I travel a lot throughout the year for my job.
I am a district manager for a produce distributor, and half of my job is flying out to our clients’ businesses to make sure they are being taken care of and that they have everything they need.
Aside from creating a good point of contact with new and existing customers, it also allows me to find issues with employees before anything is even reported to our company. Sometimes our clients feel like they can trust and make critical comments if they’re confiding in the district manager in a face to face conversation. It’s not always easy to muster up the courage to do this over the phone, especially if you’re paranoid that word will reach the delivery driver or representative from our company that was giving them trouble. My job isn’t very hard, but it’s stressful constantly leaving my house unattended for days or weeks at a time. It isn’t so hard when the weather outside is pleasant, I just have to turn off my water from outside. However, when it gets cold I always run the risk of pipes freezing if I don’t leave the furnace running when I leave. This isn’t ideal because the furnace will rack up a high heating bill if I set it and forget it at a temperature that is simply too high for 24 hour heating cycles. Once I’m gone, I can’t change it until I get home. Installing a smart thermostat was revolutionary for me. I could not only monitor my furnace while I’m away for work, but I can also change the temperature wherever I have a signal on my phone to access the app for the smart thermostat. If the temperatures outside get warmer, I can adjust the temperature settings on the fly.