January 14, 2017 by Lee and Tracy

First Time Gate Guarding – Day 3

I had a hard time staying awake last night, but made it to 3:11pm, then took a little nap. No one has come past 7pm so far, and I am kind of wondering what the point of staying up is. It’s a 24/7 gate, but they currently aren’t working 24/7, and it’s hard to know when that will start, so for the time being I am trying to keep to this schedule, although that may change. We knew Friday would be busy and we had 132 truckloads of gravel enter and exit throughout the day. The cool thing was we didn’t have to log them though, just keep a count of those vehicles as they passed through, and report the totals at the end of the day. It was by far the busiest day so far, and the dust went up significantly once they started putting down the gravel road. At this point we have dust everywhere (not unlike Quartzsite) and have both just determined to live with it. You can make yourself crazy by cleaning all the time in an environment like this, but frankly I don’t see the point. As soon as you wipe things down they get dusty again, so in my opinion it’s best to learn to live with it and clean up at the end when we leave.

The provided generator works great, and it’s ample power to run both our air conditioners, and whatever else we need. At one point I turned them both on and closed the windows just to keep the dust levels down and it was a nice benefit. I actually couldn’t be happier about it. We were both very worried that it would be super loud or have an annoyingly pitched tone, but it’s far enough away that the sound mostly blends into the background and the tone is a mellow white noise sound that I can largely ignore. Since this was one of our biggest concerns before coming out here I am happy for it. The big lights that shine on the rig also aren’t bothering me like I thought they would. I am happy for the extra light to see potential snakes by and since it is behind the rig we do have a small pool of darker space right where we put our chairs. Lee put towels up on the two small windows in the rig with clips and it’s plenty dark in the bedroom even in the daytime. Much darker actually than it was in Alaska when it never seemed to get full dark.

Our gate

The big trucks really kick up the dust

They usually came in groups of 4

When the water truck came by it would be better for a little while but then dry out again and be dusty. But he keeps coming back to wet down the road several times each day.

Lee was kept very busy all day and after I woke up at noon (Tylenol PM is a wonderful thing) I spelled him for his lunch. We got to see what working at a very busy gate would be like and it is pretty much non-stop action. It’s not stressful, and the truck drivers are all nice, but the longest break between trucks was less than 10 minutes. Lee read quite a bit, but couldn’t really get into anything else because when you are checking a truck in or out you really need to pay attention. If they are not in the database you need licenses plate, first and last name, company, and time in or out. Once they are in the database it gets easier, but you still need to check names because multiple people use the same vehicles throughout the day. Lee had it down to a science and was even entering the non gravel vehicles directly into the tablet, but at this point I am still writing them down on paper and then putting them into the tablet on the first break between trucks. Like I said, not hard, just sort of constant activity at least until about 5pm. Things slow down at that point and as I said, so far by 7pm everyone is gone, but that could very well change. We’re enjoying that while it lasts.

We did talk about it though, because we have divided up the time evenly, but certainly not the workload. For now I am going to take some longer stints in the day when Lee has maintenance/house chores to be done, because he doesn’t want to work on those during his few off hours. That seems fair to me, but we will need to see how it works in practice and adjust accordingly. Every couple will handle this a little differently but I definitely recommend open communication throughout the process. It is not an insignificant amount of work, and should be divided carefully so everyone gets what they need.

On the plus side, the weather had been great so far (in the 70’s) and despite the wind pretty pleasant to be outside. We are expecting rain though this weekend, so we will see how that goes. We also have a pretty nice view of the fields next door and the full moons at night have been beautiful. It makes being outside all day much more pleasant. At night I can stay in the rig, but at that traffic volume Lee pretty much stayed outside all day. I’m guessing that would have been pretty unpleasant if the weather was worse. Some of these jobs has a guard shack for people sit in, but others like ours you work out of your rig. We looked at buying a small popup tent for sun and rain coverage but at this point we are going to hold off unless we really need it.

So the day was going well when about 5pm I got a call from my sister that my step father had died. We found out back in August (when we were in Alaska) that he had stage 4 lung cancer so the call wasn’t completely unexpected. My intention all along has been to go home to Columbus when we were close to the end and every job we have taken we have had a contingency plan in place if I had to leave. You never know how these things will go though, and even a few days ago when we took this job we didn’t know how long he had. When we talked about how we would handle it if I had to leave it was without really understanding what this job would entail. After the first full day I asked Lee if he would be able to do it alone and he immediately said no, it just wasn’t possible for one person to do, unless there was never any traffic at night, so he could sleep. Even though it hasn’t been super busy, he felt it would be to much for him alone if he needed to work 24/7, so at that point we weren’t really sure what we would do.

