Had to scale back

[Bruno of NH]

It's been a bitter sweet month. I had to not renew my pallet and donage contract with the bridge steel company. For 2 reasons when I took it on they were going to pick up the stuff , that only lasted a month.
I never wanted to deliver but ended up doing it. The second reason was I was tired of hearing the hired help complain about building them. For a big company they paid quickly. The help just isn't around here to find.
The other set back was me selling kd pine patterns and Japanese cedar for a local wholesaler . It was a great thing to add to my operation. 
The wholesaler hired a person in house to do the retail in my area. His yard was just 3 minutes away.
I would like to find another wholesaler to work with but don't know how to find one.
This just happened because he was so close and I knew others who worked with him.
It went well with selling rough sawn lumber. 
The revenue from both things was nice . It helped alot.
I will be on the lookout to find a wholesale distributor for wood products. 
The Japanese cedar wp4 was a big seller. 

[Bruno of NH]

I took a year off of building garden beds this last spring. 
I had sold so many in 3 years that I thought it would be slow last spring for sales of them.
I think my hired help will complain about building them.
I will just do it nights and weekends I guess. 
That's what I did with my firewood sales , they complained about doing that too  ;D
I just did it . Hard to chainsaw logs from a bench but I did it .
Big rounds to , tree service stuff. Sheila helped me load the racks we sell from .

[Magicman]

It is sad to have to depend upon worthless help.  When you are paying them it should not matter what the job entailed, even washing garbage cans. 

I can understand your frustration. 

[Southside]

I hear ya Bruno - it's everywhere, I deal with it daily and have several times contemplated selling about everything I don't need to simply homestead and just riding it out.  The reality of it is at this rate there won't be anyone around who wants to take over any of our operations.  

[moodnacreek]

Everything needs to be done by machine. You have to buy the machine and get it paid for before you loose the business that is paying for it. This is an old problem with sawmilling.

[cutterboy]

Of all the changes I have seen over my life, one of the worst is the poor attitude of the American worker. It does not bode well for this country.

[Stephen1]

I was on a portable job last week, last one of the season. The owner had a 20 YO old from Nepal. He has been here 3 months living with a cousin. He cleans at the Honda plant at night from 10-4. Then during the day he is going to college for Electrical Engineering technician and when the arborists needs help either his cousin or him come and help.
He was probably the best helper I have ever had, told him once, it was done like that all day, and he spent all day looking to clean up, shovel sawdust, picked up the ankle breakers, kept the site real clean.
I now see why we bring in immigrants.

The local teenagers I hire for Saturday mornings, are okay, and I appreciate the help but I always have to be checking on them. Any other help I have brought in tend to not come back after a week or 2 of tailing on the sawmill.

[YellowHammer]

Everything needs to be done by machine. You have to buy the machine and get it paid for before you loose the business that is paying for it. This is an old problem with sawmilling.

100% Yes, we are now employee free, just me and Martha, with no more unemployment paperwork, no more crazy payroll stuff, no more audits from Dept of Labor (so far), no more OSHA, no more insurance issues, no more "How do I use this?" no more "This is the hardest job I've ever done" and just no more/no more anymore.
 
Now we buy a machine, and if we can't do it, then we don't do it.  Had a customer call up yesterday asking for a glued up slab table top and I said no, we don't do that.  He got ornery, saying it shouldn't be a problem with all the equipment we own.  So I said "I said we don't do it, not that we can't do it.  Sorry, is there anything else I can help you with?"

Seems the only people who ask for job anymore are old men who can barely walk and think they want to feel young again.  

[chickenchaser]

THANKS YH!
smiley_old_guy

[Magicman]

Ouch !!

[moodnacreek]

I have a small tight yard with hardly a place to turnaround. When a delivery or pick up is made with a big truck you want the driver to be 70 +. Best is when the driver walks it first, then you know there will not be problems. When a log truck comes in I can tell by the sound of the truck how it will go. The old guys make everything go EASY.

[Dave Shepard]

I had one of the new guys out stump grinding with me this summer. Typically a second guy isn't really that helpful, but it's somewhere to send them if there isn't another crew for them to go on. That day the job was to rake out the grindings somewhat level after I finished grinding. It was maybe ten minutes of easy work every hour. This guy said "I don't care what anybody says, raking is hard work!". I told him he had the easiest job at the company, and he was making prevailing wage on top of that, which was $47.50/hour.

[chickenchaser]

I think the decimal point is in the wrong place for my prevailing wage. 

[B.C.C. Lapp]

Holy smokes me to. :D where do I sign up to get my wage changed to that " prevailing" one?

[47sawdust]

Guess I won't be stopping at YellowHammer's looking for work. :D
I'm slow but I'm still moving.

[Bruno of NH]

There's a kicker to the pallet building story. The 2 guys whining didn't even build the pallets. I had a Lady do it for 8 months till she got allergic to the sawdust. Since she left a friend of mine that retired from maintenance at a local school district took over building them. He never said a bad word about doing them.The others didn't like sawing lumber for them or moving the built pallets for him . The 2 guys complained every day he built them .
I could never understand it.

[Southside]

Dave I would like to submit my application for stump grinder raking technician.  I would be willing to operate the grinder at the same time too if that helps to better qualify me for the job. Geesh....

[Dave Shepard]

We don't do a lot of PW stump grinding. Grinding is generally pretty laid back work. Most of the guys think it's punishment.  : 

[GAB]

Guess I won't be stopping at YellowHammer's looking for work. :D
I'm slow but I'm still moving.

I fall in that catagory too.
GAB

[SawyerTed]

At that wage, I believe a rake would fit my hands quite well!  And at that wage, I believe I could find and extra button for my lip!  

[longtime lurker]

Staffing is a problem.
Trying to do it all by yourself is a problem.
Large customers are a problem.
Battling on from one little job to the next is a problem.
We all get to choose our own poison, right?

I have a good crew and a bulging order book and everything is bright and shiny ahead today. However I'm ever mindful that tomorrow might be different - but I've survived every calamity on that list and a heap of others besides to get where I am now, and I'll survive whatever else comes along too. 

As will you Bruno, for all the same reasons.

[Peter Drouin]

Tell them [I hired your hands, not your mouth] Get back using your hands. :D ;D ;)

[crowhill]

I worked as a Human Resource Mgr and thought that was a difficult job at the time. My daughter in law is in the same field today and it's got to be crazy. Unskilled starts at $20/hr and missing time the first week. That's just the start of it, girlfriends call their "man" and want him home, he leaves never to return. If you can think of the situation it's been done or it's about to happen. Two guys standing outside minutes prior to shift smoking pot, and state it's their time and legal! They just don't care, not even when to take a hike..

[Bruno of NH]

If I could buy a machine to do the extra work I would.
The problem is someone still has to run it. I can only do so many things at once. 

[Stephen1]

My brother inlaw was a supervisor at a very large in Canada, Brewers Warehouse. He always told me if the boys aren't bitching they are not happy, so he would change things up a bit to get them going.