Concerns

In my last post, I expressed some frustration. Well, the frustration blew up beyond the drama I mentioned, and Artur and I felt it necessary to talk to our manager.

The campground we are at has a “sister” campground a mile up the road. Our campground is managed by an “Assistant Manager”, and her supervisor, the “Manager”, oversees both campgrounds and is located at the other campground. He makes appearances at our location (and has proven to be a very knowledgeable and competent manager), but mainly our Assistant is in charge.

Well, Artur and I have grown less and less confident in our Assistant Manager, but up to this point have given her the benefit of the doubt. I won’t go into many details regarding our concerns with her, but it all came to a head during the holiday weekend. (Ok, so you don’t think we are whiners, one of our big concerns is theft…) Our campground was rather busy, and now was the time for everybody to pull together as a team. That didn’t happen. And we were both discouraged beyond what we could take. So, we vented….

First, we wrote a professional letter outlining what we liked about our jobs and the campground. Then we outlined our concerns with “management” – and how the concerns were growing. The letter was only to serve as a reference, we planned to meet with the Manager and discuss the concerns face-to-face.

It took a couple days, but we were able to sit down and discuss the situation with the Manager. It took almost 2 hours, but we got it all out. Artur and I were calm, professional, and highlighted the points that 1) We don’t want to leave, and 2) We aren’t trying to take over management. We were very successful in getting our concerns voiced – and I felt so much better getting it all out in the open – but we were unsuccessful in persuading the Manager that a problem existed. He listened and said he would look into everything, but he didn’t convey any type of concern himself in the issues we were bringing to him.

It’s now been several days since the discussion. Our Assistant Manager seems to have made some improvements (which leads me to believe that some action has been taken). Artur and I really do like it here and sincerely expect to fulfill the entire timeframe we committed to, so we hope the improvements continue. We will not, however, compromise our general happiness and comfort. If the situation declines further beyond where it was last weekend, we will look for other positions. We chose this lifestyle to reduce our stress – and that is what we intend to do!

But now the question becomes (to avoid these problems in the future) – How do you work for ourselves to support this lifestyle???