I spoke to my brother who lives next door to my mom, and is a doctor, so he’s kept a very close eye on the situation, and I have been talking to my mom almost every day. When hospice was called, my brother asked her if she wanted me to come, but she felt she was OK and had the support she needed. She reads the blogs every time they come out and is fully aware of what we are doing here. Plus, they had decided to not have a funeral service (just a small gathering of family) and between my step father’s children, my brother, and her best friend and sister she thought she would be OK. Still, when the call came I of course just wanted to jump on a plane immediately to be with her. My step father has been in my life since my late 20’s and was really good to me and my family. I would like to have done whatever I could for my mom and his kids during this time.

I haven’t written about this until now because it wasn’t my story to tell, but I do feel I should take a moment and talk about it in the context of this lifestyle. One of the major advantages of what we do is flexibility. It’s being with friends or family in moments of tragedy and for almost everyone I know (myself included) being mobile has actually worked to their benefit in a situation like this. That being said, now that we are working so much to “pay as we go” that may not always be the case. Lee could definitely have worked the beet harvest without me and probably could have made Christmas Trees work as well. But this job which is new to us and 24/7 not so much. If we were more established and there was more work available it probably wouldn’t be a big deal, but if we left 2 days into this job I have to account for the possibility that we would never be able to work as gate guards again. Again, if we had been with them longer, it’s possible they would have found a temporary solution to help us deal with this and keep Lee working but then again maybe not.

I am fully aware that with any new job I could have had the same issue, and it’s certainly not unreasonable from the employer’s perspective, but it really brings home once again that this is real life. You would like to think you could pack up and go at a moment’s notice, but it’s more complicated than that. Where would the rig go? Are you both flying or is one driving? Is the family emergency in a northern climate that is not rig friendly? These are all things that would need to be worked out in addition of course to how you will handle any job you are working at the time. I will say of course that if my Mom said she needed me to come I would be there in a heartbeat and the rest we would figure out. She knows that, and she knows the offer remains open. But this situation aside, I just wanted to say it’s not as simple as I thought it would be, and in the same situation it may not be as simple as you thought either. It’s a good thing to talk about in advance though so you know your basic plan. We had one, but as they say in this lifestyle all plans are made in sand, and so through necessity it has now changed. Real life…not vacation.

Bud, you were a really good man, you made my mother very happy, and you will be missed. Rest In Peace.

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January 13, 2017 by Lee and Tracy

First Time Gate Guarding – Day 2 Setup Complete

Day 2

Well let’s start with the good news…we have water!! It didn’t happen until 6pm at night and was a bit of an odyssey, but we now have great water. As usual though, I am jumping to the end, so let me back up a bit. I went to bed around 4:15am, fell asleep pretty quickly, but unfortunately woke up around 9am. My stomach was growling and I had a headache, so I decided to just get up and give my body another day to adjust. Thankfully things are slow at night, so I have the chance to get acclimated slowly and the Account Manager (who came out to visit around 9:15am) said it was OK to catnap when traffic was slow at night. There are very different views on this in the gate guarding community, but the general consensus seems to be if you can wake up quickly and do your job quickly and efficiently, then no harm no foul. Since we are getting zero night traffic at this point, there seems to be little harm, but in anticipation of more night traffic I feel like I should keep trying. Plus I really enjoyed the quiet of last night and am looking forward to having some more time to myself. It’s a nice benefit of the gig, at least at this point. Don’t get me wrong, I love Lee to pieces, but a little alone time once in a while is good for any marriage. I have always been a light sleeper, so I am not worried about sleeping through the alarm, but I am a little worried about being as alert as I should be. On Day 2 I am playing it by ear and seeing how it goes.

The morning started off well. The traffic was still slow (gravel trucks are coming tomorrow and that’s supposed to be a pretty crazy day) and Lee was in a pretty good mood. It was quite a bit hotter though, and because our RV faces right into the morning sun we have been trying to work on a solution. We have both the awning and a sun shade but it’s been so windy we can’t leave it out all day. It’s great when we can use it because it gives us sun and wind protection and a bit of privacy, but when the wind starts moving the awning up and down we have to unzip it and put it away. Lee sat under the front of the camper for a while, which helped, and he can occasionally come inside, but it’s not optimal. The Account Manager originally wanted us on the opposite side and inside the gate. but was overruled by the oil company. The space was on the small side (between our gate and the automatic ranch gate) and I am sure they were concerned we could get clipped by a large truck pulling in and making the left turn to the pad area. I’m actually glad we aren’t between the two gates, but it would be nice to be inside the gate. I still feel very safe though, partially because of the steady stream of trucks going to the other ranch right down the road.

