I Think This Home Inspection Thing Might Work Out.
I used to have a very steady and enjoyable job before I was a home inspector. I worked for Georgia Pacific Corporation which became Bluelinx. Most people thinks that's a railroad. It's not, it's a building materials distributor. I sold building materials to contractor lumber yards in Illinois and Indiana. Blulinx gave their outside salesmen every tool needed to be successful. In 2001 I was asked to join a group that serviced Home Depot stores. It was a new challenge and one I accepted. Late in 2006 there were rumors that the contract for Home Depot was up for bid, and a short time later we learned that Bluelinx had lost the bid. All of our group of reps were losing our jobs unless we wanted to move to Atlanta. We also learned that the company the won the contract, wanted to hire all of our team. Good deal, right? Wrong. The new company was terrible to it's employees and as I was the new (TM) territory manager, the job of firing, suspending, warning and generally being a jerk was now all on me. I am not a jerk, and it was very difficult coming home week after week, knowing I had just spent most of my day stressed out waiting for the next ruling from the big bosses as to who was going to be fired or laid off or written up with a warning.
I stepped down as territory manager in late 2009. I had had enough. Along the way in mid 2007, a Home Depot associate told me about how he was in a similar situation years before when he worked for Hewlett Packard. He hated what he was doing, and knew he had to make a change. He said I should check out Home Inspecting as a possible option, in case the bad job got worse.
I did check it out, got into a junior college licensing class, got my license in late 2007.
Here is the Love is in the air part of the story. I was doing very few inspections while I was still doing the TM job, but I was learning and implementing a system. I did 4 inspections in 2007, 8 in 2008, 12 in 2009 and 34 in 2010. I came home one summer Saturday in 2010 after doing 2 inspections in the same day for the first time ever. Both clients payed me with $20 bills. I walked in the door, walked over to my wife and said "I think this home inspection thing might work out." She asked why I thought that. I reached in my pocket, and pulled out the stack of bills and threw them all in the air like we just won the lottery. As the years have gone by, the number of inspections went from that first time with 2 in one day, to over 500 a year for the past 2 years. I love my job now, but have to believe it would have never happened if that new company would have treated it's employees as a team instead of the enemy. They pushed me out of my comfot zone and helped drive my desire to make the inspection career work. So thanks so much, jerk boss guys, you were my inspiration.
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Scott Seaton-The Home Inspector With A Heart
SLS Home Inspections @815-644-6271
Inspecting homes like yours in the Kankakee, Bourbonnais, Bradley, Illinois area since 2007.
Real Estate inspections with same day report delivery.
Mold and air quality testing.
FREE 90 day Homeowners Warranty. Included with every inspection.
FREE Sewergard protection for the first 90 days. covers up to $4000 of sewer or water main repairs.
FREE Recallchek appliance recall service. Included with every inspection.
FREE Moldsafe coverage on every inspection.
FREE Platinum Roof Protection Plan with 5 year leak repair coverage.
Visit my website at www.illinois-home-inspector.us or
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Scott L Seaton
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