Workamping After All

Several posts ago I reported that John and Rana have settled here in the Montgomery, AL area for the near future as it relates to finishing Melba’s (Rana’s mom) house remodel, selling the house and getting her settled into an RV.  Well that is still the plan where John splits his time between working at Melba’s house and at Lowes.  Since he is doing the remodel pro bono in order for Melba to save for the RV, he needed to have a job that paid a fulltime RVer’s two biggest expenses; rent and food.

John started at Lowes March 3rd working full-time but on a temporary/seasonal basis which at least got him in the door.  At the end of July he was hired as a permanent employee but at part-time.  He did receive a pay increase by being hired on as permanent which almost compensates for the cut in hours each week.  The fewer days at Lowes helps free up time to work on the house but with the rising costs of groceries and fuel they have been unable to save money or travel so John decided to offer his extensive skills to the owner of the RV park where we are staying.  After several discussions the owner (Chris) gave John a chance.

John reported for work on weekday morning and he was put on lawn mowing duty; first in front of the RV dealership and then all the lots in the campground.  Chris was impressed because John just mowed everything and reported back when done, after which  they sent him on a couple errands in the company truck.  The next day John worked there Chris put him on the large tractor to “bush hog” which is cutting two large fields of tall grass/weeds.  John finished this task in half the time the other guys took so Chris was sold on John’s work and attitude.  Now John is working two to three days a week prepping newly arrived trailers from the factory for the sales lot, completing PDIs’ (pre-delivery inspections), conducting customer walk thru’s (picking up of customer purchased trailers) selling parts and even selling trailers.  The hours John works goes to paying our monthly rent which includes water, sewer and power.

John is quite happy working for Chris and everyone else at the dealership, it also provides great experience for future workamping that Rana and John will use when we all hit the road again.  Until now their resume had no experience with campground operations and John plans on working with Chris in order to take on more of the responsibility of the campground operations.  That way when we head North for a summer we can make similar arrangements until it’s time to turn around and head South.  Rinse & repeat.