go work for someone else for a while and take it easy? I don’t mean permanantly, but answer an ad, and take a couple of weeks watching someone else deal with all the ins and outs, ups and downs, etc. I think sometimes it might help keep things in perspective!
Don
A standardized approach, quick-to-install hardware, and a simplified design make building custom casework cost-effective.
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Yeah, I get that urge on occasion...especially when I get behind on the paperwork and have to spend a long evening or two catching up. Or have to deal with some pinhead at the customer's bank, or one of the insurance types (my local reps are fine; it's the audit people for the underwriter that can really annoy me).
Yeah, once in a while. Especially when I can't find enough guys good enough to work on a job.
My local lumberyard hired a couple of new 'counselors' last year, and both are guys that used to operate exactly the same way I do. I asked one of them why he gave it up for a 40-hour week tweaking a computer behind the service counter. His answer? He couldn't hire enough good help to keep his jobs running smoothly. 'Everybody good enough to work for me,' he said, 'was already working for themselves. Like you.'
I find this to be true. If I were to call the union or put an ad in the little local paper for a carpenter, likely I'd get some guy with a pouch, a beat-to-snot old Estwing, and an attitude. I'd spend my whole day arguing with him about how I want it done, and that's not what makes for happy job sites.
I think that's what keeps me from hiring on to some other contractor as a 'simple' carp or whatever; I don't want him spending his whole day arguing with me about how he wants it done....
Dinosaur
'Y-a-tu de la justice dans ce maudit monde?
I don't want to imply anything negative but when running a crew, or a business, less than 50% of the work is direct about the job. Most of the work is running people. Anybody can run a crew of hyper-competent, self-motivating and proactive workers that are always prepared and are willing to give more than their fair share. In fact such a crew really doesn't need a chief. Make sure they have the tools, plans and materials and get out of the way.
Problem is, as you point out, that every member of such a crew is pretty much ready to start their own business. They don't need you.
Sounds to me like you want to coast. You seem to want a crew that will run on autopilot. You want a crew to do it all for you. You want running the crew to be easy. Sorry but it doesn't, or seldom does it, work that way.
You have to work around people strengths and weaknesses. You have to be able to bring out the best in workers. You have to be able to bring out strengths that people don't know they have. You have to be able to motivate the unmotivated, instruct the ignorant, direct the directionless, orient the confused, excite the depressed and calm the anxious. You have to be able to do all this without having it become a battle of wills, insulting the worker or becoming overbearing.
As one NCO put it to me "There are no bad privates". I'm not willing to same the same about workers. Given the amount of time and effort available some may not be worth the time needed to make them into good workers but to say that there are not enough to fill a crew would seem to point toward a lack of management talent not a lack of good workers.
I don't put myself up as an example but I have seen lead men and bosses who always seemed to bring out the best in the people they were given. I noticed that workers that others could get no good from suddenly became pivotal in a better run crew. Seldom did they find someone they couldn't get a good days work out of. They were masters of psychology. Knowing when to be boss and when to be brother. When to motivate with competition, example, inspiration or threat.
Anybody can run a perfect crew. As soon as you have to deal with a normal crew problems start. Some people can handle it. Some can't. Most can get better if they are willing to work at it. There is a lot of science and literature on the subject. The best carpenter is not necessarily the best crew chief, lead man or boss. At least until he/she develops their own skills in leadership.
A crew is a tool for getting work done. Not to get too critical but there is a common adage about "workmen who blame their tools". No one said it would be easy. Learn to sharpen the tools you are given.
You are DFR, bro. A 'perfect crew' needs a boss like I need another hole in my head. All they need is work to do and a paycheck each Friday at quittin' time. These crews do exist, and I've been part of some like that (both as boss and as worker) from time to time over the years. Sadly, it never lasts 'forever', and I don't know why.
But I'm not looking for (well, okay, I AM looking for, but I don't expect to find) a perfect crew, just guys that are there because they enjoy the work and take pride in what they do. What I don't want are guys that figure I owe them a living just for showing up, but with the building boom going on around here, the labour shortage in the trades is so severe that that's just about all that's available unless you know someone who knows someone who's thinking of changing jobs....
You're also DFR about it being people management more than hammer swinging once an outfit gets to a certain size; I'm aware of this (this isn't the first time I've run my own show) and I've made a conscious decision that I don't want to 'grow' my company to that point--at least not now, not under these conditions. In a different mind-set maybe. But that's a consideration for the future. For now, if I don't get to participate in the joy of swatting that nail with my sweetest hammer, or running strapping so that all you hear are that big DeWalt winding up and braking down, the beefy thunks of a couple of guns, and measurements called and repeated, I don't wanna be here.
I'm an iconoclast, and my idea of the perfect T-shirt was one I saw in a store a few years ago (too bad it wasn't my size): 'People who think they know it all are really annoying to those of us who do.' I get along well with other self-directed people, people who use their heads before their muscles, people who look ahead enough to anticipate what's needed before having to be told. One of my ex's had a phrase she used a lot: L.I.T.S.: Life Is too Short ...for (whatever). In my case, Life Is Too Short for me to spend my time redesigning people. I can do it if I have to...but I hate it. And I don't particularly want anybody else trying to redesign me--which may be why I don't want to do it to anyone myself.
Do I want to 'coast', to let the crew do it all for me? I don't think so; I want to want to get up in the morning and be eager to go to the site because I'm looking forward to what we're going to accomplish that day. I can get real tired real fast of that walking-through-quicksand feeling you get when not only is the job itself technically and physically demanding (like this #$%?&? 25-in-12 roof I'm on right now), but you've got to deal with people who want to stop and discuss every little move like it was some kind of classroom exercise in democracy.
If I ever decide to 'grow' my operation to the size that will require someone whose only job is 'running' the people--then I'll hire someone to do it for me, and keep swinging that big axe-handled framer of mine. Because if I didn't like it, I wouldn't do it at all.
Dinosaur
'Y-a-tu de la justice dans ce maudit monde?
never......sometimes I just wish for nicer customers is all.
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