The Wrench: Professionalism and work/home life balance

BY: HECTOR VELAZQUEZ EQUIPMENT MANAGER, WALNUT CREEK C.C.

Professionalism and work/home life balance

First, I want to start off with a special thank you to Craig McKinley for asking me to write an article about professionalism and work/home life balance. I touched on this topic during Technician Day at Walnut Creek Country Club a while back. I will start off with professionalism in the shop because that is the easier topic to dive into. After five years traveling across the country full time, we visited and worked in a good amount of golf course maintenance facilities. Sometimes it was just a quick hello and other times it was for tech training or shop renovations. All too often I would walk in a shop that was not exactly the safest place to be in, to put it kindly. Being a mechanic, we are often labeled as a “Grease Monkey” because people picture a shop that is dirty and grimy with junk all over the workbench and reels laying around everywhere and a mechanic that’s wearing grease stained clothes and holey pants. We do not have to be a “Grease Monkey” just because we are mechanics. It is up to us to change that stigma and to be seen as a professional. It does not cost anything to clean up our operation. We can organize

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our workbenches, put tools away, sweep floors, and pick up trash laying around. It does not cost much to wear a clean shirt to work and tuck it in. Hold your chin up and work that swagger across your clean shop. Walking into a nice clean and organized shop changes your attitude and most likely will change the staff and superintendent’s attitude as well. They will not want your shop to look better than their office and the staff will want to make sure they are cleaning the equipment better to help keep the shop looking stellar. It changes the whole moral in the maintenance facility. That same swagger will carry out to the course! You have heard that saying “ Show me who your friends are, and I will know who you are”. That same thing applies here, “Show me your shop and I will know your course”. You see, it all starts in the maintenance facility.

Balancing work life and home life is not easy, and it requires one to be more intentional. Everyone has their reasons as to why they are not balancing work and home life. Sometimes it is easier to be a workaholic or maybe that is all you know how to do. Maybe you use the excuse “well it comes with the title”. If you have a family to come home to, count your blessings, as all do not have that privilege. Do not come home one day and realize, whoa who are you? Time goes by so fast and children grow up quick, spouses go through personal growth, and we need to not miss out on that because of a job. Work will always need to be done. You cannot do it all in one day. Prioritize what needs to be done right now

and what can wait until the next day. Sure, you will have days where you cannot help but to stay late and take care of business but that should not be every day and every week. You can change things up by going into work earlier, rather than staying later on some days. Have a heart to heart with your boss if you need to and communicate what is important to you and put a plan together so you can make the most of your time while at work. It definitely helps when you have a boss that you can see eye to eye with. Sometimes sacrifice has to happen. Let us just make sure it is not always our families that are doing the sacrificing. Balance looks different to everyone. Do what works for you and your family and the season that your family is in. It changes continually. Be encouraged, you can make it work as long as you are making it a priority to stay connected with the relationships that mean the most to you. Keep the communication open. It may not be easy, but it is definitely worth it.