, he gets back into his van to make the complicated key his customer needs. The whole job is completed in less than 30 minutes.

When he’s done, he gets his Jobox reader and app to process the customer’s payment in seconds. It’s seamless, even more so because he’s able to entertain a conversation with his customer while doing so. Like we said, he’s good at multitasking. He doesn’t have time to linger anyway, because he’s getting another job already. Tuesdays are supposed to be slow days. That’s what he said. Read Avery's story here.