Here's the story of my work life. If you're someone who likes to read, give it a go. If not, no worries. I just need to get this out.
So I currently work at this car wash. Big conveyor wash, full service, towels and spray bottles provided. Originally it was mom and pop owned by my friend's dad and they needed a general employee who knew stuff about computers to help them with the wash system, it was way more technologically involved than they thought. Wash went down one day and they just called me over to come see if I can figure it out. I sit down and read a bunch of manuals and got the gist of everything. Wash fixed, all good.
I'm about to leave when I get offered a position there as a regular wash employee/sometimes IT guy. My personal availability schedule being absolutely abhorrent due to home life stuff and medical issues (2PM – 3AM), I'm not sure I'm the kind of guy they want. They work around it, they want me there. $10.50/hr in FL? I'll take it.
So a year goes by, leaning a bunch of about car wash systems, mechanics, pumps and motors, pneumatics, plumbing, etc. in addition to doing regular car wash employee work (cleaning the property, trash, stocking amenities and other chore stuff). We hire another manager to cover the opening/daytime portion of the day. At this point I'm at $13/hr with tips, things are going fine. However, the wash gets sold. Covid really hit them hard and with car washes popping up everywhere they don't wanna risk competing in this market with corpo washes, fair enough, I don't blame them. So as they're leaving they appoint me manager ($15/hr let's goooo), having gathered a buuunch of car was knowledge that rivals dedicated car wash maintenance companies, I feel great. If the car wash goes down while I'm around, it's usually back up in less than an hour. Air compressor radiator pipe blows? New one installed. Poly hose split? Push fittings for days! Chemical injector piston stuck? New o-rings and lube. A brush stop working? Check VFDs for errors, relay switches, and motor condition. If it could break on this property, I could fix it. Not to mention your typical boss stuff, chemical ordering, purchase agent, payroll clerk, hiring, etc.
New owners, I'm weary. Not only because I overheard talk of the owner and GM saying “why do you need an IT guy? We'll get rid of him,” but because it's also not mom and pop. It's an investment company holding the business more for growth and equity. Not really in the “car wash game” for the long haul so to speak. GM seems like a cool guy, tells me after he quit that as soon as him and the boss sat down with me and heard me talk about what I do, they looked at each other after walking out and said “oh we're keeping him.” Being as though I'm now the only person in the boss's whole show that knows this much about car washes, I become the payroll clerk for every car wash he owns (3 not including us) as well as the purchase agent and equipment repair consultant guy ($17/hr has arrived!). Hectic, busy, but they let me keep my weird schedule so I work 2PM to 8PM…nice.
Fast forward another year, I'm at $20/hr and I feel like I found a good place. I know everything about my job, I feel like I know who I am here. We're the most successful wash in the county, killing it with revenue.
On the underside though, I've given up friends, dating, free time, and hobbies becasue the wash takes up all of the waking time. There is never a day where. am without things to do. Latest I've worked was 2:30PM to 5AM for a big maintenance project. My life is work. I say to myself it's worth it though because I have a savings account with money in it for once, I bought my own car, I pay my own bills and grocery money, I don't need my parent anymore to lend me money (it's almost become the opposite…another topic for later) I bought everything I could have only ever dreamed of owning as a kid, and I don't have the time for any of it. The reality that my life is over is setting in, I'm in my 20s and my other manager is 57 and he's immensely more free than I've ever been. The chaotic nature of the job is getting to my head. The other manager can manage people better than me but has a limited amount of skill in anything else. I've taught him a lot about car wash maintenance, but I still feel very alone on this.
A little after that year I start to see signs of a sale. A guy taking pictures of the property, boss not telling me outright but asking me to forward facts and figures in a excel sheet to someone who seems like a real estate/commercial property agent. He won't tell me he's selling, but I kinda know the feeling. Suddenly, BAM! He informs us one day that the business is officially sold. Gave me and other manager a little bonus (a whole $1000 :o) for the work, boosts me to $25/hr, and up an away he goes.
So…new owners…again…
It plays out like a broken record. I'm told something similar to what our last GM says about keeping me. This is a car wash corporate though, they're all car wash people. My GM especially, guy knows his stuff. He even admitted that I know more than him about car wash stuff in places. Glad to have someone to talk to who knows the way of the wash, you know? I sit down with the CEO of the company, cool guy, a little “daddies money” style but eh, that's how it is. Tells me “I think you're gong to be a valuable addition to the company, I know you were worried about your schedule but as a site manager, you have the power to make that your schedule if you want.” Says we are the most profitable wash in his portfolio. I get connections now, actual car wash managers from other states who run washes that I can talk to if I need help, our own call center, our own IT guy, a person who handles janitorial supply ordering, it's an actual company.
Feeling like everything is going ok, it's time to rebrand. All signs, logos, menus, get yeeted for the new company stuff. The corporate training starts, the policies start rolling in, the paperwork starts coming in…the expectations start getting higher…hmm. No matter! I'm the wash man, I'll push through and I'll handle everything. I'm juggling everything well, I can't even list the responsibilities I have now becasue maaaaan is it a list and a half. This is going to be a very bottom heavy resume. The late night texts from the boss get more frequent and more aggressive. Mind you, we're hourly, not salary. When we're off the clock, we're off the clock.
New boss didn't like this.
