I had been looking for several months to find a partime retirement job, one where I could help people, and improve their living quarters. I had been doing property maintenance for several years and really enjoyed it.
While my wife was reading the paper one morning she circled a small add for a building maintenance caretaker and told me I should check this out.I got online and filled out an application and the next day I received a call asking me to come in for an interview right away. The interview went good and I was hired the following day.
Right away I was thinking this is the perfect job for me. I had the responsibilities of upkeep, maintenance, and repairs of two buildings. Both of the buildings were in pretty good condition, although very little maintenance had been done in the last few years. One building has 8 apartments and the other building has 24 apartments. Each of the buildings is occupied with people who have some sort of disability and are not able to do any repairs themselves.
Many of the people are confined to their wheel chair but are still very mobile and able to go wherever they want to. Also there are about 10 of the residents who travel around in power wheel chairs who I see on a daily basis. Two of these people out of many that I would like to mention are who makes my work days so special.
Eric and Kay have gradually become my inspiration for doing the best job possible.
Eric lives on the second floor and Kay lives on the first. They are good friends and visit each other often, they must go past the office each time they go out or check their mail, and I always leave the door open so any one can come in, but usually they just go by and always give me a greeting, like (Hi Earl or Morning Earl) or like Eric says "Earl's Snacking again". I have done several repairs in both of their apartments, and they are always so appreciative of how quickly the repair was made or taken care of. They both have a good outlook on life and usually seem happy with their environment. This makes coming to work a pleasure and I look forward to seeing them each day.
My office is located on the first floor just inside the main entrance,and the mail boxes are on the other side of my office. I have windows on three walls so I can sit in the office and see pretty much every thing that is going on. When I first started this job I was advised not to become personally involved in the residents lives, so I have pretty much stuck to greetings and uplifting comments. It has been no surprise that over the last year and a half most of the people have shared a lot of positive feed back, not only to me but to the corporate property managers. Granted there have been stressful times but for the most part this has been the perfect job and the reason I enjoy it so much. The people and variety of tasks I do each day is what Simply Living Life to the best of my ability is all about.
