Joseph Karcich. K-A-R-C-I-C-H. I grew up in the Bronx, born and raised there. I’ve been here for 15 years now. Just a high school education.
So, originally, it was a summer relief job. I heard about it from a friend who is retired now. Tom McNamara. He’s a family friend of mine, and then he was originally summer relief along with me, and then a few guys happened to be let go at the time for various reasons. I don't know exactly what for, and I just stayed on staff, joined the union and been here ever since.
Yes. I mean, there were like two interviews, maybe three. I met with Bill, and then I had to meet with my boss first. Then, I had to go to the main management company, and I worked in an interview with another lady there who was a property manager. And then, you know, once that second interview took place, I basically started, I think, a week later.
Um, a lot of standing. I'm standing, basically, for eight hours. Well, you know, seven and a half hours. I get a half-hour break. My job is sending deliveries around to the service entrance, contractors around to the service entrance, movers and whatnot. And then a lot of assisting people getting taxis, Ubers—a lot more Ubers now than taxis. People come from the airport with luggage; I help them upstairs, too, if Rudy’s not here. If he’s not here, say this person called, and they have five boxes, they want them up, ok, I'll bring them up. A lot of moving around and a lot of standing up, which is what I like about the morning shift. It's busy, but it gets a little hectic. Rudy gets a little more hectic than I do, but it keeps me busy, and it makes the day go by. A lot of helping people with groceries, you know, typical stuff like that. There is a lot of luggage as people come back from vacations, long weekends, and other things.
Uh, that's at work, right? Working wise? Well, I work Monday through Friday, so yeah, I mean, I would say Fridays are a nice day to work, Thursday's payday, so that's always good, even though you gotta pay bills right away usually, you know, but still, still a nice day. I'd say Mondays, every day we're alive, is, I like to say, a good day. I try not to harp on it. But Friday is definitely my favorite day.
Right. I mean anytime, really. You get people leaving in the morning, going to work, and then even around now. It starts to get busy around two to three o'clock. I mean, now it's not; it's summertime, so kids are off from school, but you still get people coming home from work now, and then they want their packages. So, there's a little lull, maybe, at certain points, but there's constantly also maids coming in and out. Like I said, contractors that I need to help. So, it's not only just the rush of the tenants at certain times but also the constant rush of other packages and deliveries.
Um, yeah, I mean, obviously getting a tip is always nice, you know, that doesn't always happen. Today I didn't get a tip, but I can usually expect at least $10 to $20, sometimes more. That always helps. I look forward to getting on top of my regular pay, obviously. I'm here to work, and I get an hourly rate. So as far as that, it's nice when someone buys us lunch sometimes, too. But if I can make some money myself and help me out to pay for my lunch or whatever. I usually bring my own lunch anyway.
Um, well, I mean in our job in particular, if my relief calls out, we get “stuck.” So I don’t look forward to any unexpected double shifts. That’s always the dreaded phone call. We don’t want to get that call from our co-workers saying, “I’m sick today.” It is what it is, but that's the only thing I would say I least look forward to doing: a double shift if it's not planned. Like today, I'm doing overtime, but I knew I was gonna do overtime, so I'm not stressed about it.
A little less busy in the summertime. But again, it varies because you still get people that just go away for the weekend. So that when they do come back on a Monday, there are a lot of tenants coming back. And then the same happens on a Friday, whether they're packing them up or leaving. So, I mean, it's hard to say. Like, there are a lot of people that go to another country and travel, but it's still busy for the most part. You see all the packages we get because we're constantly moving around. The holiday season is 100% busy. It’s already Christmas and every day, there are packages. It's even ten times more than that, and most of the tenants are in town. Then, you get the tenants that live in the Dominican Republic or Spain, and they come into town for the holidays. Yeah, so the building is definitely fuller during November, December, and January.
No, it's manageable. I mean, at least I've been here long enough, and me and my co-workers, we always have each other’s backs. I think it all depends on who you're working with in particular, but Rudy and I do the job. I mean, sometimes it could be a little overwhelming, but you just have to know how to talk to people. You have to tell people to hold on a minute while I assist this person. And like I said, you have to know how to talk to people. And so, they have to understand that you're busy and whatnot. But it’s never really too overwhelming. Sometimes, it's just more chaotic, but it's manageable.