So now is where the labor budget constraints come in. Gotta get rid of people, gotta limit hours real hard. People aren't getting their hours they used to get and we get blamed because the kids don't know that we can't just put them on the schedule for what they want anymore, we have a set amount of hours we are allowed to schedule. Boss cries “you guys are lucky my other sites in my district get even less!” there are reasons why that is, I won't get into it. I will bring up the fact that every other manager in the company is salary, not hourly. I bring this up with the boss, maybe I can be on salary so I'll have more time for maintenance and not thinking about my deadlines to clock out, “I'll ask HR”,…never mentioned again. The 100 degree days roll in and we're workin hard here. Only to be told later that night that our site isn't performing well.
Couple of months go by, I'm holding it together. Doing the best I can as much of as I can. The day comes to redo all of the equipment, we shut down the tunnel and the corporate comes down to start working on it. CEO included, hands on guy, love to see a CEO working with power tools in the heat with us. Things are going well when I take my usual 2 days in the week off. Oh no. I hear from my GM that bossman is pissy I didn't stay there to help 1 of the 7 days they were there. I stopped by to se how they were doing, and dipped. I should have stayed apparently. did not know that as it wasn't laid out in front of me when we were re-hired. This will become a bigger problem later.
Fast forward to post re-opening, 4 100+ degree days of free washes. 2000 cars washed in 4 days and we're now fully rebranded and reopen. The people know we're here again. These were an interesting 4 days that really laid everything out. So day 0, it's the day before the big shindig and our GM came out to support us. He knew my schedule before hand and approved it for the week so I had an expectation of how this was going to go. The other manager takes the first 2 day when I'm off, then he'll be off and I'll take the last 2 days (with an assistant manager opening). end of day 0 I say good luck to the team while I'm gone. Day 1 for them will be day 1 of my day off, PT time for a workcomp injury I got here so I'm not going to PT and then working 8 hours, no thanks. I get a call from my assistant at the end of the day. “I don't know how else to say this, but X was really pissy about you not being here today.” Apparently, managers are supposed to attend all events period. This was something no one had told me, not even our GM when he approved our schedule for the week. I should have just known this. I told my assistant “He expected me to give up my days off an work 12 days in a row for this? Really?” I brush it off and say “well shit guess I'll come in tomorrow then.” Got 1 day off this week, ok this is annoying but I get it. I show up, boss acts like nothing is unusual. I work I do my thing. Night comes, he texts us the longest text thread I've seen of just the problem with us and our site and what we're doing wrong and how we better shape up or the corporate guys are coming down there to take that site over. I argue with him about how he expected our team to be trained in a little of everything, I fire back about cross training not being in our training manual. You'r hired for this thing, you do this thing only. I failed by not teaching the underpaid staff to do a little bit of everything. Got it.
Next, my availability gets called into question. Apparently HR tells me that a manager needs to be available at all times for any reason, including events. So I'm hourly and we have an hourly budget, but I need to be available whenever? Sounds like I need to be on salary. Silence from upper management. After the CEO not having a problem with it, after us running the most successful wash in the county with this model. It's not the company's way of doing things so it has to stop. I talk to my GM about it again and I get “you need to be on salary at a decent wage, why didn't you negotiate your pay when we took over?”. We had a talk about it and things were looking good.
Side story. The takeover went really quick. 'You need to sign this offer letter if you want your paycheck for the days you've worked so far since the purchase. Get your whole team to sign their letters so they can get paid for their work during the transition.' Wasn't really framed as an offer, was framed as a normal part of a company takeover if you're continuing to work. I was already burned out by then so I just did as I was told. Signed it, told everyone else to sign theirs, we golden.
Upset about the two face treatment regarding my work schedule and pissy attitude form the GM. I email HR. I'm done with this, I'm not being paid enough for this anymore. The other managers make waaaayyy more than I do and I know it. I send a big email outlining my complaints, the late night texts, the wage gap between me and others, my availability. I get an email back “I know this is frustrating, so what is your availability?”
So day 4 rolls around, I have a talk with my GM face to face. “I'm not what you guys are looking for in a manager anymore it seems. If my availability is really an issue, promote the other manager to main manager and give me something else.” Other manager is a cool guy, knows nothing about computers though and refuses to do that type of work. He says ok. A week goes by, I get a letter on my desk the first day back from my 2 days off. “Letter of demotion” ok, “maintenance and closer position” chill, $16/hr…PFFFTTTT from $25 to $16? For my knowledge as a wash maintenance person? Saving you thousands on outside calls? Noooope. $18 is my counter offer minimum to keep me. GM is the one who said negotiate and that I need to be paid more and be on salary at a decent wage etc. and he gives me an offer of $16/hr. That's a pretty sheer drop for a demotion that will probably mean I still do a lot of work around here that the new main manager won't do. I had an offer for a job at a reputable hotel chain for a maintenance position for $16/hr, and that's indoors too. Why would I say yes to the same offer from a job that is not going to get any better for me? HR says they'll respond to my offer Monday.
So here I am today. Hovering over the offer from the new job and waiting for HR to respond to my offer to see what I'll do next. This is very anxious for me as this wash has been my life for years now. I never would have imagined me leaving. But hey, is what it is. Some people don't usually stay at a job like this for more than 3 years. What will happen next? We'll see.
Thank you for reading my story. There are lot of details I left out for the sake of brevity, believe it or not. IF anyone else is feeling like this, just know that you're not alone. Maybe a change of scenery is what you need. Maybe it's what I need. If only it wasn't so scary.