I even got to get out a little (after taking a very fast shower) and visited the feed store in town (disappointing), the local convenient store (super expensive; $6.49 a pound for chicken leg quarters!), and the Walmart in Pearsall (score!). It may have been the smallest Walmart I have ever been in, but they had a really good selection for it’s size. I bought everything on my rather eclectic list (razors, bread, nutty bars, pretzels, enchilada sauce, Hawaiian punch packets, flour, etc) and even found tent stakes (97 cents each) and a hoe (to push the rattlesnakes away!). I am claiming the tent stakes and hoe as business expenses (I will be more than happy to explain to any IRS person the rattlesnake necessity) so only spent about $50 on food. The prices were very good for such a small store and between that and the local HEB we should be able to get what we need between San Antonio Costco runs. Just leaving was a huge advantage over the Christmas Tree job as Lee can handle the volume of trucks himself and theoretically I could have been gone until my “shift” started at 4pm. Since there isn’t much to do in the immediate area I find it unlikely I will go that route very often, but I was extremely happy I had the option.

I made it back to the gate a little past 1pm to find out no one had called or come regarding the water tank. The vendor stated he would be at our rig with a new tank first thing in the morning and we had heard nothing from him. I had just got our account manager on the phone when the company showed up, and thought at first everything was fine, but they soon told me they were only there to fix the lights. I texted the Account Manager at that point and waited to see what would happen. A couple hours later she hadn’t been able to get hold of the vendor either and I really started to get worried. We were out of water at this point, and talking about what we were going to do. So far we like the job, and wanted to stay, but we couldn’t do that with no water. We could move the rig to the yard 18 miles away and fill up and then come back, but that would only be a temporary fix. Finally, I picked up the phone and called my initial contact when we were set up with the company. She was back at the corporate office and got her manager on the phone with the manager of the vendor very quickly. Not only were we getting a new tank, but an employee of the gate guarding company was going to supervise the cleaning of the tank. It would be onsite by 5:30pm.

After that conversation I felt quite a bit better and then something really great happened. One of the gate guards from the ranch down the road stopped by to say hi. What a fantastic thing to do, and since she and her husband have been gate guarding for the last 4 years we spent quite a bit of time asking questions. We showed her our water and tried to get a feel if we were being unreasonable, but she said she had never seen water that looked like that and we were absolutely right to be concerned. Yes, the water isn’t campground quality, but hers had never had chunks floating in it. This led to her sharing many of her experiences over the last few years and giving us some great advice. Early on when she was gate guarding at night, she turned around in her kitchen and an illegal immigrant was sitting on her steps staring at her. She used the panic alarm on her truck to scare the person away, but obviously the experience stayed with her. They invested in a camera system (around $300) and have the motion sensor cameras hooked into a TV. They have used them both gate guarding and camp hosting and really like being able to see outside when they are in the rig. Lee of course loved that idea, and I can definitely see in investing in something similar if we decide this is something we are going to do frequently.

She also hooked us up with a good gate guarding Facebook group and gave me a card with her phone number in case we had any questions. Incredibly nice! The best part of the experience for me (besides meeting a real life gate guard) was talking about being a working RVer. They, like us, have to earn as they go and have found that they really have to look out for themselves. It was interesting, because I don’t think we have done a very good job of doing this up to this point, but after talking it through I now understand why it’s so necessary. In the old corporate world, I had built relationships over several years and had people who watched my back or helped me out when I needed it. In this new world of new jobs and new companies every few months, that simply isn’t going to happen, or at least not as frequently. Relationships take time to build, and it is unreasonable for me to expect that level of relationship when most of the people know they will probably never see us again. People are people, after all, and since we come and go in their lives, when something goes wrong we are the easiest ones to blame and frankly the most expendable. It was a really good conversation and got me thinking about the new paradigm we are living in a way I never had before. It also gave me permission to look out for myself in a work environment, which is something we have been trying to work on anyway.

After she left, we both felt much better and then the water truck came. Actually they bought a whole new trailer with new generator, lights, and tanks. The gate guarding company employee explained how they had power washed the tank numerous times and at first we felt incredibly grateful the problem had been solved. But then the conversation suddenly and unexpectedly “turned”, and we got a lecture on how living in an oil field isn’t the same as living in a campground. We knew this, of course, but he apparently thought we needed reinforcement that “working in the oil fields is rough” and we “needed to understand all of our problems couldn’t be solved.” Since we had what I considered a major issue (now validated as such by an experienced gate guarder) and we had both been unfailingly polite in all of our interactions with the company, I felt this was unfair and sort of wandered off. Lee, to his credit, listened longer and said nothing, but eventually he also had enough and wandered off “to check the power in the rig”. Here’s the thing. It’s OK that they weren’t ready for us, and it’s OK that the first tank wasn’t what it needed to be. What was missing (until I called our recruiter) was someone owning the problem and just getting it fixed. A lecture on top of that was really not OK, but what could we do other than get into a pointless argument? Part of our new assertiveness policy though is to learn how future problems will be dealt with and how the situation was handled, coupled with the lecture at the end pretty much told us everything we needed to know.

