Pros
I adore the hands on aspect, enjoying time outdoors and then I also appreciate my office time. It's a unique combination here, you constantly utilize your management skills, customer service, administrative, sales abilities, and all while keeping fit while maintaining the property you run. Your customers witness you in all of these roles and it is near impossible not to build a good rapport when the same people who keep you employed see you consistently active in your role as their Property Manager/Handyman-woman. ♡My Clients and Peers♡ You encounter such a wide variety of customers and associates in this industry. People from all walks of life, all in different places and experiencing different circumstances that have brought them into your storage facility. I haven't met a customer yet that just felt like they wanted a storage space and came out to get one. In the same sense, I haven't trained an associate that set out in search of a position with a storage company. All of the people I have connected with here have enriched my life in many valuable ways.
Cons
I was hired in and told if I could stand out, proving my abilities to be outstanding, promotions were possible. It didn't take long before I learned that being as I was hired as a Relief Manager in Field Management, no matter what I did I could only advance to a Property Manager, then an A Property Manager, and then finally I could become a Key Training Professional. (Not necessarily in that order) This knowledge didn't stop upper management from misleading me, recommending that I return to school to complete at least my 4 year degree to become eligible for the District Management position, where my career potential would have no boundaries within the company and my salary would more than triple, and the incentive package would put my years salary to shame. Two years into juggling a very chaotic life...promoting all the way through field management, enjoying marriage, raising young adults, accumulating student loans, and constant exhaustion, but maintaining energy through adrenaline, I experienced a new regional who told me flat out that I had reached the top...No matter what I did, I would not be promoted outside of field management. Since that time I've continued to stay. I've been comfortable at times and I do enjoy the job. However, maddeningly every year they find a way to take more away. They took away sick pay, then yearly they reduce Paid Time Off. Now they argue on allowing us to use our earned PTO, and if it isn't used by a certain deadline, they cut us a check instead of allowing us our earned rest/family time. Our bonuses went from monthly to quarterly, then quarterly to yearly. Merit increases are now mass increases, in tiny percentages, provided to all, no matter what your performance level is. Upper management constantly changes now, without ever sharing any of their strategies. The field moral is now nonexistent, they want robots, they demand results, high pressure sales, so we can pad the pockets of our CEO, while our properties run in need of more maintenance and upgrades for our clients who consistently receive rate increases leaving them upset with the office staff who have zero control. Those upset customers then leave, and upper management expects us to explain why we can't retain their business.