Tales from the trenches, stories forged in the fires of experience.
This episode brought to you by Multifamily Media Network and the Maintenance Mindset
podcast with Paul Rhodes.
Learn more at multifamilymedianetwork.com.
All right, everyone, thank you for joining us on Did You Know?
The Esco HVAC Podcast.
So today we're joined by another fellow podcaster, Paul Rhodes from Maintenance Mindset.
How are you, my friend?
Fantastic.
Great to see you.
You as well.
And for those who don't know, Paul is also considered the Billy Graham of the apartment
maintenance industry.
I had to go there, didn't I?
Oh, gosh.
Okay.
I aspire to be the Billy Graham.
If we're going to go with that as a label or a term, that's like an aspirational thing.
I agree.
Oh, I get it.
I certainly called the Mr. Rogers of the HFAC industry because I just like to sit there
and tell stories.
So sometimes we get labels whether we want them or not.
Oh, there you go.
Yes.
Yeah.
Won't you be my neighbor?
That would be a good one.
So I did.
I had someone say that and I was like, I had to start creating a logo for it.
So in other words, at the conference, we should see you with the cardigan sweater.
I'm going to be one day.
And oh, that's awesome.
Well, every day I do a different get up.
Yes.
Yeah, I remember that.
Yeah.
I think I'm going to eventually have a business card made that just says weirdo loudmouth
maintenance guy and hand that out because that's kind of it.
I like thinking of weird thoughts specifically about being an apartment maintenance technician
and just how much fun and great that is as an industry.
So wait a second.
I guess I'm now evangelizing and okay, I'm in the direction of Billy Graham.
That's exactly right.
That's why that's why it was mentioned about you because you have that directive and I
completely get it.
And that's really what we're here to do.
We're here to talk about the fun and the interesting things that you find in property maintenance
and our trades in general.
And a lot of times for young technicians, especially if they get stuck in installation
and that's all they get to see, they don't get to have the fun of the industry that you
and I have obviously had because we're still here, still having fun.
And even myself, I spent, I actually spent a fair amount of time in property maintenance.
So I got into the industry and a family owned commercial refrigeration business.
And in about four or five years and I'm like, I don't know about this whole working for
family deal.
And I was pretty active into the Masonic fraternity.
So I went and worked at the Indiana Masonic home.
And so then I was doing HVAC, refrigeration, plumbing, electrical.
I was working on everything in the individual's homes.
We had homes, we had apartments, and then we had our actual house.
We had a full hospital, like a five story hospital.
And then we had all of our indoor apartments, one bedroom, two bedrooms.
So we had all sorts of stuff.
And I have to say some of the funnest stories ever came out of that particular section of
my life.
And I think we need to share some of those stories.
So people that understand that property maintenance has got so many things going forth that people
don't think about, like you're working indoors most of the time.
Oh yeah.
Yes.
And there is that reality.
Yes, the property and multifamily properties all go and decisions are based off of curb
appeal, which is often viewed as the outside, the exterior.
And that's where customers see, but that goes back to that first impression.
The workers, however, the majority of the day is spent inside or in environmentally controlled
places to where if the weather is really, really bad outside, well, there's enough stuff
to keep us busy on the inside of our buildings.
So it's a much, I don't know, much more favorable environment a lot of times, especially in
the Midwest where it's super hot in the summer and super cold in the winter.
And if you're working residential like commercial, you're going to be out in those elements quite
a bit, especially if you get into refrigeration.
Oh yeah.
Yes.
And so that's a huge benefit.
And ultimately for me though, the attraction is the people.
The fact, just like what you said, you're dealing with a hospital.
So then you've got both a professional clientele and you've got patients that you have to serve.
And it's that aspect of service to me is the huge attraction.
Work is work.
It's productive, it's going to be found wherever it is.
But there's just something really unique about, I had a resident that he retired from the
Marine Corps as a Colonel and he still sticks in my head today.
He was at the very first property that I was the maintenance supervisor for.
To this day, don't ever remember him saying his last name, but it was Colonel Bob.
And Colonel Bob granted this was back when we still had smoking as a norm, a cultural
norm.
It was absolutely.
So I'd go to an apartment and even if it wasn't Colonel Bob's apartment, he would stop me
because he was sitting outside on his porch and he always had the huge, big stogie that
he would smoke.
