How to Get Paid to Make Mistakes

I had just received a promotion to become a Property Manager after 3 years of working my way up the latter. I was young and eager to make a name for myself as a strong manager who can reduce expenses, increase income and make more money for my owners. I had a lot to learn, but I was equipped with a great team to succeed, what could go wrong? 

One Spring morning I was sitting in my office after a storm came through Southern California. The air was crisp with a slight breeze and the phones were silent which meant things were good. I was listening to some reggae music and finishing a couple of reports when the phone rang… I thought nothing of it, let my assistant pick it up, but after a few seconds, her conversation seemed a bit worrisome. It sounded like something had happened on the property. Moments later, before I could ask her what happened, the phone rang again, this time I picked it up. It was a tenant who was extremely concerned about a tree that had been swaying back and forth due to some strong gusts of wind at the bottom of the property. She said “There is an extremely tall tree swaying back and forth about to snap over my apartment. You need to come down here and cut this tree right away.” If you know anything about customer service, you know people tend to overreact, but at the time I was trying to make a name for myself and I thought this was a great opportunity.

I call my Maintenance Supervisor, tell him to stop what he is doing and bring his golf cart to the office to pick me up. We had an emergency! He gets to the office in what seems like 48 seconds, I jump in the cart and we take off, barrelling down the parking lot to the bottom of the property. I see a massive tree doing exactly what the tenant had described. It looked like one of those inflatable guys you see at a car dealership. What do I do next? Do I grab an ax and start chopping? Do I call a company to come out asap? Or do I call my supervisor? 

Hindsight’s 20/20, but looking back I should have certainly spoken to my supervisor, but of course I didn’t… I wanted to show everyone I could handle situations on my own. So, I called our landscapers and said “get out here immediately, there is a tree that’s gonna fall on top of our building.” So they did, they rushed to the property and were there in about an hour. They cut down the tree and I was a hero. I potentially saved the owner’s of the property tens of thousands of dollars in property damage and potentially saved a pedestrian from being injured.

A week had gone by, I still didn’t call my supervisor and I still thought I handled the situation perfectly… Then came time to pay the bill. I was thinking it couldn’t be more than $2500. I was wrong…  it came back at $7,500!! My lord did my heart sink into my stomach, but I still believed I saved the owner money so I paid the bill. A couple days later, I was on the phone with a tenant when my cell phone rang. Who was it? You guessed it… my supervisor. So I finished up my call and called her back. The sheer disappointment in her voice alone gave me chills, “Hayden… why on earth am I looking at a landscaping bill for $7500 that I have never even heard about?” In that one sentence I went from hero to zero. 

Did I get fired? No. Did anyone get hurt? No. Did my supervisor hate me and never trust me again? No, but it definitely took some time to regain her trust. There are so many stories I could tell you of mistakes I made early in my property management career, but I tell this story because while I may have made a boneheaded mistake and cost my owners a couple thousand dollars (which I more than made up for), I learned from my mistake. 

I learned how to have patience in chaotic situations. I learned not to overreact when everyone else is, because believe me, everyone else will. I learned that when vendors have the chance to make an extra buck, they will and I don't blame them. Realistically, those trees were decades old and we had some time to evaluate before we made any hasty decisions and the landscapers knew that, but didn’t tell me. I learned all that and hundreds more lessons, all while on the clock.

Think about that, I got paid and was able to put food on my plate, while I was learning, making mistakes, and getting better. I knew I wanted to be in Real Estate and knew one of the most important things in Real Estate is property management. Essentially, I made mistakes on someone else’s dime. Obviously, I was not trying to make mistakes, but when you’re learning something new, mistakes are inevitable. As I mentioned before, I more than made up for those mistakes and as it turns out I am a pretty good property manager.

In my opinion, early in your career, getting paid to learn is invaluable. If you know what career you want to get into, start by learning from the bottom on someone else’s dime, learn everything about the business from the ground up. Then once you have learned as much as you can, you will be ready to go out and do it on your own. You can start your own career and your own business and learn along the way, but you are then making mistakes on your dime with no protection. This is certainly a way to go, but it could be costly. By the time I broke free from working for someone else, I had learned more than enough to be a successful Apartment Syndicator.