Um, just being attentive. No matter what kind of day you're going through with your own personal life, you always have to at least put a smile on for the tenants, which is also very hard because you know everyone goes through personal stuff that you know you can't convey but you always have to put a on smile and pretend you're doing ok.
Well, as far as we know, we know who is going where, as far as whether it's a maid or a nanny. It's first come, first served, whoever comes to the desk. We're gonna, at least me personally, and I think Rudy will too, we’re gonna treat the person on the fourth floor the same as a person who lives in the Grand Penthouse. You know, it doesn't matter. So, it's the first person to talk to you, and like I said, everyone just has to be patient. They have to understand. Whether you see there's only two of us and say three or four people are asking us questions. This one wants the key. This one is trying to go ask if their friend is home. If they can use the gym, you know, something like that. It's all just about managing one at a time and working with your co-workers so that we both know exactly who is entering the building. If he doesn't know the person, he'll ask me. And if I don't know the person, I'll ask him. So, we know exactly who's who. So, communication with your co-workers is key. Making sure no one sneaks by him or something like that, too, trying to sneak up. Because you got a lot of crazy people, too. Some people just see the open door, and they just like to just cut in. Oh, I'm just cutting across. No, it's a private building, so you're not supposed to do that. You can't put your hands on anybody. It's a gray area, you know?
Not really. I mean, I don't know how everyone else handles their own things. Like I said, Rudy gets a little bit more overwhelmed with packages than I do. I don't think he gets stressed out. Sometimes, it looks like he could be stressed. But as far as my position, like I said before, you could just be having a bad day. And just, I mean, whether it's in your personal life or you're thinking about other things. But as far as the job itself, the only stressful thing is, again, being stuck at work, knowing you're stuck for a double shift when you want to go home to see your kids, and you're like, “Oh crap.” You gotta tell your wife and say, you know, “I can't come home,” and she's angry that you're not coming home. That's the only more stressful part, like I said earlier, worrying that you're going to get stuck for a double that's not planned for. Knowing that two guys are on vacation and this guy calls sick, that’s the most stressful thing about it. But luckily, it's not too often.
There's a lot of maids, or you would say each apartment, almost. Not each apartment, but there are a lot of them. Percentage-wise, as far as the foot traffic-wise throughout my eight-hour shift, I would say that 15% of them are maids and nannies and stuff like that. It could be more, but I would say 15 to 25%, maybe something like that. So, there is a lot of foot traffic like that. Not a lot of people are just trying to pass through. Like I said, you'll get that from time to time, the random “a-hole.” But other than that, it's mostly tenants that live here and then guests.
Yeah, I mean, it's a lot in the morning, but like I said, it varies because you'll see them going out, yes, in the morning, and then you'll see them walk out to go get groceries at 11, 12 o'clock. They'll come and also check the mail for their tenants, you know, their tenants, their bosses, whatever. So, it almost just varies just as much as if they were a regular tenant, too, like the way that they walk in and out. So, it's not necessarily just in the morning, but some of these nannies, like you said, they'll go get the kids from even the camp now around 2-3. You'll see more traffic soon. Kids are coming home from camp, and even the other kids are coming, and the adults are coming home from work and whatnot.
Outside? Rarely. I mean, we talk on text messages and Instagram. We all follow each other, and most of the time, there are a couple more co-workers that I'm closer to than others, but that's what happens when you work. I'm with Rudy five days a week and the other guy, Dennis, eight hours a day. So, naturally, you know, you just get close. So, like, you know, there's a time when we leave after work, and I'll text him, you know, just like your friend, you send a meme or something like that. We're never talking about work, though, just stupid stuff. Yeah, like I said, I’m with Rudy and Dennis pretty much eight hours a day and then Sean a lot. And then, as far as the 4-12 guys that relieve me, it's more of just a quick 10 to 15-minute hello in the locker room. Not that I don't get along with any of them. I used to work on the 4–12 shift as well before I was on the 8–4 for the last five years. The guys that work on the 4–12 now, two of them I used to work with three days a week. So, we're close. We're all pretty close. We're like family.
