refuse collector

district manager

concierge

parking attendant

housekeeper

Valet Living

This company is the most disorganized, unprofessional company I have ever worked for. The have no SOP for anything and make things up as they go along, even if it is illegal. They just hope people are dumb enough not to check. 

There is no room for advancement if you are not the corporate color, even if qualified. Every single executive at the corporate level is caucasian or close to it, even if not qualified. They would rather hire externally than internally to give opportunities to current employees.

Forget a work life balance. You are constantly working. Forget time with your family, that phone has to be glued to your hip, because there will be issues that always arise. If another manager quits or is let go, you automatically inherit their disaster of an entire district to fix WITHOUT ANY EXTRA PAY. They don't even have the respect to ask you if you could help and work for free! After you worked extremely hard trying to handle your work and someone else's you don't even gets much as a thank you.

The sales department runs around doing whatever they want. As long as they get the sale and the company get the business thats all that matters. This makes your life difficult because when new properties pop up out of the blue to start, it's on you. There is no regard for operations and our process to roll out a property properly. We are left scrambling at last minute sometimes with over a thousand units to go and individually hand deliver containers, not to mention we also have to hire employees for the site too, which is stressful for us. Then when service starts badly, its your responsibility to deal with the irate customers and angry property managers.

If a valet cannot make it to work and you can't find someone else at last minute, guess what you have to go out and throw trash at night. You better hope it's only at one small apartment community. Otherwise you will be throwing them all, no matter the size. If you have a co-worker that doesn't know how to do their job and is throwing trash at multiple sites every night. The RDO will expect you to leave your district and run to help them throw trash, even if you are hours away from them....FOR FREE! The RDO however will not come to help.

The bonus structure is ridiculous. They may as well take it away because they really do not want to give it to you. Its hardly worth it anyway it's the lowest bonus I've ever seen at a job ( and I mean low). They constantly change the KPI's every time you reach the finish line and meet the expectation, trying to make it harder for you to make bonus.
They make it so you cannot track your bonus, you have no idea how you have done until the end when they tally up the numbers that you can't see, but you can't tell how much you are to get until you see your check. You may have something you may not, but most times not. There also is not a set time to get it, they pay it whenever.

The IT system they use (ivalet) for everything is garbage, instead of outsourcing it to a professional company and just paying the money, they keep the good for nothing IT team who think they are never wrong. You have to make sure you have pictures, screenshots and time stamps to prove your point for them to correct your numbers because of their faulty system. Oh and that is part of your KPI's for your bonus, so i'm sure you see the issue there.

They do offer paid vacation, but what good is it when you are working the entire time you are supposed to be off. When you go on vacay be prepared to take your phone, laptop or iPad because you have to monitor if everyone is at work and the properties are completed. You also have to do payroll or your guys won't get paid. You still have to make sure your area is running smoothly or you will come back to a a complete DISASTER.

Every other quarter they lower the budgets for the properties AND DON'T TELL YOU, affecting your district. Next thing you know your numbers you worked hard to get in line is now a mess. Then when you are over budget they expect you to cut the valets pay. They don't care how long they valet has been with the company, they don't care about them AT ALL. They pay the poor valets peanuts as it is. They have no bonuses, no real benefits, or paid holidays. So when these guys quit for feeling unappreciated, guess who has to throw trash...YOU!

The corporate executives pay never gets cut though. They get bonuses, raises, corporate trips etc. They make thousands per contract with an apartment community and they refuse to offer the backbone of the company any incentives, just pay cuts. If it wasn't for the valets working every single night, doing a good job they wouldn't have any maintained contracts. The company is greedy!

The company pays the District Manager an insulting salary for all of the work they ask for. In fact this is the lowest paying DM job in the area. No other employer pays this low for this position. They are at least $20,000 below the average rate.

This company has so much turn over. I have never seen so much turn over at the executive level. There there has been at lease 3 VP's and 4 RDO's, countless DM's and valets in a span of less than 3 years.

There are a bunch of irrelevant air headed corporate directors at corporate. Some titles are completely useless. Half don't know what they are doing, while a quarter do. The other quarter is just on payroll collecting a big check and bonuses for no reason.