Despite all that, we are determined to give this job a fair try. We think we will like it and don’t want to have one problem be the determining factor. But we also know that we have used our “one chip” with the water complaint and from now on we need to make the best of what is handed to us or run the risk of being labeled as troublemakers. Our neighbor gate guard recommended coming into every assignment with full fresh water and propane tanks and she also warned us to frequently top off our own tanks because they had experienced delays in fuel/water deliveries or delays in getting a malfunctioning piece of equipment fixed. The more remote the gate, the longer the delays, so thank heavens we are relatively close to the yard. She also recommended developing a good relationship with the site boss. If the site boss (who works for the oil company, which employs the gate guarding company) likes you, they can help get you what you need. We haven’t met ours yet, but that made perfect sense. It takes time of course to build those relationships, but the oil business is a small community. You can build a reputation as a good gate guard and that makes it easier to find jobs when things are slow or get issues resolved if there is a problem. Conversely, she warned us to never walk away from a job in process. Not only could you get black balled in the industry, but they could actually go after your state license and try to have it revoked. That never occurred to me, but it made sense when she said it, and I found it totally believable.

I’m not trying to be all negative here by the way. We have water, it sounds like the issue we had was an anomaly, and we still think we will like the job. But this job seems to come with the same kind of politics we were trying to get away from. The realization we are both coming to is if you are going to work in this lifestyle, it’s impossible to totally avoid politics. Relationship dynamics exist any time you bring two or more people together, and those dynamics are at the root of almost every political situation. One person doesn’t like another person, one person is territorial about their job, someone is incompetent, someone is an underappreciated overachiever. These scenarios happen all the time and low paying seasonal jobs aren’t exempt. One difference, of course, is we can easily pick up our toys and move to another playground, but then you have to start all over, and that gets tiring in its own way. We still believe though that sooner or later we will find the right combination for us. No job is perfect, but some are better fits than others and we just need to keep trying stuff until we find what works.

Along those lines we also locked in our summer gig and are very excited about it (been a busy couple of days). The job was actually sent to us by a reader, and since it is relatively high paying the spots were pretty competitive. We were very pleased to learn we earned one of the spots and it pays enough that we will only need to work 30 hours a week. That will feel like a vacation! It’s 60 minutes outside of Portland, Oregon (one of my favorite cities) and in a campground /marina owned by the local electric company. The interview for the job was over an hour, and not only do we really like the supervisor, but also feel he picked a job that is very well suited to our personalities. We will be covering 3 day-use parks and the marina, and then covering for the camp hosts’ days off. Lots of variety, lots of customer service activities, and in a totally beautiful place. I’ll share more later as we move farther in the process, but we are super excited that we got our first choice. We also applied online for Amazon for the 2017 season. If all goes well, we will be in Campbellsville, KY with our friends Bill and Kelly, and I am really looking forward to giving that a try. It’s also very nice the year is getting locked in, because playing things by ear adds an additional level of stress for us that at this point which I would rather avoid.

So, tomorrow is a new day, and since the gravel trucks are coming it’s going to be the real start of the work portion of this job, so I’ll let you know how it goes. It’s nice having all this time at night to blog if nothing else. I also worked on our 2017 budget, sent emails to the people we were talking to about summer jobs that we won’t now be taking, and did the dishes…very quietly! I also watched a little TV so I am finding the first part of the evening goes very quickly for me. It started dragging around midnight, but the first few hours are very productive and it’s nice to have quiet time to complete those tasks.

January 12, 2017 by Lee and Tracy

First Time Gate Guarding – Setting Up

After we left the service center, with our furnace fixed, and our jack and axle issue awaiting word from the warranty company, it was late enough that we didn’t want to attempt driving down to Padre Island, so we went back to Leisure Resort Campground and stayed one more night. Since we checked in after 5pm, they asked if we could pay in the morning when they opened the office at 10am and we were happy to comply. Super nice people at this campground, and the price was great at $22 with the Passport America discount. Plus as a bonus we got a visit from a really great cat. I, of course, thought he should join our adventure, but Lee is holding firm on his no pet policy. We did get some nice petting time in though and I fed the cat some tuna and milk which should hold it for awhile. He actually seemed like he was in pretty good shape, so he could be from a local farm. (This cat is bold. When I came out in the pre dawn to smoke and have my first coffee, he jumped right on my lap and began negotiating to live with us. Nope. – Lee)

Kitty Came to visit

Jumped right into Lee’s lap 🙂

Beautiful morning sunrise to start the day

So we took our time in the morning, packed up and headed out. We were less than 5 minutes into our drive to Padre Island when we got a phone call from the gate guarding company we have been working with that they had a job starting tomorrow! We originally applied with the company back in November (see post here), but although we had been in contact with them we had pretty much given up on getting a job in the near future.

