The pool and spa industry kind of feels like a black hole. Meaning, once you fall into it, you're probably never going to get out of it. Whether you grew up helping your parents run a retail store, or you just liked working outside, or maybe had a knack for building, once you fell into the industry, you found your professional passion and never looked back.
Service professionals are like that. They discover, perhaps to their surprise, that pool service is one of the most independent and satisfying jobs around. Sure, maintaining either a residential or commercial swimming pool/spa is difficult, demanding work, but what makes it rewarding is that service technicians are passionate about crystal clear water, honest communication and efficient execution.
Labor
The labor struggles in the service sector mirror the trades in general. Supervisors are spending more time training and counseling the younger generation of workers than ever before, which in turn, is taking away from their daily personal and professional lives. Some find the shift of mentality from "living to work" to "working to live" as exciting; however, others find it much more frustrating.
Looking to the Past and Future
A common theme, and difference, between working as a service technician in the pool and spa industry now versus 20 years ago is technology and automation. Planning routes, preparing work vehicles, maintaining pools, etc., is all so much more efficient now that the internet, smartphones and applications are all, quite literally, at your workforces fingertips. The easier a job is, the faster it can be completed and the more money you can both save and earn as a business owner.