And then he'd call me in and say, Paul, when you get finished, stop over here.
Although in order to get the feeling right, it was more like, oh, come on over.
The smokers talk.
So I go fix whatever needed fixing or do whatever the job was.
And then on the way by invariably, I'd end up in Colonel Bob's apartment and he would
tell me stories of Marine Corps and Vietnam and just the.
Some of them, old Marine, some of them were off color and politically incorrect.
But the life lessons that this guy had and what he shared of the battlefield and stressful
stories.
I will never ever have to deal with that.
But eventually, Colonel Bob passed away while living there and his wife had to move out
and I will never ever remember or forget having to get that apartment ready and the layers
of tobacco smoke on the walls.
Yes.
From a work standpoint, it was very challenging.
But I have to admit, when I was when we were scrubbing and working to remove some of that
to get it down far enough to prime and paint, do what we had to do.
I actually had a couple of moments of remembering the stories that he was saying and just how
much as a friend.
I mean, yes, we're doing apartment maintenance and you were where we're instructed to be
friendly to our residents, but be careful of becoming friends because at the end of
the day it is a business customer relationship.
But it's about going into people's homes.
Yeah.
And and I'm sure as a as a contractor, you go into somebody's home.
You never know what you're going to end up seeing or interacting with.
In Colonel Bob, I know that there are some things that I do in some ways of thinking
that I still think about things that Colonel Bob instill their stories that he told me.
And mine was Jane.
Really?
Yeah.
That's that's interesting.
You said that one.
We'll diverse down some some fun stories maybe here in a minute.
But these life lessons, you're exactly right.
So there's a sweetest little lady.
She always said hi.
I always stopped to talk to her.
I was working in her apartment, working on her air conditioner.
So these units were air conditioner and then we had steam heat.
Right.
And so I'm in working on the unit and we're just conversing and I'm looking around the
room and I see all of these airplane photos and this pretty little young lady and she
says, do you like electricity and wiring to us?
And I said, oh, absolutely.
Yeah, I work on a little bit of everything.
She says, well, during the war, that's me right there.
I wired the consoles of most of the B-52 bombers that went through production.
I'm like, tell me more.
She says, you know, during that time period, women really were never looked at as being
a part of the trades.
We didn't do the big heavy mechanical stuff, even though we wanted to.
I grew up working on automobiles with my dad and his automotive shop.
So I could have worked on just about anything that the country needed me to work on.
But because I was a woman, I was a female, I wasn't allowed to do that.
But because I had so much wiring experience, I got to wire instrumentation panels.
So I spent the entire war hand wiring all of the consoles for B-52 bombers.
She says, I could draw a schematic right now if I needed to.
I could tell you how to operate a B-52 because not only did I do the wiring, I did all of
the switches and all the instrumentation as well.
So even though I couldn't fly, I wouldn't have been allowed to go through the same kind
of training that a man was allowed to.
I could probably fly one because I know how they operate.
I'm like, that was an interesting life lesson.
It's stuff like that that you begin to take the life lessons from Judy or from Colonel
Bob and apply them to what we're doing on a daily basis.
And that is the really, really cool thing about the varieties of work that you and I
end up doing.
It's really cool.
I learned a lot of the home maintenance skills in that period of my life because I was able
to learn from other professionals on a variety of different things.
So when we start talking about the different careers in the industry, I think it's very
important to understand all of the opportunities and the value that comes in looking at different
careers that had a lot of value.
Financially, it was valuable.
Mentally, it was incredibly valuable.
And being able to work indoors was another extremely important part of that period of
my life.
And there's also some really, really fun stories.
I think we can put this episode in Tales from the Trenches.
I've got some fun stories.
I bet you got some fun stories.
I've got to be careful though.
I'm not sure what I should rate this one.
This might be a PG, should be at least a PG-13 if not a T-17.
Yeah, probably.
Probably?
Yeah, somewhere along the lines just because we do get to go into our residence homes
in their most...
I don't know if private is the right way.
I would say unaware of other people's perceptions, areas to where you do go to the home and residents
answer the door when they're just out of the shower or just in potentially compromising
situations.
Oh yes, absolutely.
I'll never forget I had a friend of mine that was looking for a job and we ended up hiring
him.
It was a guy I knew at church.
And we got a call to go to a residence apartment for the air conditioning was failing.
But this particular resident was an entertainer of the adult variety who she liked to bring
work home with her.