The oil industry has scaled way back over the last year and a half, and although they are expecting things to ramp up again, no one knew when these new contracts would start rolling in. There are lot of ads out there right now, but everyone seems to be building their list of folks for the upcoming expected boom, but nothing solidified yet. Knowing that, we continued to work on getting our licenses, mine came in right before Christmas and Lee’s actually came in Monday, but we were also looking at other options. We looked at Work Kamper News, our “go to” first, but most of the available jobs were minimal or no pay. We applied to a couple with no response which makes sense because many RV’rs are looking for work in the same few areas of the country.

After striking out there I started exploring other avenues. I will say looking for temporary jobs is very different than the professional job searches I have done in the past, so different resources are called for. I checked out Craig’s List searching for contract jobs, but since you have to put in a specific area I found these pretty difficult. I looked at Indeed.com, again looking for temporary jobs, but most of those jobs were either temp to perm or frankly I was completely unqualified for because they required a skill I did not have. We also reached out to others in the RV community and did hear about some concession jobs working at Houston and San Antonio Texas rodeos that Aramark had in February and March. (We missed the deadline to apply to work at the Superbowl! That’s the sportsball game made famous by Andy Griffith. If you are unfamiliar with football, as I am, then please do yourself a favor and listen to this, it explains it very well. – Lee) One good thing about the Aramark job was they did have a stipend for campgrounds, but the bad part was that you were on your own finding one. Still it was a possible option, but I wasn’t getting a great feeling from anything I looked at. Temporary jobs just aren’t as common as they used to be, or maybe I wasn’t looking in the right places, and we were even talking about going to an employment agency, but again “where” came into play. It’s one thing to look for a job if you know where you want to be, but quite another with a more open ended location, and truly I was just getting frustrated by the whole thing but trying not to make myself too crazy.

So that was our state of mind when the call came in, so we jumped at the chance even though it was only $125 a day for a 24/7 shift, with no idea how long the contract would last. Yes, the job was on the low side of the pay scale, but it would come very close to covering our budget, and more importantly we would get to experience gate guarding and see if it was for us. (Plus, most gate gigs are 24/7, so you aren’t out spending a lot. – Lee) So we made a U-turn the first chance we got and drove 2-1/2 hours to the town of Dilley, Texas. Dilley is pretty small (population 4,070), but it has a small convenience store, dollar store, laundry mat, and a couple of restaurants. Since it’s right off I-35 it’s only about 20 minutes to the nearest town that has a Walmart and large grocery and a small hospital. We are located on a small (for Texas) ranch about 5 minutes outside of town and this is very unusual as most of the gate guarding jobs are in much more remote locations. We also have decent ATT wifi, which is great, and they are bringing us a booster because their tablets are ATT also, which is very good as well. But I am jumping ahead on the story. Let me back up a bit.

Day 1

We headed in that direction, and the company sent an Account Manager down to meet us. We ended up meeting her at a local Phillips 66 truck stop (there weren’t many places we could fit our rig while waiting) and the Account Manager went out to the site to see if our pad was ready. Unfortunately they were still working on it (they add a lot of dirt and gravel, roll it down, wet it, and roll it again to give you a nice level pad) so she came back and talked to us. We had two choices. Stay on the ranch, near the field, or stay at one of their (the gate guard company) office locations. Since we were all set up for boondocking (water in the tank, full propane tanks, etc) we decided to just stay at the ranch. First she drove us out to make sure we could get in and turn around and then we followed her back out. The spot was actually super nice and we were set up in no time. After giving us a warning to watch out for rattlesnakes (!), she said she would see us at 7am.

Road we drove down on the ranch

Nice site for one night. There is collapsed homestead behind us, that’s where the power lines go.

The next morning the Account Manger came and got us and we drove up to the gate. They were just finishing up the pad and we started talking about where exactly to place our rig when the trailer with the fresh water tank, generator, and light tower arrived. Our pad is on the smaller side, and we wanted to make sure it was as far as we could get it from both the trucks coming in, and the generator (which runs 24/7 unless we want to turn it off during the day) so we started to talk it through. In the past we would have rushed through something like this, but we both know how important it is to be comfortable in your space, and it’s a pretty big pain to change once you are all set up. The Account Manager was very patient with us, allowing us to take all the time we needed, and she started checking trucks in for us as they started to arrive. Eventually we picked a spot and got the service trailer in place, plus the black water tank was delivered as well so that was all hooked up.

