A New Beginning...

The past couple of years have been extremely tough for many all over the world, including myself. I now find myself, once again, looking for gainful employment. I finally realize that I must interview prospective employers to determine if our visions align. A salary and benefits is not all there is to consider, at least not for me anymore. I have always believed that "Doing the Right Thing is ALWAYS the Right Thing" but have ignored my personal motto many times over the years in hopes of "changing" the team for the better. This has been an exercise in futility despite my best efforts. Many simply have no desire to change anything!

Recently, one General Manager I was interviewing with said, "We are not interested in changing anything in our company. We are all comfortable with how things currently work and have no interest of even listening to any ideas regarding changing our current way of doing things." Later in the conversation it was revealed that all work being performed, sketches, moisture readings, etc are all on paper. No digital access for anything... really? In the year 2022 this company is still operating like we all did 25 years ago? This would definitely NOT be a good fit for me...

I am not interested in providing a sub-standard service to any of my clients and that has been a huge obstacle for me over the years. There is always so much room for improvement: field work performance & efficiency, communication, documentation, customer service, etc. The challenge is getting over the NORMALCY BIAS and the attitude of?"We have always done it this way" or "We have never done it like that before" and be willing to accept the fact that you do not know everything! None of us do, especially in my beloved industry!.

I have come to understand that not every business owner in my beloved industry really cares about doing things "the right way" or "becoming better". The focal point is hardly ever where it should be, on the client, nor is the focus on providing an A+ service experience to them. The focus is more weighted to performing what the carrier will "allow and approve", regardless of the circumstances. A direct conflict of interest in my opinion and I know I am not alone in this thinking... I know I do not need to expand on this as most true industry professionals will understand what I am saying.

I am not knocking those companies that have chosen to perform "program work". I have been a part of a few companies n program work over the years and not all have given up their professionalism. To the contrary, the best of these program-focused companies I have been with actually were able to communicate effectively to the materially interested parties to explain why something had to be done and why it was priced the way it was. Sadly, most do not fall in to this category and as a result, sub-par performance in the field by underpaid technicians are expected to "take care of the customer"... question is, who IS the real customer...?

I should have seen this years ago but perhaps ego stood in the way of clear vision... live and learn I suppose...I hope!

I feel that proper Ninja-Style technician training is non-existent in most companies. Most will look at profit margins, SLAa, etc. to determine stages of success and consider field technicians an easily replaceable commodity rather than the backbone of the company... sad to watch this happen all over the country... If I had an opportunity to train technicians on actual real life projects for 8-12 weeks before releasing them on their own to represent my company, MY INDUSTRY - can you imagine how much better our industry would be as a whole? WRT, ASD, CDS, etc. - you pick the certification - good for knowledge base but without the practical real world experience, how can a technician really be properly prepared to take care of clients??How many Master Restorers have no idea how to actually perform the work properly in the field? How dangerous is this? Who ultimately suffers???

Would any mitigation business owners consider hiring a recently graduated Ninja Certified Technician that have made it out of MITIGATION NINJA TECHNICIAN BOOT CAMP at a higher wage based on this training??Or would you rather hire a "blank slate" you can train yourself - if only you could find the time...? We all know, for the majority, the time NEVER comes...

My apologies for the ramblings here - I appreciate your time and friendship! I would love to hear your thoughts on this topic. Perhaps there is a Mitigation Ninja Training program out there already???

Imagine what a team like this would do for your company... just a thought to consider...