I left the house on Monday for a whirlwind tour of my east Tennessee accounts for the last time. It was bittersweet, I was saying goodbye to my clients in those markets and introducing them to the new operations manager I hired to take over the area.
I have a great bunch of employees in the Chattanooga/Cleveland/Knoxville/Rockford markets and made a lot of friends in the past nine years in these towns. I also ate at a lot of places all along the way as well.
I finally convinced our new district manager and our corporate office that I could no longer give the customer service needed for 5400 hours per week of coverage while I traveled so much of the time. I was doing, each week between 1200 to 1500 miles of Tennessee interstates and back roads. Being required to make off hour visits/penetration tests, and clients visits twice a month was a monumental task in itself, add in problems, recruiting, hiring and training I was gone a lot.
My new area is middle Tennessee, I'll have 3180 hours per week and 375 miles round trip, all straight line mostly. Instead of I-40, I-24 and I-75, my area is now I-65, straight up and down the short part of the state.
I could not have maintained the level of service needed to do this job without the support of Stacy. I will be the first to admit I was committed to doing my job, that I would come home and start right back to work when I got home, staying up until I finished.
She was patient, she was kind, no matter how much I would snap at her because of the stress, she would smile and still give me encouragement. She went out of her way to take on the stuff around the house so I would not have to deal with it, and I love her to death.
I have said it before and it still rings true, without her, I am nothing.
I'm looking forward to being home each night and giving her the only thing she has asked for, me.
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