The flat bed with water tanks, diesel fuel, generator, and lights

The flat bed with water tank, diesel fuel, generator, and lights

The generator engine

Black tank. The company added the PVS pipe which was nice

Black tank. The company added the PVC pipe, which was nice

Everything was going pretty well at this point. We are extremely level, the generator (which we both had major concerns about) was far enough away that it wasn’t too loud, there were no smells from the black tank or generator, and water was hooked up. I was learning the job and it seemed pretty straightforward. Log truck in, log them out, and be friendly. There was more to it of course, but compared to what we have been doing recently, pretty simple. (And no heavy lifting, or getting pine needles in our underwear. Don’t ask. – Lee) Everyone was super nice and very chill, and I was definitely liking the vibe of the whole thing. The first thing that went wrong was the lighting mast. In the picture of the service trailer you can see the lighting mast sort of laying down on the top of the generator. There is a hand crank and a wench that pulls a cable to move the mast to an upright and vertical position, then another crank that telescopes the mast to about 30′ in the air. Steve was cranking it to the vertical position when the cable broke, and the mast fell back down. So someone will be coming out tomorrow to repair that, and in the meantime, they are bringing another smaller trailer with just lights and a generator so we can have lighting tonight. It’s really, really dark out here at night.

Our gate. We temporarily worked out of the back of the Account Managers truck until we got set up

Then we ran into a problem. We had discussed how we would handle any issues if they came up the evening before and were going with our new plan of talking it through and seeing what the response was, instead of waiting to see how things turned out. Since this was a brand new site, as most gates are, we expected there to be some issue or another, and for us it was the fresh water. We were told the water was NOT potable, only suitable for showering, and dishes, but the tanks weren’t certified, so the water shouldn’t be used for drinking. (I am one of those people that worries less about water than most. I won’t drink water that is clearly not safe, but generally I trust it, and I’ve never had a problem. – Lee) OK, not perfect, but we had two filters, plus we could add bleach to the tank and we definitely thought we could make that work. Unfortunately, when we tried running the water through our system the filter clogged up within 10 seconds, and the pressure dropped to zero. Lee cleaned it, and again, it clogged up very quickly. At this point we knew something was very wrong. It turns out that the tank, (which we were told was scrubbed and sanitized prior to receiving it) has algae and the algae was clogging things up. Let me show you a couple of pics.

This amount was after 10 seconds of the water running

1/2 gallon of water straight from the tank

Just to be clear, the problem wasn’t the city water the company was putting in the tank, but the tank that the third party vendor provided. At this point I went in to take a nap for the evening shift so Lee dealt with it from there. Folks were concerned, but no one was exactly sure how to solve the problem. Most people just remove the filters and mesh screens from their rigs to prevent the clogging, but we had discussed it and were not willing to do that. Once the particles got into our rig, then we could have clogs throughout the system. And just to be super clear, water was included in the contract, but we weren’t holding the line on whether it was drinkable or not, but we both felt that it should be clean enough to flow through our system. Lee was very polite and helpful, but firm that the problem needed to be solved. (My mantra was “it doesn’t need to be potable, but it does need to flow. – Lee) We even offered to use our fresh water tank, but since they would have to fill it every three days instead of weekly, they weren’t crazy about that option.

They came out and rinsed and scrubbed it again, but we had the same issue. (Worst mechanical bull ever. – Lee)

Eventually the account manager pitched it back to the vendor to solve (where the problem belongs, in my opinion) and we are waiting to see what happens tomorrow. Apparently all of their water tanks are in this type of shape and he thinks he would need to buy a brand new one to make this work. The vendor did say he could bring a 150 gallon tank out as a temporary solution tomorrow and then try to get approval for purchasing a new one. Frankly I am not surprised this isn’t an issue for more people, but maybe it’s just us. In any event, I feel we handled it appropriately but only time will tell. Either way, it is much better than the alternative of just accepting it and then being unhappy for the next couple of months.

After 6pm when the water vendor left things really slowed down. We didn’t have any more trucks, but the ranch down the road had still had some throughout the night. We aren’t sure how busy we will be at night here, but someone still needs to be available, so we have decided to split the evenings. I am going to work 4pm – 4am and Lee will work 4am – 4pm. That way I get to go to bed in the dark and fall asleep while it’s still reasonably quiet and he gets some quiet time in the morning as well. (And of course there’s a lot of overlap where we’re both awake, which is basically noon-9pm – Lee) We will also be able to eat dinners together because it will be lunch time for me and dinner time for him. Not sure how it will work out, and we are certainly open to changing it, but we wanted to give this a try.

