TVC - Day 101 - The shortest day

I clocked in at 0758 hours and out at 1438 hours (30 minute lunch) for a total of 6 hours 15 minutes......that is my shortest work day in weeks.  TLE worked 30 minutes longer for a total of 6 hours and 45 minutes.  I was done with my first round of site checks before 1000 hours, and all of my departures were departed before 1100 hours.....I spent the rest of the morning working on my section "E" site survey that I referred to in yesterday's blog.  I finished measuring all 118 sites just before lunch......I'll start to work on section "F" Wednesday where there are 116 sites.  Sections "E" and "A" each have a lot of tent sites, which we will not be measuring, so they should go pretty quickly (44 of the 107 sites in "E" are tent sites, and 25 of the 62 sites in "A" are tent sites).

As we rapidly come to the end of our stay here at TVC I have a few observations to make:

1) We are understaffed this year by at least 10 people, but we have accomplished more this summer with fewer people than we did last summer.  We rarely ever had 3 people at the registration desk at one time, and many times we had only one, but we got by pretty nicely by sending people directly to their sites when we had too many RV's arriving at one time.  TLE and I had planned to work more hours this summer anyway to take care of some elective projects. What we found out this summer is that there are more efficient ways to work at our various jobs.

2) Our customers have noticed the hard work we put in every day, and have let us know.....the way to succeed in the hospitality business is to create a positive impression.....your customers need to believe you care about them, about the facility and about their experience.....I believe we have succeeded in changing the perception of our customers.

3) A direct result of changing the perception of our customers is that we are almost sold out from the 4th of July weekend to Labor Day in 2016 and the 2015 season still has two weeks to run.  Now our job is to get people to start coming to TVC from Memorial Day to the 4th of July.

4) The addition this past winter of 4 more park model cabins has worked wonderfully as all 7 of our park models are rented pretty much 90% of the time now, and their availability year round is drawing more customers into the park.....

5) We got news yesterday that the old blue double wide manufactured home near the entrance of the campground that served as the living quarters for prior managers for a few decades will be torn down within the next 60 days, and most likely replaced with 6 more park model cabins.  It has fallen into disrepair over the years and has not been used for close to 3 years now.  The red building across the street from the old living quarters which was used as an administration office for years will most likely be converted to living quarters for our current manager.  There are a lot of changes coming for next year and we are looking forward to returning next summer to see what has been done over the winter.

 The old manager's living quarters

The old administration buildingh

We decided to head over to 'Classic Cue' for fish tacos and a pitcher of 'Downtown Brown' about 1730 hours.....by the time we arrived the outside temps were down to 83 so we sat out side under an umbrella and enjoyed our beer and food for about an hour.  When we returned to our site we saw that our manager, Duane, was next door at John and Deb' for dinner so we both got ourselves an adult beverage and joined them for a couple of hours talking about the summer, the future, and some of the things I have shared above.  We have a great core group here right now.....we are all very close and work together very well.  There is no infighting.....everyone is willing to step up and do what has to be done with no complaint....now it is just a matter of adding some new blood next summer that will fit in nicely with the core group.  If you are interested in working here at TVC next season leave a message at the bottom of this post and I'll get in contact with you.

Thanks for stopping by!