Too much left to interpretation.
Inconsistent workload.
High turnover.
No standards across the board for communities (typically whatever the property manager wants).
Too heavy of a focus on metrics (because they are linked to bonuses) and not the day to day developing of Valets and quality of service.
Hiring key people from outside of the company instead of within (Everyone in the company should collect trash for at least a week to understand the business. This includes corporate level).
Low pay for part-time employees.
Inconsistent On boarding process (Nasty/damaged trucks passed down from former managers whom quit or got fired. They don’t even take the time to get them cleaned before passing them to new hires).
Takes too long to make adjustments/improvements to DM routes (You have to cover/split the route with another manager for a manager whom quits or gets fired).
Unbalanced property counts between managers.(Some managers have 9 while others have over 20).  


No accountability from top management (Managers not showing up to assist their peers with launching new properties).
Doesn’t promote a consistent team work environment.
Focused too much on growth and not sustainability.
Trying too hard to “look” like a great company and not “be” a great company.
A bunch of great ideas with poor execution.
Disconnect between sales and operations.
Constant focus on more contracts but not the ability to adequately support those contracts with good staff.
No standard for enforcing policies on residents whom do not comply “just do whatever makes the customer happy.”


No clear cut vacation policy for management (Another Manager has to cover your route which could give you upwards of 30+ properties to watch over if you both have over 15 properties and you must do so for the duration of their vacation. Leaves you with unfamiliar staff and territory to manage).
False promises from top management (Promises of lower property load that takes months to fulfill if at all). 
Even if your property count decreases, it’s only for a short time and it’s back up to where it was.


Overall trying to do too much and forgetting that the main goal is to collect trash and solve a problem for communities not create a problem for communities. The concept is awesome, but should be executed better for a company that has been around since the 90’s. Poor execution has left the door wide open for competitors.


Entirely too many systems for input such as Salesforce, Process Maps, iValet, Workday, Workplace, Concur, etc...
Constant technology issues and outages.
District Managers have to recruit, train, retain, complete audits, office visits, service reports, spot checks, safety observations, investigations of accidents, vehicle maintenance, sales, etc... in a “work from home” position. Not as advertised. They even run the risk of having to collect trash on properties themselves if there are too many call-outs which does happen, especially since people have to work in the elements due to it being an outdoors job.  The likelihood of this increases when a DM has a high property count.  


6 day work week and some managers have 7 day properties that have to be monitored, never really giving you “peace of mind” on your “off” day as anything could happen on a property any given day.
Weekly meetings that are too frequent and run entirely too long that cut into the time needed to manage your district
Lack of proper training for all of the processes leaves you with a “learn as you go” and “figure it out” environment that is just unacceptable.


-Poor communication from the corporate level
-Leaders should have compassion for the team and that doesn’t exist here. New managers are thrown to the wolves and criticized behind their backs when they are not present to defend themselves because they left or quit the organization due to being overworked and burned out. Lots of negative language towards district managers from leaders. Saying that we “whine”, “complain”, etc... It shouldn’t be considered complaining when we are given a much larger workload than promised while doing the best to hire and retain staff to keep properties serviced each night and clients happy. Not much is done to boost morale. Just lots of negative critiques and criticisms of the team from top management.


-Monitoring our company vehicles being parked at our homes and having an issue with that at a job that was sold to us as “work from home”. How does that even make sense?

All of these issues and they have the nerve to complain and insult the effort of district managers. No one is going to perform at their best if they don’t believe the organization cares for them. “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.”

District Managers also do not receive promised commissions on new property acquisitions and bulk hauls. Very unorganized and inconsistent processes throughout the organization.

The main focus of the company is quantity over quality. Money over quality of service. They want as many contracts as possible. That’s the name of the game. Some of the properties don’t even truly utilize the service properly or even need it to begin with and are even unsafe for team members to work there but we have those contracts anyway. Unacceptable.

From the outside this company has a great concept, with an appealing job description and lots of perks, but after you get in, you find out very quickly how it was all lies and everything was just sugar coated. 

As a district manager you are responsible for hiring, training, scheduling and managing of your service valets. In addition to, maintaining a good relationship with the properties you service, including the property's office team, maintenance team and residents.  When things go well it's a simple process, however when the path gets bumpy, and it always does, you are working 16 hour days 6 days a week. The day starts at 9am and does not end until after midnight. 

