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edenfallingSo, that post I said I'd make someday about internal company structure and personnel? This is it, more or less.
To start with we have Company Owner. He founded the company back around 1970 when he bought a few properties in Ithaca and started renting them mostly to college students. He has since diversified to NYC and I think Toronto, and for the past several years he's been making a push to get into Providence RI but that has been going nowhere. Anyway, it's a privately held company and as such the organizational structure is... well, it's a mess, frankly.
I have no contact with the offices in other cities, but in Ithaca there are two major offices and now my tiny satellite office.
The main office is downtown. This houses Lawyer Man, Ms. Random Numbers, Ms. Rise-and-Shine, and Mr. Geniality. Lawyer Man is, as the name implies, the company lawyer. (I don't know if he does law for offices in other cities or only Ithaca.) He is also the local COO. This means he's meant to be the overall manager of Ithaca operations. The thing is, he has no fucking idea how to manage. He couldn't manage his way out of a wet paper bag. As you can imagine, this causes some problems.
Ms. Busywork is the senior leasing agent. She is currently out on extended medical leave.
Ms. Random Numbers and Ms. Rise-and-Shine jointly comprise our accounting department. Ms. Rise-and-Shine also does a bunch of computer stuff -- specifically with regard to our tenant portal and payment processing programs -- and both of them also handle some leasing stuff, moreso since Ms. Busywork has been gone.
Mr. Geniality handles inquiries, tours, and leases. He is very nice but a little disorganized.
There is currently an office temp to deal with document scanning, uploading, and filing while Ms. Busywork is gone. Previously that had been largely Mr. Geniality's job while Ms. Busywork handled some of the leasing and inquiries.
The other major office is in Collegetown. That houses Mom Boss, Aunt Boss, Miss California, and me one day a week. Mom Boss and Aunt Boss kinda-sorta share the same job, namely leasing agent, but in practice they have split some of their areas of responsibility. Aunt Boss handles all the key transfers, writes 90% of the leases, handles lease assignments, liaises with other rental companies and city agencies, shouts at NYSEG when necessary, and does most of the "gently talk down angry/distraught people on the phone" stuff. Meanwhile Mom Boss handles most of the email inquiries, does all our FileMaker data entry, does a lot of Rent Manager data entry, wrangles furniture requests, handles subleases, reviews security videos when necessary, does local accounting stuff (including preparing rent payment reminders), does move-out inspections and damage reports, and liaises with Maintenance.
This year Aunt Boss has also been handling apartment staging and videos in partnership with Miss California while Mom Boss has been literally drowning in paperwork and data entry.
Miss California and I answer the phone, process packages, show apartments, scan and upload documents, file documents, inspect apartments to verify that turnover is complete, photograph apartments, upload those photographs to our website and our Shutterfly galleries, send a lot of emails, manage ads, and run any odd jobs that require someone to leave the office (let tenants in when they've misplaced their keys, check mailboxes on behalf of former tenants, verify that yes an area smells like somebody's been illicitly smoking cigarettes, etc.). This year I have also been fighting NYSEG and Miss California has been editing videos and uploading them to YouTube.
(My former coworkers Miss Cactus and Miss Goldberry held down variations of the job Miss California and I currently share. Miss Cactus then moved to the downtown office to work what is currently Mr. Geniality's job before she got a better-paying and less stressful job at a local bank -- to which I say, good for her!)
We have two concierges who staff the front desk at our fanciest Collegetown apartment building. I will call them... hmmm... Ms. Expansive and Ms. Fretful. (Ms. Expansive is loud, friendly, and bakes the most amazing Christmas cookies. Ms. Fretful once came to Not the IRS while I was working, and waited over half an hour for another tax preparer to be free because she was worried Company Owner would somehow psychically KNOW I had prepared her taxes and therefore knew her income level, and he is Not In Favor of employees comparing notes on our pay scales. It is illegal to forbid employees to compare pay scales, FYI. I told her this. She still preferred to wait. You can see why I have given her that nickname.)
The satellite office is new and I'm the only person there Wednesday through Saturday. Mr. Geniality works there noon to 5pm Monday and Tuesday, though that may be subject to change. Right now my downtown job responsibilities mostly include answering email inquiries and ad responses, turnover inspections (almost done!), and a lot of staging and photographing apartments. Once we get people moved in for the 2020-21 lease year, we'll pivot to start leasing for 2021-22, which will also be a lot of work but will, I think, involve much less in-person running around. And I should finally get a chance to finish cleaning and uploading my pictures to our website, fixing the floor plan problems, and getting back to my work on constructing Shutterfly galleries. (YouTube videos are somebody else's problem at that point. I just make the apartments look pretty. Editing and posting vids is not in my job description -- though it might be in the future.)
