Glad you have your own tree business?

[custom8726]

HELL YEAH I'm glad........I learned the hard way about the slow season, put some back for the rainy days...

X2, after 12 years in the buisness I am getting better and better about putting money away for the slow season.

 

[custom8726]

No. Being an employer sucks.

1. Notwithstanding the high quality of the folks here at AS, I have very little respect for the people I hire, especially the tree trimming workers. They loose money on jobs, they don't do what I ask them to do, and it is a constant struggle just to get the obvious done. Hire better people? I should...but they don't seem to come anywhere near my office. So I hire every derelict that is dumb enough to work for me.

I treat them all pretty good, and all they do is steal from me, treat me poorly, or go away when I really need them to do something important.

2. Business is down, as everybody knows, and I am not that good at running a business anyway, so I make less per year (for the last 20 years) than anybody working for me.

3. I would work fewer hours, spend more leisure time at home, and make more money if I worked for some other company.

*****************************************************

I keep thinking I should be able to make a nice living at this, but I am wrong. I just can't quit anything I try to do. I have never been a quitter. Once I start, I finish.

Not always wise. I'm stuck with it now.







No, I'm not trying to be a real bummer. You DID ask me.

Dam man, If that's how you truly feel, You should find another full time gig and just do some buzzy's on the side for pocket money. Being a good buisness owner requires a ton more responsibility and risk than punching a time clock for some one else. There's no way in hell I would put myself through all the extra hassles,stress, and risk If I was making less then those I employee. I am also on every job and do 95% of the climbing, I drag brush, run the equipment, etc,etc. When I get done with all of that I return calls, bid jobs, work on equipment, take care of the billing,etc,etc If I was not a hands on owner I might feel a little differently about the subject. Point being if your employees are making more then you at the end of the year, and your there working with them everyday, something is wrong. Good luck to you

 

[pdqdl]

Hands on is pretty hard for me to do, as I have too much going on. The summertime has mowing, tree service, fertilizing, landscaping, special requests from all my customers, the ATA trash service, and of course repairs to all the broken equipment....I have to do all the scheduling, phone calls, training, checking on employees, some sales.

You say hire someone to do some of these chores? I DO! Then I must train the new employee, check on them, replace their useless asses when they don't come to work, or then do the job that they fouled up while I was watching/training someone else. Then I must fire them for poor attendance, stealing, incompetence, belligerence, whatever...and the cycle begins again.

All I really need is one each: office assistant, lawn crew leader, tree crew leader/climber, landscape specialist, and mechanic. I seem to have a mechanic now, but he has been on the job for only one month. I had to fire the last one for driving a rented backhoe back to the dealer...DRUNK. He blew 0.19% on my portable breathalyzer after he came back Dec 23. Why do I have a breathalyzer, you might ask? Because I clearly need it.

Wintertime has snow removal, catch up on repairs, train all the new help for snow removal (after all, very few of them make it all summer), catch up on billing, and...starve! No work in winter for me, except snow removal. It's been quiet for the last few weeks.

I spent most of last week training my new mechanic how to work on chainsaws. So far, he is doing pretty good, and understands the pressure checking procedures. I dug up the old Walbro service manual, and we had fun working on carbs. Too bad I have at least 10 chainsaws broken down, mostly with trashed piston & cylinders.

Curiously, almost NONE of my other employees showed up or inquired about doing any work all last week. Tomorrow, I have several of them scheduled for the work they didn't come in and do last week.

Nice little rant, eh? I could go on for hours...Stop me, please!

 

[custom8726]

Hands on is pretty hard for me to do, as I have too much going on. The summertime has mowing, tree service, fertilizing, landscaping, special requests from all my customers, the ATA trash service, and of course repairs to all the broken equipment....I have to do all the scheduling, phone calls, training, checking on employees, some sales.

You say hire someone to do some of these chores? I DO! Then I must train the new employee, check on them, replace their useless asses when they don't come to work, or then do the job that they fouled up while I was watching/training someone else. Then I must fire them for poor attendance, stealing, incompetence, belligerence, whatever...and the cycle begins again.

All I really need is one each: office assistant, lawn crew leader, tree crew leader/climber, landscape specialist, and mechanic. I seem to have a mechanic now, but he has been on the job for only one month. I had to fire the last one for driving a rented backhoe back to the dealer...DRUNK. He blew 0.19% on my portable breathalyzer after he came back Dec 23. Why do I have a breathalyzer, you might ask? Because I clearly need it.

Wintertime has snow removal, catch up on repairs, train all the new help for snow removal (after all, very few of them make it all summer), catch up on billing, and...starve! No work in winter for me, except snow removal. It's been quiet for the last few weeks.

I spent most of last week training my new mechanic how to work on chainsaws. So far, he is doing pretty good, and understands the pressure checking procedures. I dug up the old Walbro service manual, and we had fun working on carbs. Too bad I have at least 10 chainsaws broken down, mostly with trashed piston & cylinders.

Curiously, almost NONE of my other employees showed up or inquired about doing any work all last week. Tomorrow, I have several of them scheduled for the work they didn't come in and do last week.

Nice little rant, eh? I could go on for hours...Stop me, please!

I hear you loud and clear, but unfortunetly its life man, you have to take the bad with the good. I can tell by your recent post's you are at your wit's end's and nothing I say is going to change your mind or situation, But going about it with a pestimistic attitude is only going to make things worse. Maybe not spreading yourself so thin might help? I can't see how its possible to proficiently run so many different buisneses by yourself? I mean if you cant even find a reliable forman to mow lawns there's a major problem there. If that is the case eliminate that aspect of the buisness and concentrate on the tree work side a little more or vice VS's. I bought some rental properties this summer and I know it effected my buisness in a negative manner because it took up time I did not have. With the current economy if your not returning calls the day of, your losing buisness, Quite a few times this year I had people leave messages middle of the day and by the time I got in that evening they had already hired someone else and sometime's the work had already been done. Thankfully we have a good clientel and referals that will wait for us to return there calls. Point being even though these rental properties will be good long term investments they cost me a good amount of money this year. I have deligated some responsibility and am now concentrating 100% on making my tree buisness prosper even further this coming year, regardless of bad economic times. I truly hope your situation gets better man

 

[outofmytree]

If I have any regrets at all about arboriculture it is that I didn't start 20 years ago. That aside I am truly grateful I finally took the plunge. I was born to do this work. I wake up with a smile on my face and go to bed the same way. I often dream about tricky rigging jobs and I love to chat with other climbers about how this or that problem could be solved. There is so much to learn that I doubt I will run out of new things (new to me that is) to discover any time soon.

 

[Haplo]

I wonder if we will soon be seeing a repeat of 2009

 

[Oldmaple]

I wonder if we will soon be seeing a repeat of 2009

Yes, plus some I would expect. In 2009 people still had money, they just held on to it until they felt safe about their and spouses job situations. I still had work all through that time, just not the big jobs. That's why when it turned around it turned around fast (people were comfortable spending money they already had). Now the inflation is eating some at everybody and people are wondering how bad it is going to get. Optional spending (what most tree work is) is being held until people feel comfortable about the future. You start throwing in layoffs or just layoff rumors and the optional money spending will really dry up.