Since I have the night shift I was a little worried about the dark since we were warned about both rattlesnakes and illegal immigrants. Rattlesnakes are out early this year, but will hopefully stay away from the area because they don’t like the vibration from the generator. If they are not close just leave them alone, but it was recommended we use a hoe to push them out of the way if we see one in our direct path. Since we don’t own a hoe we were given a baseball bat by one of the guys who works for the company which was super nice of him, but I think we are going to get a hoe at the local dollar store if they are cheap. (I’ll be looking for a 35 ft hoe. – Lee) The gate guarding positions in areas close to the border are all manned by police officers or retired police, and they are armed, so obviously this can be serious, but we are being told it is unlikely because we are on the east side of 35 (apparently that is a dividing line of some sort). If we do see something we were told to be careful not to provide food or water of any kind because “word would get out” and we would become a routine stop. If they need medical attention call 911 but otherwise tell them we will call border patrol. I’m pretty uncomfortable with the whole thing, so am glad we have such a well lit area. It’s just part of the deal, and I do appreciate the clear direction on what to do even if the scenarios are unlikely.

Newly painted gate lit up at night

Light beam allows us to know when a truck pulls up. Works pretty good. We have one on inside and one on outside

We can adjust the lights later, but for now we are all lit up which is not the worst thing. Apparently animals will check us out the first couple of days and then give us a wide berth, so having the lights keeps them at bay as well. Later we can aim them on the gate and hopefully less on us.

First night went well. I didn’t get any trucks, although the busier gate down the road had a few an hour overnight. I enjoyed the quiet, to be honest. Been a long time since I had this much quiet time. It was nice. I also got a ton done. I applied for Amazon for Lee and I for next year, wrote this blog post, got caught up on email, and watched The Bachelor, which Lee is not a fan of, so I always try to find time to watch alone. Will see how it works long term, but so far so good.

November 25, 2016 by Lee and Tracy

First Time Getting Setup to be a Gate Guard

A couple of weeks ago, I saw an ad in Work Kamper News to be a gate guard in Texas, and since this was on the list of things we wanted to try and we were already in Texas I decided to give them a call. Turns out we were only 45 minutes away from their office and they were very interested in talking to us and getting us set up to be gate guards. In the State of Texas you need to get certified to be an “onsite security guard”, which is how they classify gate guards, and the process was a little time consuming. The company we were working with was fully aware of that however, and scheduled a 4 hour appointment with us to complete an orientation and all of the setup. Once we were set up we would be put on their list and as jobs became available we would receive a call to see if we were interested in taking the jobs.

Gate guarding has been slow for the last couple of years as the oil industry has slowed down, but they are expecting more activity in 2017, especially since a Republican was elected president. So, our timing was perfect and we scheduled a day to come over and fill everything out. It was not easy getting a day off from the Christmas trees, but since we weren’t technically supposed to be open until the day after Thanksgiving we insisted. The other alternative would have been doing the paperwork after Christmas and we wanted to make sure we were on their radar well before then. The company was located outside of the cute little town of Boerne, in a beautifully renovated red barn. I was a little taken aback initially when we walked inside, because the walls of the barn were mounted with over a dozen animal heads, and the coffee table was full of books about duck hunting and ranching. It was definitely full on Texan, but Nicole, the young woman we were working with was so incredibly nice that I soon felt comfortable.

She had us sit down at side-by-side desks and walked us through applying online for our certifications. Some companies don’t help with this, and they also don’t tell you that once you are certified you can work for any gate guarding company, but Nicole was upfront about that. She also started by explaining the program and answering all of our questions. Some of them were as follows:

What does it pay? Rates are low right now and depend on job site, but they are ranging from $100 a day – $165 a day for a 12 hour shift.
What services will we have? Occasionally couples are at a campground, but generally they stay on the job site. They are given a generator which provides 12000-15000 watts of power, 250 gallons of water a week, and weekly pump out service.
What does the job entail? You check in truck drivers as they arrive throughout the day. Some sites have a gatehouse you sit in, but mostly you stay in your rig and come out when trucks arrive. It doesn’t matter which member of the couple performs this function and they are very flexible in how the paycheck is divided up. Only one person needs to be onsite at any given time. This was a huge benefit in my mind because Lee or I could find a second online job and earn both the gate guarding pay and the second job pay. We talked to Nicole about that and she said it was perfectly fine. One member of the couple can even be gone for extended periods if necessary as long as one person was onsite, so occasional work travel was back on the table.
How is the job divvied up? These are 1099 jobs, but worker’s compensation is included. Nicole has a list and starts calling couples and if they are not interested they pass on the assignment.
Is there cell coverage? All the jobs have some cell coverage. but it might only be Verizon or ATT, and it can be minimal. In some cases they add boosters to help with that.

