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5/8/2008 - The Birth of Fire Walker Home Services

A lot has happened since my February entry. The major changes are that I quit the job I'd had for the past 3 1/2 years. What a relief that was! However, my husband just informed me that my supervisor claims I was fired! That is ABSOLUTELY STUNNING!! To come up with such a flagrant lie is amazing to me. Especially when it wasn't a big deal. It isn't like they had to save face. I couldn't face another day of working in that situation. So what?! What is the point of telling the people I used to manage that I was fired? I haven't told anybody how unbearable the environment had become. I haven't stopped people on the street to tell them what a scatterbrained bunch of idiots I was working for. What gives?

Secondly, my husband, our friend Nick, and I have started our own maintenance business. My husband is currently the maintenance supervisor for the company I quit. Nick was one of his maintenance techs, and I was the Assistant Housekeeping manager of a staff 150 housekeepers. This is the most exciting, scary, and fulfilling thing I have ever done. If any of you pray to God, please pray that we are successful. I don't care if we become millionaires (although I won't object) but I do want us to be able to make a living at it.

As I mentioned in my first entry 100 years ago, we live in a resort area. The 2000 Census recorded that there were over 26,000 houses and more than half were unoccupied. That is because the homeowners live elsewhere and they rent their homes to vacationers. Even with the real estate market being what it is now, new construction in our area is on the rise and people are still investing in vacation rental property. So since 2000 there are thousands more vacation homes and condos. Last year, there were over 1,000,000 people vacationing here. But the off season population is only roughly 30,000.

Having said all that, there are only 8 companies listed in our local yellow pages that provide home maintenance services. We hope to pick up some of that slack. We plan to differentiate ourselves by providing quality work and outstanding customer service. Here on the Outer Banks it isn't unheard of for people to collect money to do work then take an excessive amount of time to complete it. It is also common for people to take the day off to go fishing. I am not making that up! There are those that actually say they are taking the day off because the fish are biting! Can you imagine?

So I am working from home at my leisure trying to make this venture a success. I have been taking online business classes through the Small Business Administration, researching marketing, creating a mailing list. I have really been working hard but is so rewarding to be doing it on my own behalf and not to fatten someone else’s pockets. And I get to do it at home. My husband and Nick do the actual maintenance stuff and I take care of operations. We have had several jobs already and we are optimistic that more will follow. I feel like I am finally doing what I was born to do. I have always believed my husband and I would some day become entrepreneurs but I thought it would be in the distant future. I’m so glad it is happening now.