We'll just say that.
I can imagine.
This work order comes in to go fix the air conditioner and it's hot enough during the
day that it's an emergency.
It has to be done.
But it was one of those deals of as an employee of the community, you never knew what you
were going to get when you go to her apartment.
So me and I'll call to changing names to protect the innocent.
Joe and I go up to the apartment and I said, now Joe, remember I had met Joe at church
and I said Joe, to color the story, my wife and his wife are really good friends.
The first thing I say is Joe, you got to come on this work order with me because it's not
good for a...
I can't go alone.
Correct.
So we get to the apartment and I knock on the door and I said, Joe, by the way, you
see that caulking right up there in the corner, right?
That corner right there, you know that caulking is really, really interesting.
Knock, knock, knock, knock.
And we need to evaluate what kind of caulking do you think that was?
And about that time she opens the door and he's looking up at the caulking and I'm looking
up at the caulking and I ask the resident, do you have air coming out of your vents?
I'm here to look at your air conditioners, air coming out of your vents?
And she says, yeah.
And I said, okay, well then I need you to go to your thermostat, turn the temperature
way down on the thermostat and we're going to go work on the outside system there.
And she says, okay.
And she closes the door and goes back inside.
And I look at Joe and Joe's eyes are as big as plates.
And all he said was, I didn't know they made shirts that went down that low.
These are real.
These are people.
These are our residents.
And you know, we go into their homes and I get it.
It's their home.
They should feel comfortable there, but you know, some situational awareness would be
very good if you have something broken and somebody has to come over.
It's fun.
Another favorite story and actually, you know, Howard Weiss that works with you, good friend
of ours.
I told this to him a couple of years ago and he laughed so loud that it interrupted a class
nearby that was going on at the conference.
And it's a perfect illustration of just the variety of people that we end up dealing with.
And I got a work order to go work on.
If I remember right, it was a kitchen sink in a residence apartment.
And so I go up to the door and I knock on the door and you know, there is, I'm sure
it developed in you and for a lot of service workers, you get that sixth sense kind of
ESP thing where you can't physically detect somebody is home, but you know somebody's
home for whatever reason.
Yeah.
It's like a radar or something.
So I knocked on the door, didn't hear anything.
And normal practice is you wait a minute or so and then knock again loudly to go in.
Well, the second time I knocked, I heard this scream behind the door.
And the scream was not eek or, oh my gosh, it was, if you've ever seen a child in a store
that the child is not ready to leave the store and mom grabs the child's ear to drag the
kid out.
Yeah.
The time to go pull and the scream that occurs from the kid yelling, that was the kind of
scream that I heard through the door.
Oh, I'm going in.
And yeah.
And you know, personal value.
Absolutely.
You don't mess with kids.
Absolutely.
And what's happening here?
Oh, had the key.
I ran in and habit is you start yelling maintenance.
We go in the door to try and do it.
Nothing going on in the living room, head down the hallway, heard it going in there.
And lo and behold, the, uh, there was a young lady that was on her knees right next to the
bathtub that had just slit the neck of a goat.
Oh, so I did.
I heard a kid scream.
Oh, wow.
Not the kid you were expecting.
Correct.
Not the kind of kid that we were expecting.
And I, I, I don't know what I said, but I do know that I picked up my jaw from the floor.
Oh man.
I can imagine.
Because what?
Uh, I, I'm not sure what or how to even.
That's your response.
Yeah.
I'm here to take a look at your air conditioning.
How you doing today?
I did go back to the office and fill out, you know, there's paperwork and stuff that's
involved.
And when that resident did move out, we, uh, did an extra deep clean on the bathroom and
bath tile and stuff that went on.
So, uh, yeah, it, it, it's all people.
It's just people in their life.
That is, you know, as frustrating as people are at times taking afterward, you think back
and just how interesting and amusing that, that they are.
Uh, I mean, I, I hear a recent episode of, of my podcast.
I shared a story of a resident that was having a rodent problems and, uh, it, it worked out
really, really well, but in the end of that conversation, I ended up talking with her
about, uh, maybe she should attempt to teach the rats how to sit up and beg like she was
working on her puppy dog with, and maybe that's how it gets around.
And, and it ended up being a, uh, a laugh line for her, which was great because the
story begins with her cussing me out.
Yeah, I'm sure.
