The Service Manager

Yesterday's notes

Kitchen counter, tablet. Scans the prior day's completed jobs — twenty-two service calls, four PMs. Two notes look thin; one diagnostic doesn't match the parts used. Flags both for follow-up before the techs roll.

Drive in

Calls the senior tech on the diagnostic mismatch from the car. Two-minute conversation — turns out the part swap was right, the note was rushed. Asks him to update the note before his first call. Done.

Tech roll-out

Stands by the back door with coffee while the field rolls. Two minutes with each tech — what's on their board, anything carrying over from yesterday. Tells the apprentice he'll meet him at the 10am call.

Callback huddle

Forty-five minutes with dispatch and the Dispatch Manager on last week's callback list. Six callbacks across the branch — three are the same furnace model, two are Installer handoffs, one is a tech who needs a refresher on subcooling. Patterns, not people. Walks the three furnace-model hits straight into the GM's 9:30 1:1.

Apprentice ride-along

Pulls up to the residential service call where the apprentice is on his second solo no-cool. Stands back. Watches him pull amps on the compressor, talks him through reading the subcooling against the nameplate. Lets him close the call himself; debriefs in the parking lot for ten minutes.

Sandwich and notes

Eats in the truck on the way back to the office. Voice-memos three coaching points from the apprentice ride — when to pull the gauges, how to phrase the options conversation, the habit of photographing the nameplate first.

Performance review prep

Pulls the six-month numbers on a tech with a creeping callback rate — not a bad tech, but trending the wrong way. Builds the conversation around three specific jobs and the training he hasn't completed. Books the sit-down for Thursday.

Technical escalation

Field tech calls in from a commercial RTU — two-stage compressor staging is hunting, head pressure climbing on the lead stage. Walks him through the sequence-of-operations check on the phone, confirms it's a stuck reversing valve solenoid, tells him to recover and swap. Stays on the line until the tech has the recovery machine hooked up.

QA review

Pulls four random closed jobs from the day on the tablet. Reads the notes, looks at the photos, checks the readings against the equipment. Two are clean; one is missing the static pressure reading; one is fine but the photo angle hides the gauge face. Sends two short Slack notes to the techs.

1:1 with Ops

Walks tomorrow's board with the Operations Manager. Confirms first-time-fix closed at 87% for the day, flags the RTU callback for Wednesday follow-up, and gets the green light to put the apprentice on a solo route Friday.

Son's baseball practice

Folding chair at the field. Phone in his pocket, not in his hand. Helps the coach catch warm-up throws between his son's at-bats.

Last look

Couch, tablet for ten minutes. Confirms the RTU tech closed his note, the apprentice's update went in, and tomorrow's first calls are loaded. Sets the on-call phone on the charger and turns the lamp off.