Throughout the day, I mean, there are certain ones that I'll see two or three times a day that you know that they work from home. But there are tenants I'll see at least twice a day. I'll see them leaving for work in the morning and coming home. There are certain ones that I know are brokers, like her, who just walked out, and I see her eight times a day. You know, it really varies. There are a lot of people who work from home now, so you see them trying to get out of their apartment a lot. But for the most part, I'll see the person leave in the morning and come back in the afternoon. But I'll see a lot of tenants, like two or three times a day.
Um, mostly, I'm going to keep it short with, you know, a simple hi and goodbye or “Have a nice day.” There are certain ones that will ask me about my family, my kids and whatnot. There are a couple of tenants that I can talk to about baseball with. We can talk for five to ten minutes. But on average, it's a short conversation, though. About a minute long. Nothing's really talked about for a length of time. It's always just weather and sports.
I guess it depends. You can tell when people are in a rush. Again, it's hard. It varies, I mean. You'll see people walking out, and you don't know what they're doing if they're in a rush. Sometimes, they just decide to stand there and talk. There are certain tenants that you can tell just want to talk. They can just stand there and talk. And you don't necessarily want to sometimes. But again, it varies whether they're coming or going. You can tell the tenants; some of them are just in a rush. They don't want to talk. Most of the time in the morning, they're in a rush to get to work, and you can see they're looking for their Uber or taxi. I don't bother to stop people and start talking about sports more later in the day unless they stop me and start talking about it.
Yeah, it was less foot traffic, but it also changed as far as tenants-wise, like we were doing so much for them. For example, they would get more boxes and more packages. That's where most of the packages, like I said earlier, “Christmas every day,” really started during COVID. Like, because it was just ordering everything online. So, we were forced to wear the mask for the longest time, and we were spraying down the boxes with some kind of special disinfectant spray. Every single box and every single package. And a lot of the tenants sometimes thanked us for being here for the first couple of months and whatever. “Oh, thank you guys so much, thank you guys so much.” And then it kind of turned after like five, six months to, if they saw us standing here, me and someone talking, and we have our mask below our nose, they would, you know, point their finger at us and say, “You're supposed to be wearing a mask and blah, blah, blah, and stand six feet away from each other.” So sometimes, I mean for the most part, everyone was gracious, but then it got to a point, right before they actually ended the mask mandate, that it was getting very, like, there were certain tenants that would freak out if they didn't see you wearing a mask, and they would freak out if their package wasn't in front of their door. When they, you know, it became a little demanding at times. They wanted us to do more. We were already doing so much, already putting ourselves at risk with the packages for them and this and that, bringing it to their door, spraying it down, not contacting them at all. You know, and then they would not appreciate what we were doing, you know?
Yeah, I mean, yeah, there were definitely a lot of tenants who kept their distance, but still, there were people that just hid in their apartments for months. But then, and you'll still see it now, you'll still see certain tenants that wear the masks, but it took awhile for it to actually ease off on the masks, like most of New York. But yeah, I mean, it was the same once they started easing up restrictions with everything, and then you would see more tenants. But you got a lot of tenants ran away to the Hamptons, ran away to Jersey for, you know, it wasn’t a vacation, but it kind of was a vacation. You know? So yeah, it was very slow. There were not a lot of maids or anything like that, obviously, and there were no contractors. So yeah, it was very slow.
Yeah, I think it's back to pre-pandemic. I would say we've been fully back now for awhile. Definitely, as far as the building occupancy, it’s about 90%, if not more. That was a big thing, too. A lot of people moved out. Not only did they just go to their house in the Hamptons, but some people, a lot of the renters moved out. They went, you know, wherever. So, the building was about 70% occupied for a while. Maybe even less. So now it's definitely back to pre-pandemic levels as far as foot traffic and deliveries and contractors go.
