Most of us have had a crappy job at one time or another. Maybe it wasn’t the job, but the company culture or management that made a good job bad. Or maybe some of us found ourselves working in a job that wasn’t the right fit because of a lack of skills, the wrong temperament, or our overall incompetence.
I remember my first crappy job well. I took a year off between high school and college and worked for six months at a Holiday Inn in Norwalk, CT as a houseman. That was essentially an unskilled maintenance position where a good portion of my day was spent sorting dirty linen. It’s a good thing I was young and stupid because you wouldn’t catch me sorting dirty linen today without a hazmat suit or at least a pair of rubber gloves and a surgical mask. Despite not being a good fit for someone of my intellect along with the disgusting nature of the job (I can’t even tell you the half of what I saw come down that laundry chute in a family publication), it was still a good learning experience. Plus it was a cushy job. I will tell you this, however, keys to empty hotel rooms and a staff of four 17 and 18 year olds in possession of those keys is not a good mix. We watched a lot of roller derby and wrestling on Saturday mornings. And on snowy days you might find us up on the roof of the hotel throwing snowballs at the cars driving by on Route 1. I’m not as innocent as I look.
Recalling that job—which wasn’t a bad place to work, it just wasn’t a great place or the right fit for me—got me thinking about some of the dealerships in the office imaging industry that are considered great places to work, including some that have been acknowledged by respected third parties in their states or regions. I’m no Pollyanna and understand that not every dealership in this industry, including some extremely successful ones, are great places to work, but it does impress me when I find a dealership that either sounds like a great place to work based on how they treat their employees or has officially been acknowledged as one.
Loffler Companies in Minneapolis, MN has been named a Star Tribune Top workplace for three consecutive years and as one of the “100 Best Places to Work in Minnesota” by Minnesota Business magazine for two consecutive years. Woodhull in Springboro and West Chester, OH has been recognized as a Top Workplace in the Miami Valley (Dayton area) for 2013. Another Minnesota-based dealership, Marco, was named one of the Top 100 Workplaces in Minnesota by the Star Tribune and Minnesota Business this summer and also received the 2013 Best Place to Work by the Minneapolis-St. Paul Business Journal. Meanwhile in Cockeysville, MD, Advance-The Document Specialists was named a finalist in the 2013 Baltimore Business Journal’s Best Places to Work issue.
Based on what I’ve learned when presenting the Elite Dealer awards over the years, other dealerships that seem like great places to work include FlexPrint in Tempe, AZ, CBE in Orange County, CA, and TGI in Brooklyn, NY just to name a few.
If I were to ever decide to make the jump from interviewing office imaging dealers to working for one, these are some of the places I’d start my job search. It’s refreshing to know that besides providing folks with a good living, there’s plenty of dealerships dotting the country that really do care about their employees. If you’re managing one of those or working for one of those, consider yourself lucky.
Thanks for reading.
