What is the hardest part of your job

Trailer lights, bootlaces snapping, chippers possessed by evil spirits, paperwork, raking, constantly running overweight (the trucks, not me) not getting propositioned by attractive female clients, the weather and existential dread every morning at 3.00am.
 
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  • #3
Um yeah, I forgot to mention trailer lights, paperwork, appts., not getting propositioned, weather, and definetly the dread, mine starts approx 5am.
 
meth heads. or stupid profit-driven management shit in health care
 
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  • #7
I can imagine but I'm not in the biz, so why tweakers?
 
The hardest parts of my job are technically the easiest. They're just boring or stupid, so I hate doing it. Locating houses for banks/title companies, topo, and asbuilting stormwater management are the worst.
 
When I was running a company, it was the scheduling aspect by far. With the "ash wars" going on, we got more work than we could handle. I would keep dates open for make-up work but then ownership would push me to pack the schedule. A $150.00 a month + $25.00 per user CRM system is not going to help you create more hours in the day, nor will it take you any further if you don't have certain fundamentals nailed down with how you run our business. "M'am, I'm in charge of moving men and machines" was how I would start my spiel to an upset customer when my plans didn't pan out.

I also questioned how to better structure our schedule to get the most out of our staff and equipment. The owner would talk about how much he detested the guys' days extending into 7pm, 8pm end times, but then he was often the one overriding the day's plans to cram stuff in, often haphazardly. I know after you wrap up your main job kinda late in the day, sometimes you just gotta head over and get a quick thing done on the way back in, its just how things are. But what also comes with that is "Red-Lining" your whole operation, to make a performance car kind of analogy. Yeah, you got that one extra thing done and it makes your daily take look good, but that's also where equipment needs get overlooked, people get burnt out. YES, this industry is not for your 9-5 squares, but I started to see how between the equipment getting rode too hard, and the freakin' OT, that a certain hard-working ambitiousness can hurt you. It's tunnel vision that doesn't pay off and can even get people hurt.

One idea I took from a factory I worked in long ago out of high school, but never was able to implement, was the idea of Monday-Thursday FULL PRODUCTION, and then Friday for more "focused" days. So your best guys and worst guys are coming in early those four days, working until whenever the jobs get done. 7am - 9pm four days in a row? Tough shit, but you will get a three day weekend so to quote Captain Beefheart - come on my chillen', its time to play.
Then on Fridays, you can do a couple different things. You can keep your groundies home and their OT low, and have your best guys handily knock out a series of smaller jobs without any dead weight - this gives you the best bang for your buck on that OT. If you got arborists who also are good with repairs, they can do that as well on Friday. Conversely, you can give your best guys a day off on Friday every now and then and have groundies sharpen blades, change oil, grind stumps. The idea is to keep things reasonable and well-controlled on Friday, but max the hell out of it.

FYI, my perspective is unique to a big city tree service where we could put pretty high price tags on our work. Managing OT was a concern for me because frankly, we were really lucky and had excellent dudes on staff who we just had to give a good wage. I was handed the phone/office duties in my EARLY 20s, for a company that just ballooned from there. I was just a consummate groundie who got handed the office because I was the only one with a bachelor's degree, and I'm a four eyes, I guess. I left that company this year for better things, made an account on here because I still find myself pondering the business a lot, wanted to see what other people experienced. Just like a poster above mentioned, the tree work was the "easy" thing (not) - I was the bullshit handler!
 
When I was running a company, it was the scheduling aspect by far. With the "ash wars" going on, we got more work than we could handle. I would keep dates open for make-up work but then ownership would push me to pack the schedule. A $150.00 a month + $25.00 per user CRM system is not going to help you create more hours in the day, nor will it take you any further if you don't have certain fundamentals nailed down with how you run our business. "M'am, I'm in charge of moving men and machines" was how I would start my spiel to an upset customer when my plans didn't pan out.

I also questioned how to better structure our schedule to get the most out of our staff and equipment. The owner would talk about how much he detested the guys' days extending into 7pm, 8pm end times, but then he was often the one overriding the day's plans to cram stuff in, often haphazardly. I know after you wrap up your main job kinda late in the day, sometimes you just gotta head over and get a quick thing done on the way back in, its just how things are. But what also comes with that is "Red-Lining" your whole operation, to make a performance car kind of analogy. Yeah, you got that one extra thing done and it makes your daily take look good, but that's also where equipment needs get overlooked, people get burnt out. YES, this industry is not for your 9-5 squares, but I started to see how between the equipment getting rode too hard, and the freakin' OT, that a certain hard-working ambitiousness can hurt you. It's tunnel vision that doesn't pay off and can even get people hurt.

One idea I took from a factory I worked in long ago out of high school, but never was able to implement, was the idea of Monday-Thursday FULL PRODUCTION, and then Friday for more "focused" days. So your best guys and worst guys are coming in early those four days, working until whenever the jobs get done. 7am - 9pm four days in a row? Tough shit, but you will get a three day weekend so to quote Captain Beefheart - come on my chillen', its time to play.
Then on Fridays, you can do a couple different things. You can keep your groundies home and their OT low, and have your best guys handily knock out a series of smaller jobs without any dead weight - this gives you the best bang for your buck on that OT. If you got arborists who also are good with repairs, they can do that as well on Friday. Conversely, you can give your best guys a day off on Friday every now and then and have groundies sharpen blades, change oil, grind stumps. The idea is to keep things reasonable and well-controlled on Friday, but max the hell out of it.

FYI, my perspective is unique to a big city tree service where we could put pretty high price tags on our work. Managing OT was a concern for me because frankly, we were really lucky and had excellent dudes on staff who we just had to give a good wage. I was handed the phone/office duties in my EARLY 20s, for a company that just ballooned from there. I was just a consummate groundie who got handed the office because I was the only one with a bachelor's degree, and I'm a four eyes, I guess. I left that company this year for better things, made an account on here because I still find myself pondering the business a lot, wanted to see what other people experienced. Just like a poster above mentioned, the tree work was the "easy" thing (not) - I was the bullshit handler!



Great post and info.
 
One thing that does get on my tits with clients is addresses.

Client: Can you come and give me a quote to cut a tree down?

Me: Sure, whereabouts are you?

Client: Where are you coming from?

Me: La Rochefoucauld, but what’s your address?

Client: Right, if you’re coming from La Rochefoucauld you take the D10 till you see a little bus shelter, 2Km after that there’s a white horse in a field, turn 2nd left after that and continue till the road forks....

Me: Do you have an address?

Client: Well...yes, 21 rue de l’ancienne école Mouzon.

Me: Ok, see you at 5.
 
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