We would like to extend huge congratulations to our employees of Q2, Michelle Coleman and Cesar Guerrero! Their outstanding work and achievements are what make Storage Solutions a great company!
Starting off with Michelle Coleman, our Vice President of Communications, Michelle is the head of all of our Marketing strategies and operations, administrating the marketing team’s duties. She also spearheads Storage Solutions’ internal communications & training, so she’s the one that helps the new hires get settled into SSI and get caught up to speed as well as HR duties. Michelle joined the Storage Solutions team in 2006 and has helped it grow into what it is today.

As I always mention, Storage Solutions is constantly growing. With so many fresh, new faces in the office I thought it was necessary to use today’s blog as an opportunity to check in with one of our new team members and see what his experience has been like with us thus far! Making his Storage Solutions blogging debut, I give you, Billy Powers!

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I was recently asked to explain what my typical day looks like at Storage Solutions. I have been with the company for a little over two months now, and I can honestly say there is no typical work day; every day is different, every phone call provides me with a new and different challenge and every project I am exposed to is different than the last. If my day ever becomes typical or routine, you should assume I am not pushing myself or have stopped learning new things, which is far from possible.

In the material handling industry, there are always opportunities to learn new things. When I first started at Storage Solutions I was told to surround myself with the “all stars” in the office. Without a doubt, everyone in this office is an all star and are willing to help the “rookie” in the office. Every day the project managers help me understand the project details, the salespeople provide me with the tools and techniques and the management is continually helping me understand an ever changing industry. I never thought after such a short time I could learn so much, but with great teachers how could you expect anything less.

I have very ambitious goals for my future here with this company, but like everyone else I know I have to take it day by day. So to get back to the question of “the typical day”; it is showing up everyday eager to learn, continually building a strong network in and out of the office, taking every opportunity to shadow other employees, being one of the first to work and one of the last to leave, and being adaptable to whatever it is that might be thrown your way.

I know it’s been a while since my last rookie blog post but we’ve been so busy here at Storage Solutions preparing for the New Year and it’s great! So to close out 2011 I wanted to blog about one of the biggest challenges I’ve faced over the past few months: how to effectively manage adversity. (Curveballs, if you will)

Imagine you’re a rookie baseball player making his first start in the big leagues. And on top of that, the opposing pitcher in your first game happens to be Cy Young winner and Detroit Tigers Pitcher Justin Verlander. Now, Up until this point in your career you’ve never seen anything like him. His 99mph fastballs look like they’re coming at your head around 200mph and just when you think you have his fastball timed right, he freezes you with a knee buckling curveball. Strike 3 and you’re heading back to the minor leagues. Okay, maybe that’s a little dramatic but you get the point.  As a rookie, slight adversity looks like it’s coming at you much faster than it really is and just when you think you have it, something new pops up.

The obvious goal is to pay attention to detail so that problems don’t occur but as everyone knows things don’t always go as planned and the only way to improve at handling these curveballs is experience. The more issues you see and the more problems you have to fix the better you become at handling adversity when it jumps up and slaps you in the face. You start to see things in slow motion. Things start to slow down and those 200 mph fastballs start to look like beer league softball lobs.  Before you know it, you’ve been called back to the big leagues, you’re batting .335 and you’re the new World Series MVP! (If you can’t tell I really enjoy imagining myself as a professional baseball player. But again, the point is clear.)

Here’s an example of a valuable lesson I learned a few weeks ago… When shipping a package internationally, you may run in to challenges that appear to be out of your control. The only real solution to a problem like this is to keep pushing and keep trying something else. I call one number and the person can’t help me, I keep pushing but still get nothing. Hang up, call someone else. They can’t help me either but they may know someone who can. On hold, on hold, cheesy jazz music, still holding. Eventually I get through to someone that can help and get the problem resolved. It wasn’t easy, actually pretty frustrating. But I finally got to the end goal of getting the problem resolved and the only reason I got there was because I kept calm and kept pushing. Just like practice for that minor league baseball player!

In closing to this blog, on behalf of myself and the Storage Solutions Family, I’d like to wish a late Merry Christmas and a happy New Year to you and all of yours! Make sure to look for Storage Solutions in 2012!