Went and spent two hours at the shop. The hours total each day is 11 to 11 1/2 easy. First in and last out. Has a mouthy tech that acts like a prima donna. The neighborhood is cluttered with homeless that sometimes roam the vehicle lot. I told him I am gonna pass.
And when that tech blows out the door which will happen.
You will end up carrying the load.
And in my experiance, if you are honest and motivated and a hard working man,
Once you assume that responsibilty even though they claim it is temporary untill they find someone else.
They will never remember or abide by that agreement.
What they will do is lie and promise and bullshit.
Because you have taken a burden off of them.
That way they can get back to the other part of having no damn idea about how to run a business.
Then they will burn you right into the ground and blame you and move on to the next guy and lie to him.
Owning and operating a business has very little to do with your technical knowledge of your trade.
You can be the best mechanic on earth.
You can be the best welder or fabricator on earth.
Once you start your own business you will never turn a wrench or weld anything ever again.
Your time will be fully taken up by rules and regulations and insurance and making payroll and borrowing money and employee issues and finances and payments and friggen accountants and supply chain problems and shipping and weather and trucking strikes and port strikes and little screaming babies from the trades calling OSHA becuase they have some beef with each other because somebody ran over their ******* sandwiches with a welder.
Almost all small businesses fail within the first three years.
I used to be a precision sheet metal mechanic and a certified aerospace quality inspector.
And that was such great fun.
I worked in the prototype shop for Simula Corp and we made some crazy **** from scratch.
I learned my trade from an englishman who when he was twelve had been evacuated to northern England as an orphan because his family had been killed by a buzz bomb while he was out trying to find food.
When he turned 13 he went to work in a sheet metal shop somewhere in the north and he learned how to fabricate airplane parts.
Jim is the man who first taught me my trade.
There were many others over the years.
I am not a mechanical genious.
Im often wrong as hell.
But I can tap a piece of sheet metal for awhile and make it look like your face.
Then I went into the srtuctural steel business where I got to play with the biggest toys on earth.
The really big part of that is that I am in charge of the whole situation and I get to call the safety for everybody.
No ******* office no nothing weasel can tell me what to do.
Because I bid the job and I have "go home" money in the bid.
You should always have 60 days a year of **** off money in your budget.
That is when you pull your people and pay them and it doesnt matter if the GC doesnt like it because you will get it right back in schedule delay charges.
consruction is always going to be dangerious.
The part that most people in the trades never get to see is the massive amount of money that is loose and rapidly getting chucked around between a bunch of different people.
At a very very fast rate.
Ive quoted and signed 2 million dollar change order adds to scope of work on a bar napkin.
All while certifiying and testing all of our employees and our welding machines and our processes.
And havent welded much of anything in the last ten years.
I am a business owner.
I spend my day dealing with people who just got a certificate in project management and have been to a jobsite 2 times.
It is very basic.
You are in a position where you can kill people.
You sure as **** better have the balls to stand your ground and stand between your people and the stupid ***** who dont care about the danger they are putting them in.
Any **** talking big rough tough loud mouth is probably the biggest whining safety hazard on the job.
Kick that little boys ass right the **** off of the job right back to the union hall.
If you have to kick that crying abusive **** off of 13 jobs you follow his ass around the ******* state to clear that cancer away from your hall.
That **** has to go because he will rot your trade from the inside.
The power comes from the group and the unity
Not from some rotten old douchbag.
If they are so great?
Why is nobody joining?
Maybe becuase they are **********?
I was in the inland boatmans union and then a teamster and then a union stage hand and then a union sheet metal worker and then a union ironworker.
And all of that was big fat ***** trying to keep people out of the union unless they approved of them.
Kick yer big fat old harley riding full pension turkey knecked goiter clown right the **** out the door and take charge of your hall and make it matter for all of your members and go get everybody involved.
That is how you win this battle.
Get everybody.