It's just, it's so cool being able to serve people and be exposed to really, really neat
people.
Interesting things and different states of mind, things we may not think of encountering
all the time.
One of my favorite ones.
Remember I'm, I'm at this, it is a nursing home.
There are many people who are, are very, um, very sharp and there are people who could
be potentially challenged a little bit.
So you have a lot of interesting conversations, but my funnest experience, I think yet, uh,
it wasn't directly involved.
I was indirectly involved, but it just shows you some of the interesting scenarios that
we can encounter in multi-family is I'm going down the hallway and one of the guys that
I work with, he did more of the plumbing side of things and a lot of general maintenance
and we'll just call him, we'll call him Bob.
And so I walked by Bob and Hey Bob, how's it going?
I'm doing great.
Just a, just a simple job here.
Just, just got a commode that needs a new wax ring and, um, you got a minute.
You can help me pull this thing off.
Yeah, absolutely.
No problem.
So I walk up and I'm helping him, you know, so he's undoing the bolts.
It's a wall mount and so he's already drained all the water out and we're actually just
to pulling bolts off from helping carry it out.
We set it in the hallway and okay, Bob, I'll catch you later.
I've got a, I got some P-tacks I gotta go take a look at and I'll, I'll meet you down
the shop lunchtime.
We just gathered at lunchtime to share stories, right?
Some of the best storytelling I ever had was in that period of my time.
So I get there and we're having lunch and we're just kind of chatting and it was nice
because we had like all the maintenance, all grounds, variety of people telling stories
from different perspectives and encounters.
And Bob comes in and he's got this really, really bad look on his face.
Like really, really bad.
What's going on, Bob?
He said, people, he said, there's days I absolutely love my job and there's days that
I just don't know what to think about my job.
He says, there's things that happen in this kind of work that you just don't ever expect
to see and I just seen it.
I'm like, well, all right, tell us more.
Sounds like we've got a great story for today.
He says, all right, so you remember when you came by and you helped me pull that commode
off in the wall?
I was like, yep.
And he said, well, so I went down to the shop to get a wax ring and I came back up and somebody
pooped in my commode.
Right on the hallway.
Hey, when you gotta go, you gotta go.
That reminds me, I was fixing a garbage disposal one time and I'm laying underneath the kitchen
cabinet.
And I happen to be a larger-ish individual and they don't exactly make cabinets in large
and tall sizes.
Oh, sure.
Yeah.
So me getting underneath the kitchen cabinet, kitchen sink to fix the escutcheon and the
seal that goes on the collar is what I was working on.
So I had the garbage disposal dropped and it was there and I'm underneath there working
directly over my head.
So if looking at the camera, I was looking up through and all of a sudden the resident,
she comes and stands and straddles me laying on the floor and commences to turn on the
faucet and rinse out her cereal bowl.
Hello?
I can get out of here in a hurry.
Yeah.
I, you know, full face.
It's there.
And unfortunately I wasn't wearing the safety eyewear that, you know, we're supposed to
be wearing, but still it's people.
It's that's all it is.
And it's a really, really, really cool things that you've got funny stories like pooing
in a commode in the hallway.
And yet you've got Colonel Bob and Judy.
It's those paradigms or those, those ends of the spectrum that can happen at any moment
is what makes it really, really cool.
I agree.
So for those of you in the HVAC industry that are looking for other fun, interesting opportunities,
you want to think outside of the box for your career and think about additional things that
you can do with your talents, learn new talents, gain some really fog guarantee.
You're going to gain some fun, interesting stories.
Look at multifamily, look at property maintenance, department maintenance, and start thinking
about other ways you can use your skills and ways that you can change other people's lives
and serve other people.
I mean, really, we talked about this all the time.
When you're in the trades, you must obviously have a servant heart or just an extreme dire
to have some money because as most of us are in it to serve other people and it is very
rewarding.
And so Paul Rhodes, I appreciate you joining me today.
I don't know if anyone gained any education on this podcast at all, but by golly, it's
exactly what working in property maintenance of any form is like.
It is fun.
It is interesting.
It's new skill sets and it is a great career without a doubt.
And we appreciate you joining us today.
Oh, thanks for the invite again.
And I will see you at the National HVACR Education Conference in March.
Yes, I'm so looking forward to it.
It's going to be great.
It is absolutely.
All right, everyone.
Thanks for joining us today.