We also have our Maintenance department, headed by Maintenance Dude (Mom Boss's husband, works everywhere, wrangles contractors, also does computer troubleshooting) and Maintenance Lady (department coordinator, spends a lot of time wrangling staff, work orders, parts orders, and bills). Maintenance Guy is in charge of stuff on the Commons -- his office is in the same building as the satellite office -- and I believe there are also a couple people who work specifically in/on our South Hill properties but I don't have much contact with them. There are a lot of other Maintenance staff, but giving each one a nickname would be exhausting so please just take it as read that they exist, they work very hard, and they are not paid nearly enough.
Then there's the commercial stuff. Lawyer Man does a lot of commercial-related leases and decision-making, and we also have a person -- Mr. Commercial -- who specifically handles the bulk of our commercial/business rentals and business tenant issues. He is currently also handling leases for the most distant of our properties, which is technically not a company property but something owned directly by Company Owner's family in a non-incorporated way. Ms. Busywork used to do most of the leases and inspections for that property, but that had to fall to somebody else while she's on leave and Mr. Commercial didn't say "not it!" fast enough. *wry*
Finally we reach the people who aren't in any clear structure and whose role, so far as I can tell, is mostly to make everyone else's life difficult. They are Mr. All Hat, and Company Owner's sister, who I will call... hmmm... Ms. Art Appreciation.
Company Owner is in the process of transferring ownership of our most distant Ithaca property into Ms. Art Appreciation's name, and she's also taking a more active interest in the other family properties in Ithaca (which are on the Commons and which the company manages but doesn't own; the structure is messy and annoying). I am unsure how much of this is a genuine interest versus how much is her feeling a need to do something, anything during this time of plague. (Ms. Art Appreciation lives in a rich NYC suburb. You can see why Ithaca feels like an escape for her.)
Mr. All Hat is a twit promoted far beyond his level of competence because he talks a good game and got into Company Owner's good graces some years back. I don't feel like spending any more words on him, so I'll leave it at that.
And that is the rental company I work for, gods help us all.
To start with we have Company Owner. He founded the company back around 1970 when he bought a few properties in Ithaca and started renting them mostly to college students. He has since diversified to NYC and I think Toronto, and for the past several years he's been making a push to get into Providence RI but that has been going nowhere. Anyway, it's a privately held company and as such the organizational structure is... well, it's a mess, frankly.
I have no contact with the offices in other cities, but in Ithaca there are two major offices and now my tiny satellite office.
The main office is downtown. This houses Lawyer Man, Ms. Random Numbers, Ms. Rise-and-Shine, and Mr. Geniality. Lawyer Man is, as the name implies, the company lawyer. (I don't know if he does law for offices in other cities or only Ithaca.) He is also the local COO. This means he's meant to be the overall manager of Ithaca operations. The thing is, he has no fucking idea how to manage. He couldn't manage his way out of a wet paper bag. As you can imagine, this causes some problems.
Ms. Busywork is the senior leasing agent. She is currently out on extended medical leave.
Ms. Random Numbers and Ms. Rise-and-Shine jointly comprise our accounting department. Ms. Rise-and-Shine also does a bunch of computer stuff -- specifically with regard to our tenant portal and payment processing programs -- and both of them also handle some leasing stuff, moreso since Ms. Busywork has been gone.
Mr. Geniality handles inquiries, tours, and leases. He is very nice but a little disorganized.
There is currently an office temp to deal with document scanning, uploading, and filing while Ms. Busywork is gone. Previously that had been largely Mr. Geniality's job while Ms. Busywork handled some of the leasing and inquiries.
The other major office is in Collegetown. That houses Mom Boss, Aunt Boss, Miss California, and me one day a week. Mom Boss and Aunt Boss kinda-sorta share the same job, namely leasing agent, but in practice they have split some of their areas of responsibility. Aunt Boss handles all the key transfers, writes 90% of the leases, handles lease assignments, liaises with other rental companies and city agencies, shouts at NYSEG when necessary, and does most of the "gently talk down angry/distraught people on the phone" stuff. Meanwhile Mom Boss handles most of the email inquiries, does all our FileMaker data entry, does a lot of Rent Manager data entry, wrangles furniture requests, handles subleases, reviews security videos when necessary, does local accounting stuff (including preparing rent payment reminders), does move-out inspections and damage reports, and liaises with Maintenance.
