Anyone in S.E. Michigan?

What are they working on Joe .... low temperature and deep snow alarms?

LOL - that would be up here in my neck of the woods.

The Flint job is just keeping the fire alarms working during a phased remodel of a large department store. Some relocation/addition of horn/strobes. I don't know for certain what the Detroit job is.

My boss has asked me to be project manager on the Flint job and the same thing in Grand Rapids. It will be just a few days at the beginning and end of each phase (plus emergencies - which we can hopefully avoid).

Apparently he's been happy with what I've done so far.

Keep up the good work.

I don't know if you have designs of ever striking out on your own but if you are, approach every thing you do now, as if you were doing for yourself. This is the best school you could ever hope to find. In years to come, all the things that you experiend now will be just second nature to you and you can direct more of your attention to running a business.

The one advantage that has totally benefited me is the fact that even though I had the innate hands on capability and prior schooling in electronics, I started in this industry in the business end. After I had all that under my belt, I started my own installation company and have always had the advantage over others in this trade who mostly come to it only with installation experience.

Drumming up the work is where I failed. Doing it is my strong suite - coordinating it is something semi-new. I've been lead tech on jobs a lot, coordinating the activity of a few other techs - no jobs this big though - but I figure as long as I have contact info, keep up on when to be there and how long we will have, know what we have to accomplish and have the equipment we will need (lifts) I should be okay.

But I asked the boss to stay available and be ready to "grade my papers" as I do feel a little out of my element and want any oversights discovered as quickly as possible.

Okay, I feel the urge to ramble here, but I'll spare you - obviously I am excited at the new responsibilities but have to admit there is some nervousness as well. I like this company, it's less than a year old but the owner and ops manager are good guys and they've been pretty generous, so I want them to be successful and stick around for a long time to come.

The only thing that has me worried is that all the work is coming from one company - granted, we have become the "go to" guys for the big, tough jobs, but it's still all coming from one direction. I've never liked all my eggs in one basket. The boss is working on some of the other companies and they are looking at a small one man operation licensed to install & service alarms, cctv & card access - the wire pulling would be accomplished by the main company (subcontracted on paper) and the device installation, programming and testing would be done by the licensed company. That's why I was asking about monitoring companies (sorry, Tom, if I gave the impression I was looking for myself

- didn't intend to.).

Alright - I didn't spare you as much rambling as I had hoped...

I didn't think you were looking for yourself, it just seemed as if it was something new for you and I was trying to encourage you to take it on with the excitement and vitality that you might expect if you were doing it on your own.

In past employment situations, I learned early that you are better appreciated by your bosses if you take on responsibility with the same enthusiasm as they have and even more, if you can muster it. Anyone one with enthusiasm for their work is happy with what they're doing and as long as (true) common sense presides in that person, they will usually excell. These are the people that prevail in most things that they do and failure is used as a learning experience of what not to do next time, rather than being viewed as defeat. Good luck and don't forget, if you never go out on a limb or take some chances, you're never going to expand your experiences, your knowledge, your value to your employers and to you and utimately your income.

Best.

Thanks