Last year during the height of the pandemic, my brother took a job as a property manager with a prominent property management company in his area.
He was recommended for this job by one of his friends, so the job was his without going through a tedious interview process. My brother did not have any experience as a property manager, in fact, he worked as a construction foreman for many years. But on day one, he dived right in and began to solve the issues that came across his desk. Most of them had to do with tenants needing maintenance inside their apartments. Many were related to broken HVAC units, and some were complaints that had to do with minor cracks or leaks inside the rented apartments. The first thing my brother did was to contact the maintenance manager to get an idea of the workload of his team. He then scheduled a meeting with him to tackle the issues based on urgency. All the issues with HVAC units were placed towards the top of the list. Some of the issues required professional service, so he contacted the HVAC provider that they typically used and scheduled the earliest appointment. There were some issues with leaks that had to be outsourced to a professional plumber because none of the maintenance crew handled plumbing issues. They mostly took care of basic handyman services, and they took care of the facilities on the premises. Working as a property manager has opened my brother’s eyes to what goes on behind the scenes and how apartment repairs are handled. His years as a foreman came in handy for this job, he was able to solve the problems as he saw fit.