The job description states you will be working a split shift. The problem is that your phone is always on, your email is on your phone and it is your responsibility to be available to your clients and team. You never really get a break. During the day you will visit the properties and talk to the staff about any issues with the service, at night you will visit your team to see if they are meeting standards and in between you will do administrative work, recruiting and problem solving. If a service valet calls off or takes a vacation, the district manager is servicing the property and he/she is still doing their job watching their book of business and answering the phone with questions.  

PTO is senseless because you still have to oversee your properties. No one will cover for you, because they are in a hole and even if they can the technology is so messy it does not have the ability to transfer your book of business to another DM. The IT department is a joke. They are so busy trying to catch the district managers doing something wrong, that they don't maintain and develop systems that actually work. 

If another district manager quits, his book of business gets thrown onto you, but you don't get compensated for it. The company saves 50k plus and you get nothing. The Regional District manager will dump extra work on your plate and basically just say deal with it,  but you ask for a salary bump and get told there's no salary increases.  The bonus plan is absurd. It's unachievable and every year they increase the standards so just when you get close, they make it harder.  I know every job asks their employees to be nimble and help where needed as they strive to make improvements,  but at Valet Living it's the norm to take advantage of the district managers. 

They're is no chance to be promoted even though they say there is. They would rather hire someone from the outside, who knows nothing about the business,  than promote from within and have an experienced district manager have a chance to move up. Of this they will deny this, but its been done several times. Jobs are created and they do not even post the position,  instead they hire people they know personally to fill the upper management positions. 

I can go on and on but I know they will deny it and discredit this review, so I will stop here and say, there are so many other jobs, don't get trapped and waste your time in this company.

The best thing about the job is we get to work from home until we need to go out in the field. The company is very focused on growing and adding other verticals to enhance their service offerings.  I think this is great but it needs to be coupled with better wages for the work their employees already do.  I truly believe we have some leaders with a great vision for our company but not all of the regional managers have the soft skills or the ability to motivate and inspire their workforce to achieve goals.  Not to mention there is virtually a lack of support in helping to meet those goals.  As a district manager you will spend a ton of time recruiting and hiring as we dont pay enough for what the job entails of our valets.  In fact I spend most of my time trying to get staffed up.  Seems like we are always treading water. 

This company leads our industry  and its exciting to work for a large successful company.  I do miss however the culture only a small company can provide. That close-knit family culture where everyone's ideas are considered.

In their own words our company is a license to print cash.  They turn huge profits annually just on their core service offering alone. They buy several smaller companies a year that align with their model. What they could do better is contribute more towards the cost of health insurance.  We have a good plan and its not the most expensive but since they don't pay all that well and they make huge profits perhaps they could temper down on buying companies just a little bit and cover a greater cost of insurance.  They provide a generous vacation package but if you aren't able to use it all in the calendar year you lose it.  If when you request the time and its denied then the amount of time they give you doesn't matter.  For this reason I think we should be able to cash out up to half of it a year.  Since we are salary though and other district managers cover for someone on vacation they company essentially has no cost in providing the time off therefore they won't let you cash it out because then it will cost them money.  Anyways I could go on and on about the good and bad.

I was offered this job for one reason and one reason only, I have a pickup truck. They'll hire anybody with a pickup truck. I started in the winter, which was okay. I didn't have to see any of the customers, and at first the customers were happy to have me handling their trash collection. As time went on they began to manipulate and take advantage of my service. The company does not give you clear knowledge of do's and don'ts. They leave it vague so that you can be taken advantage of. It took me 4 months to realize that refuse that was in a bag bigger than 13.5 gallons was considered too large for me to collect. The training for this company is minimal at the best. This is a service provider, but they do not outline what their service entails. As for management, they are encouraged to promote efficiency that is impossible to achieve. My particular community had a set time interval for collection at 1 hour and 50 minutes. I was told that I should be collecting 125 doors per hour, and in fact during the first hour I was collecting 126. Here's what they don't account for, that when you collect the refuse you have to put it into a compactor and compress it. At my community the residents would simply throw their refuse into the compactor without compressing it allowing it to stack up. So that when I arrived at the compactor I was obliged to compress what was there before attempting to unload my pickup truck. That takes time! They didn't account for that. But I was able to account for that by taking photographs and submitting observations letting them know that I have these things to do before I can meet there efficiency criteria. The community worked against me as well, they thought that they could manipulate me into cleaning up behind their cleanup Crews. This company has no problem manipulating its bottom tier workers at any opportunity. They even expect their employees to cover other communities other than their own. I think that's asking a bit much. In my opinion what they should do instead of allowing or asking individuals to cover other communities is collaborate as a team and go in there and do that communities trash collection in a fraction of the time.

