What I Do

Happy New Year! I'm not one to make resolutions and have never been a huge fan of celebrating big on New Year's Eve. That's not to say I don't like the holiday, its just not my thing.

I thought I would write a post about what I do for a living. Its a pretty huge part of my life and in the summer, it consumes my life (consume is an understatement actually). So here it goes!

I went to college and graduated with my degree in Special Ed. It is my passion and I absolutely love kids! When I met B, I got sucked into the world of bounce houses. At the time, he was renting bounce houses pretty low key, 1 or 2 a weekend, but by the second summer we were together, things were getting a little crazier. Fast forward 5 years and here we are, running a pretty successful inflatable rental company.

The first thing people say when we tell them we own a bounce house company is, "Oh! That must be so fun!" I can see how an outsider would think that. How is renting bounce houses and water slides NOT fun?! Although the job has its perks, it is extremely stressful. Now I know that there are jobs that are much more stressful and high risk (medical field, military, etc.), but people underestimate how stressful our business can be. Most customers have no idea what goes into getting them their inflatable. There is a tremendous amount of planning that goes into every rental, and it seems that in the area we live in, many people wait until the day before their party to order, causing some serious headaches on our end. Imagine trying to deliver 20 inflatables, all about 15 min. driving distance away from each other all before 11am. Nightmare. Summer months are chaotic to say the least and I often forget to eat, let alone sleep. So why is it even worth it you ask? Well, we have learned a lot over the last 5 years and have put many systems in place to at least try to make thing run smoothly. The other major perk: We get to live in FL for 6 months (our off season). So working 80+ hours a week seems worth it while we sit on the beach in the middle of January.

Our business has tested me in so many ways. Customers get under my skin more than I like to admit. I take it personally. I helped build this business, so when we get someone who is rude or mean to us, I have a hard time not falling apart. We have also given up our summers. While everyone has BBQ's and goes on vacations, we almost never even get a day off. I have a bunch of friends who are planning to get married this summer and while I will make the weddings (barely), anything scheduled in June is impossible, meaning I miss bridal showers/bachelorette parties. I always get the feeling from friends and even family that they just don't understand that I cant take a day off like normal people. June is a 30 day period where I absolutely cannot leave. There is simply such a high volume of parties, which inevitably means problems and I am usually working over 100 hours a week in June. This is always hard. People almost never understand that I cant leave and I just cant explain it unless you spend a week with me.

To add to it all, I run this business with my boyfriend. It's his company, but at this point, I manage it, make the big decisions, he mostly fronts the money. Running a stressful business while starting and maintaining a relationship is hard. Like really hard. We have been in some seriously trying time together, but our relationship is rock solid because of it.

Phew! Glad to get that off my chest! It sounds like I hate the business and at times, I do. But I love what we do, and am SO proud that we built this business from the ground up, all by ourselves. I NEVER thought I could run a business. It has been such a huge learning curve for us.