This year Aunt Boss has also been handling apartment staging and videos in partnership with Miss California while Mom Boss has been literally drowning in paperwork and data entry.
Miss California and I answer the phone, process packages, show apartments, scan and upload documents, file documents, inspect apartments to verify that turnover is complete, photograph apartments, upload those photographs to our website and our Shutterfly galleries, send a lot of emails, manage ads, and run any odd jobs that require someone to leave the office (let tenants in when they've misplaced their keys, check mailboxes on behalf of former tenants, verify that yes an area smells like somebody's been illicitly smoking cigarettes, etc.). This year I have also been fighting NYSEG and Miss California has been editing videos and uploading them to YouTube.
(My former coworkers Miss Cactus and Miss Goldberry held down variations of the job Miss California and I currently share. Miss Cactus then moved to the downtown office to work what is currently Mr. Geniality's job before she got a better-paying and less stressful job at a local bank -- to which I say, good for her!)
We have two concierges who staff the front desk at our fanciest Collegetown apartment building. I will call them... hmmm... Ms. Expansive and Ms. Fretful. (Ms. Expansive is loud, friendly, and bakes the most amazing Christmas cookies. Ms. Fretful once came to Not the IRS while I was working, and waited over half an hour for another tax preparer to be free because she was worried Company Owner would somehow psychically KNOW I had prepared her taxes and therefore knew her income level, and he is Not In Favor of employees comparing notes on our pay scales. It is illegal to forbid employees to compare pay scales, FYI. I told her this. She still preferred to wait. You can see why I have given her that nickname.)
The satellite office is new and I'm the only person there Wednesday through Saturday. Mr. Geniality works there noon to 5pm Monday and Tuesday, though that may be subject to change. Right now my downtown job responsibilities mostly include answering email inquiries and ad responses, turnover inspections (almost done!), and a lot of staging and photographing apartments. Once we get people moved in for the 2020-21 lease year, we'll pivot to start leasing for 2021-22, which will also be a lot of work but will, I think, involve much less in-person running around. And I should finally get a chance to finish cleaning and uploading my pictures to our website, fixing the floor plan problems, and getting back to my work on constructing Shutterfly galleries. (YouTube videos are somebody else's problem at that point. I just make the apartments look pretty. Editing and posting vids is not in my job description -- though it might be in the future.)
We also have our Maintenance department, headed by Maintenance Dude (Mom Boss's husband, works everywhere, wrangles contractors, also does computer troubleshooting) and Maintenance Lady (department coordinator, spends a lot of time wrangling staff, work orders, parts orders, and bills). Maintenance Guy is in charge of stuff on the Commons -- his office is in the same building as the satellite office -- and I believe there are also a couple people who work specifically in/on our South Hill properties but I don't have much contact with them. There are a lot of other Maintenance staff, but giving each one a nickname would be exhausting so please just take it as read that they exist, they work very hard, and they are not paid nearly enough.
Then there's the commercial stuff. Lawyer Man does a lot of commercial-related leases and decision-making, and we also have a person -- Mr. Commercial -- who specifically handles the bulk of our commercial/business rentals and business tenant issues. He is currently also handling leases for the most distant of our properties, which is technically not a company property but something owned directly by Company Owner's family in a non-incorporated way. Ms. Busywork used to do most of the leases and inspections for that property, but that had to fall to somebody else while she's on leave and Mr. Commercial didn't say "not it!" fast enough. *wry*
Finally we reach the people who aren't in any clear structure and whose role, so far as I can tell, is mostly to make everyone else's life difficult. They are Mr. All Hat, and Company Owner's sister, who I will call... hmmm... Ms. Art Appreciation.
Company Owner is in the process of transferring ownership of our most distant Ithaca property into Ms. Art Appreciation's name, and she's also taking a more active interest in the other family properties in Ithaca (which are on the Commons and which the company manages but doesn't own; the structure is messy and annoying). I am unsure how much of this is a genuine interest versus how much is her feeling a need to do something, anything during this time of plague. (Ms. Art Appreciation lives in a rich NYC suburb. You can see why Ithaca feels like an escape for her.)
Mr. All Hat is a twit promoted far beyond his level of competence because he talks a good game and got into Company Owner's good graces some years back. I don't feel like spending any more words on him, so I'll leave it at that.
And that is the rental company I work for, gods help us all.