Valet Living should change their motto from “Setting the Standard” to “Lowering the Standard” based on how they treat their bottom-of-the-barrel employees, aka us—the service valet associates. 

We are basically workhorses getting whipped to finish communities in record time, or else we get a warning that we are going over budget. Meanwhile, the supervisors and those on top reap all the benefits off our backs with their quarterly bonuses, which I assume are based on a number of KPIs, one of which is whether they hit their budget quotas. 

It’s not enough that we pick up garbage in 115-degree weather, rain or shine, during thunderstorms and sandstorms — oh and don’t forget to do all the trackings and observations too! 

My associate and I were tasked with a monstrous community—2 sides, 48 buildings with a total of 2 staircases each. We were first told we had 4 hours to do it. After being on the property for 2 weeks and finding a way to do it in under 4 hours without dying, we are now told that we are going over budget. Apparently, the budget for Sundays is 3 hours per side, while Monday-Thursday are 2 hours each side. That means each valet has 1.5 hours to do one side on Sundays and 1 hour to do one side Mon-Thurs. 

The fastest we’ve ever been able to do one side on this property, TOGETHER as in 2 valets, was probably 1 hour and 15 minutes on an atypical light day. We move pretty fast and have a very efficient system of moving around the property. Still, with the “new budget,” we would have no time for breaks and would have to hop on another community if we wanted to make the full 4-hour paycheck per night. 

This is all the while managers are always saying, “stay safe,” “stay hydrated,” and “take breaks.” 

Well, guess what? With these ridiculously tight deadlines and “budgets,” there is no time to stay safe, hydrated, or take any breaks. No wonder people are literally dying or getting hurt on properties while on the job! You are not prioritizing safety; you are prioritizing greed and lining your pockets with more, all while wondering why you’re always short on service valets and why they’re always calling out or quitting.

They will use your truck and body until there is no gas or energy left in the tank. Hours are taken away randomly if new hires are brought on board, even if you are doing a good job and satisfied with your current work load. My manager gave a good chunk of my hours away to someone that I REFERRED to work for him. When that guy ended up "breaking his ankle" the manager then asked me to pick the work back up. Manager lacked communication skills and would keep making same mix ups over and over as if he had no short term memory. He would constantly text and nag me over petty issues and had me and other trash collector's training new employees (which is supposed to be his job) He was unable to properly verbalize simple instructions and would get agitated when you would call with questions. 
No holiday pay or bonus, no compensation for gas, even when they could easily afford it-The proof is in the pudding and the pudding is pretty nasty here folks-  $25/month charged to each resident- 300 residents at each apartment complex. Approx. 20 properties in our area- ($25x300= $7500 per property- $7500 x 20 = $150,000/month is what THEY make
$14/hr x 2 hours (if you're lucky) = $28 a day x 5 days a week = $140/wk x 4 = $560/month is what YOU make....Hmmm seems a bit unbalanced, right?
Manager will start texting you 1 hour in asking if you're almost done. Pay a FIXED RATE if you want your employees to work fast! 
Most annoying thing about this company(atleast in my area) is that it is such an easy job on the surface (you just have to pick up trash bags). But the management and pay structure is just horrible. Instead of trying to keep a solid crew on board who are willing to get the work done right, they just want to keep hiring and limit each employees hours and pay down to a bare minimum. 

