Work Requests

The main job of a maintenance guy is making sure everything at your facility is maintained in working order. Now, in a large facility simply knowing what things are in need of repair is a fairly formidable task, so in order to keep on top of things, a small slip of paper called a "work request" was invented.

A work request is very simple really; On it is written information about what is broken, what building it is part of, and exactly where in that building it is located. A very handy tool in reality. My job is to make sure that all the work requests that come in get taken care of so that the camp can run smoothly and our guests' stay will be as comfortable as possible.

When I interviewed for this position I was asked the question, "Jeff, you will be given work requests for things that need to be fixed. They will come from 3 sources; (1)The camp staff, (2)Guests staying at camp, and (3) from yourself simply finding things that need to be fixed. How do you plan on organizing all of this information so as to be able to prioritize and get the most important jobs done right away?" I felt that I was prepared to handle this type of situation. Sure, there would be a lot of work requests, but through the use of a spreadsheet or two, prioritizing would not be too difficult and I would be able to keep track of all that needed to be done.

What I was not warned about was that work requests actually come from 4 places; (1) the camp staff, (2)guests staying at camp, (3) my own observations, and - here's the kicker - (4)my grandmother sending me requests to my personal e-mail address! Not that I'm complaining, mind you, I just wasn't fully prepared to open my e-mail and read "Dear Jeff, I will be attending the upcoming Women's Retreat. I don't know if you've noticed but the door hinge on room 4 of the Lodge squeaks. I hope you will be able to take care of this before I arrive next weekend. I hope you are doing well. Love and Hugs, Grandma Sargent"

Now, I ask you, how do you prioritize a request like that?

Seriously though, it has been pretty amazing to see how fast things pile up. We recently added a network-driven work request system that lets camp staff enter there work requests in a computer database and I can get them right on my computer. The database lets my boss and I review, sort, and prioritize, and when we have finished a job, it sends an e-mail to the person who made the request to let them know the problem has been taken care of. It's a pretty cool system.

As my boss put it, though, it's a little harder to file the requests "out of sight" this way. Thus, in the last 2 1/2 weeks that the system has been up, we have reached a total of 96 work requests! On a good day I can knock off 10 of those. So as you can see, I'm kept pretty busy. But I am enjoying myself immensely. I love getting to tinker with things, work with my hands, fix stuff. It beats the pants off sitting at a desk all day long - even when it's raining. And I love the people I'm working with too. The whole camp staff is a pretty top notch group to work with and Emily and I continue to feel very welcomed.

It's great to be a part of a place that impacts so many people as they come through. And it's nice to see the occasional family member here for a retreat from time to time, even when they send me work requests in my e-mail!

(By the way, I did fix the squeaky hinge - it was a high priority.)