Property Manager - Resident Property Manager Public Storage Employee Review

PS has forgotten that it is us in the field that put the paychecks on the desk. I have been a property manager for a very long time. I have seen many changes in policy many I do not agree with. In the years I have been with PS I have had at least 15 Regional Managers. I do not agree with all the scripts we are suppose to memorize word for word. The customer has no idea what the next line is suppose to be. Property Managers are the ones who deal with the customers on a daily basis. The rent increases that are being given to current tenants is insane. Especially when the going price is lower than current market value. How can you raise rent on people who are paying at least 40 percent higher then the current value. Tenants complain about the increases which seem to be every six months lately. Your raising rent and nothing is getting done at the properties. And when I say nothing I mean nothing. It is like pulling teeth to get anything done. Repairs that should be done within 24 hours do not get done until months later. I have no idea why I even have the title of Property Manager when I do not manage anything anymore. I cannot call a vendor to get any repairs done that need to be done. I have to use my personal cell phone to take pictures and send them to my DM. I did not realize that PS pays my phone bill. Speaking of MY cell phone now I am being told that I need to give the customers MY phone to do a social media review in my office. I have had it with this new so called policy. I have been told that if I do not get a certain amount of reviews that I could be fired. I would love for that to happen. I think the court system would love to know that I am suppose to use MY phone to have my tenants do a review for me. If PS wants this done so badly then they need to provide a laptop in our offices for customers and tenants to use. PS expects the reservations that are sent to our computers be captured within the first 15 minutes of receiving it. Well that's kind of hard to do sometimes when all of our maintenance workers were fired almost 2 years ago now. It is up to the PM to have all units rent ready. So if you have say 15 vacates at the end of the month they need to be rent ready immediately. How is it possible for us to be able to clean the units plus keep up with the property appearance when we have to be constantly watching our computers too. Its impossible!!! Then when we are outside cleaning because we have no one else to help us the customers get mad because no one is in the office. I have no one who helps me at my property. PM's are now also suppose to be able to rake leaves, shovel snow, change lights, fix drywall, toilets and be in control of pest control. I use to love my job but now I dread going into my office because there is so much pressure on us to know a script keep a goal board that no one ever looks at. Its a waste of paper. Not once has any upper management ever looked at my goal board. You can get all the numbers and percentages by looking at the management summary. We use to get better bonuses 10 years ago then we do now. But we have many more job duties now and the bonuses are paid annually. And the memo last year was that 40 percent of managers should qualify for the bonus. This year it has moved up to 60 percent of managers should qualify. Are you kidding me? If I owned a company I would be embarrassed to send that out to my employees. PM's are responsible for everything at their property and you are going to give us an annual bonus. While the DM's are getting a quarterly bonus because of the things we are doing. All we are doing is putting money in upper management pockets. I went 8 years without a raise at all. I bring in my entire salary for the entire year the first 2 days of each month here at my location. Plus on top of that we who live on the premises have to pay for our storage units if we have one. I will not say how many years that was part of my compensation but it was a long time. The rent on that is literally half of my paycheck now! When I was hired my job description was not to bad but now my duties have more than tripled and what do I get NOTHING except a hard time from upper management. I would love for a DM, RM or even a Divisional Manager to come work an office for 2 weeks. They would not be able to do it. I would bet money on that!! I think they should know first hand how much a PM has to do on a daily basis. Sometimes I do wonder if the Corporate Office knows how the field employees are being treated. I have been screamed at and belittled in my office in front of customers and co-workers. My job is threatened I would say at least monthly lately. I take pride in the work that I do and I know all of my tenants by name and I also know their unit numbers. If not for my tenants I do not think that I would still be here. I am always getting repeat customers. This year alone I would say I have had 15 former tenants come back and rent with me. PM's get to know their tenants and now if a tenant gets behind in rent or fees they are going to auction if their account is not paid in full. We use to have some say so in the auctions now we have none. I do have tenants that keep in touch with me on a weekly basis to keep me posted on their situation but now all I can tell them is that if it is not paid in full by the sale date it will be auctioned. I can understand that if the customer calls the day of the sale or even the day before but when you have a tenant who constantly stays in contact with you they are still going to be sold. It seems that we have lost having any sympathy for anyone. I just don't understand anymore. I do understand that this is a business but what is the big deal of giving someone an extra 30 days to try and get caught up before you sell them at auction. Some of the people who are up for auction end up drowning in the fees. The fees are outrageous. Some of the late fees are up to $100 a month. 20 percent of the rent. So if your rent is $400 a month and you are late your late fee is $80. Come on really that's crazy. It should be illegal. I'm not bashing all of PS upper management and I really don't think that Ron Havner has any clue what is going on in the field. I also understand that numbers are very important to the company and I do my part to get the numbers that they expect. Very rarely do I not meet the expectations for each month. I work very hard to keep my delinquency low, merchandise sales up, insurance and lock percentage up to the best of my ability. My occupancy has never been as low as it is at the present time in over 6 years. That is due to the current rental prices and the rent increases that existing tenants are getting. I have had a lot of long term good paying tenants move within the last year due to rent increases. People are starting to shop around for better prices even if they have to go farther to rent. I really think we need to look at the long term tenants and stop raising their rent. They have been here for years and always pay on time. Policy years ago was that they were guaranteed the price for at least a year now you cant even say 6 months.