Do not apply here unless you are desperate (like I was when I first applied)

Here in the Pacific Northwest it gets pretty cold during fall and winter with it the coldest I’ve ever been outside and working was about 15 degrees Fahrenheit. Me and my coworker that I was with we both wanted to see if we could do it and I just remember my hands slowly getting numb. That day reminded me to bring an extra jacket that I left at home. But it also thought me if I can get though that day I’m good for cold weather. 

When I first started working here I wasn’t used to climbing so many sets of stairs but after about a month I became used to it with most nights being roughly 4 hours depending on if you have the truck, they will try send you to other locations until the night is over but you really only have to do the ones you are scheduled for the night.  

All complexes are different ranging from 50 to 400+ units, as well as cleanliness. Working for a week will show you basically what your schedule is going to look like. Sundays will mainly be the worst days but for some reason you will notice some people throwing away garbage for a living like they are profiting off of it or something making 3+ garbage bags a day, and there are many people that do that and I don’t get it. 

Managers are an odd ball. In my area we had a new manager about every 2 or 3 months and I believe it’s a position for moving up in the company but idk if it like that anywhere else around the country. My last manager before I left was very considerate and helpful asking me if I needed anything or if I needed help cause eventually I managed a few properties by myself on foot with no truck but relatively easy complexes. I used a thing they called a hand truck but it was dolly with a big garbage bag like tote with no real way to secure it to the dolly,  it would make a lot of noise and working at 9 at night some people don’t enjoy the noise it brings 





Take my advice: STAY AWAY.  
Why?
They’ll use and abuse you like you’re nothing to them. I worked for the company for 6+ months and saw numerous positions and staff leave, and for good reason it would seem. They might have you out late, like past 1am, and there’s no time differential for that work. It’s physical abuse on your body with the loads you have to tote and throw— they say there’s a 25 pound limit and to violate for it, but you’ll get chewed out for not doing them in the end. Not to mention working out in the cold and heat. It’s an absolutely horrible job when it comes to communicating with any higher up, you’ll be lucky to get a response honestly. When they do respond it hours later. It takes the company weeks to give you any of your equipment. Totes will rip on you and you’ll have to go weeks with a big tear in it, getting nasty fluids all over you and your clothes. They do give you a vest and shirt eventually, though. They’re horrible people when it comes to their workers. I assure you there are companies doing the same things and they probably have more common decencies than Valet Living does. And, don’t forget about the wear and tee of your own personal vehicle. They give their management staff their own trucks and equipment but won’t give you a second thought down there on the ground level of the totem pole. The management will take everything out on you as that low feeding person whenever they’re having problems with a property, even if they’ve been know to be a raunchy property since before you’re placed there. They’ll take everything out in you when they aren’t communicating with the property management and have to go in to clean up all of your infractions because they can’t get the property to deal with tenants.. I could go on, but please just take my advice. Stay away. Go for something else. You’ll regret putting any effort or time in with these people.

I worked with this company a year and half, had 3 different managers. I worked one property when I first started and then began working another one on the weekends. Eventually I switched to working the weekend property Sunday-Thursday and gave up the other one. It was an okay job at times I would take on extra property if the price was right. I had a couple of times my truck would break down which was not an issue until a few months ago when I became sick with a really bad cold and my belt on my truck broke on the way home. I informed the manager of my situation which i had done before just not with this particular one. Received a couple of text of when I would return to work I let them know the date.They said I hired a permanent backup for that property ok . I return to work ask for the schedule to be loaded and clock in. 
Next day same thing Im working and a random couple pulls up asking me if Im working the property. I reply yes. They say ok and leave. Next day again can u load the schedule I receive a text can you work another property I have the back up couple working that one. I say no Im not going back to work that property again(terrible property trash everywhere plus 3 flights of stairs and it didnt pay enough money) In my head Im thinking they are back up so why would you take me off the property I always take care of unless you hired them to replace me. I simply texted back and so no that was my last night working for them.  So I came to the conclusion I was replaced and not informed. This company has a very high turnover, managers always trying to pay the people that actually do the job as little as possible while keeping more money in there pocket.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Refuse collector 322 salaries reported	$18.57 per hour
District manager 25 salaries reported	$52,640 per year
Concierge 47 salaries reported	$14.62 per hour
Parking attendant 51 salaries reported	$18.26 per hour
Housekeeper 4 salaries reported	$15.00 per hour

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