The last was particularly important to us, but she definitely understood the full timing life. She stressed that she would much rather have us reject an assignment than accept something and then be unhappy or leave the position. She promised that this would not in any way be a black mark against us, she understood not everything was a good fit. It all sounded interesting, even though the money was very low, so we applied online, verified our accounts via our email, and then I paid a $62 fee. Lee received a $30 discount because he is former military, but had to provide his DD 214 discharge paperwork as proof. Thankfully we have that information. She made it all very pleasant and although we could have muddled through on our own, I was very glad to have someone to walk me through it.

After signing up we scheduled our fingerprinting and background checks at a facility in New Braunfels. This process is pretty quick and will cost an additional $10. We will also get randomly drug screened at some point in the future, and because I was curious I asked if marijuana counted as a drug and found out it does since it is illegal in the State of Texas. All of the rules follow State of Texas law since that is where the company is based, but the work could be in Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, or Louisiana. Just to be clear, we aren’t worried about the drug testing, I just wondered with all the new states that had legalized it if companies were changing their policies. Not this one at least.

Finally, we had a complete walk-through of the paperwork associated with the job and went through the employee handbook. Again, Nicole did a very nice job and actually made it interesting, but it was the longest interview process I have ever been on. It took about 3 -1/2 hours all together, but we are set up and ready to be called to be gate guards. Our original plan after the trees would be to go to Quartzsite, but if we find a paying gig we will take that instead. There are limited options for making money in the January-March time frame and limited places we can be due to weather, so this could definitely be something we can do to fill that time.

What’s the downside?

The jobs often become available sort of last minute, so we would need to stay somewhat close to Texas to avoid long travel days to reach an assignment.
The pay is low IF you view it as being for the couple. $125 a day for a twelve-hour shift is $10 an hour if it’s one person, but $5 an hour if you count it as two. If you are only working a 12 hour shift only one person is required to do the work, so you could theoretically work a second position online or in a nearby town, but cell coverage and distance to a town do vary from site to site. This might be a great job for someone who works full time from their rig and has a spouse who picks up other jobs, but again, cell coverage would be key. If you were working a 24/7 shift as a couple then you would get paid $250 which is again around $10 an hour. There is still an opportunity for someone to work another job online possibly, but becomes more difficult.
No overtime. The reason jobs like the Beet Harvest and Amazon are so lucrative is the overtime. This job doesn’t have that, but it may also have lots of down time in between trucks. It’s also less physically demanding.
Dealing with the elements. Depending on the time of year and location of site, we could be dealing with extreme heat, snow, wind, etc. Since we wouldn’t be sightseeing and will have services bad weather becomes an issue mainly because you are both “stuck” in the rig on top of each other. We have done that and it is not fun. This is a serious concern, but also one of those things we feel we would have to try and see how it goes.
You can’t do anything together. Nicole is fully aware that it gets old after awhile and tries at least once a month to give the couples one free day so they can go to dinner together or explore the area, but that is not guaranteed. The jobs are 7 days a week until their completion, and during the shift someone always needs to be there.
Many sites don’t allow pets. This was not a big deal for us, but she seemed relieved that we didn’t have dogs. I got the impression that has caused issues in the past. There are some job sites that allow dogs, but that makes you less likely to be able to fill a spot.
No drinking on the job site. Since you are living on the job site that could get tricky, but the way they handle it is you can drink in your rig, but if you drink the other person needs to cover the gate. So if you are fond of your 3pm cocktails together, that needs to go away.
No guns. I almost started laughing when I heard that. Almost all full timers have guns. Again, if the guns are in your rig they don’t care, but no open carry is allowed. That being said she was pretty clear that you could protect yourself. It wasn’t that hard to read between the lines on this one.

Which brings me to safety. These are remote areas and she made absolutely no promises about being safe. She did say that sites near the border were almost exclusively covered by off duty or retired police officers, but the others were remote. We are super safety conscious, but I think we would need to do a contract and see how it goes. The remoteness could work to our advantage. The truck driver traffic would be an advantage as well. What we have learned in this lifestyle is whether or not we feel safe is very subjective and situational. So we would have to see.

Overall I feel pretty good about trying it. But then again I want to try everything at least once. Lee is a little more cautious, but willing to give it a go. Now it just depends on there being a job opening around the time we are scheduled to leave Texas. Will see what happens and let you know.