Took a step in the right direction

[Brush Hog]

Well I interviewed for a job the other day got the call today with the job offer. Leaving the self employed gig to get a steady paycheck With this sh!t economy I'll have to say it's nice to just show up for work and not worry about chasing work. Maybe I'll sleep better at night now. Mama is VERY happy to say the least. Here's to steady pay

 

[treeman82]

Congrats on a steady paycheck!

Seems that the people who have been coming to me with work lately have been nothing but PITAS, so I have been turning them away. One guy who I last worked for a bit over a year ago called, he wants me to put a couple of trees on the ground... told him I am busy. He's the "Just cut the damn tree" type. Then some other guys who decided to screw me over really bad this spring want to make amends... told them that they are dead to me. Not worth the headache. Just a couple of weeks ago I did a WAY underbid pruning job, just to make a friend look good. While I was there another tree on the property fell, so I figured this would be a chance to make some actual coin on the clean-up... $2,200 was my price for chipping the brush, hauling the wood, and popping the stump with a backhoe, plus bring in about 4 - 5 yards of topsoil with seed and hay... lady got somebody else for $1,000+/-. I had quoted her a price for some winter work, and asked if she was still interested in doing that, she responded that she would get other prices before the winter... I told her to just have the other guys do it.

 

[Sunrise Guy]

Congrats on a steady paycheck!

Seems that the people who have been coming to me with work lately have been nothing but PITAS, so I have been turning them away. One guy who I last worked for a bit over a year ago called, he wants me to put a couple of trees on the ground... told him I am busy. He's the "Just cut the damn tree" type. Then some other guys who decided to screw me over really bad this spring want to make amends... told them that they are dead to me. Not worth the headache. Just a couple of weeks ago I did a WAY underbid pruning job, just to make a friend look good. While I was there another tree on the property fell, so I figured this would be a chance to make some actual coin on the clean-up... $2,200 was my price for chipping the brush, hauling the wood, and popping the stump with a backhoe, plus bring in about 4 - 5 yards of topsoil with seed and hay... lady got somebody else for $1,000+/-. I had quoted her a price for some winter work, and asked if she was still interested in doing that, she responded that she would get other prices before the winter... I told her to just have the other guys do it.

It just seems to get more frustrating. I'm sure the low bidder is a real pro, right? Business seems to be coming back, for me, a bit. I have posted, before, about how it's always feast or famine and I guess this new cycle is, more or less, business as usual. I try to stay positive during the famines, when every proposal I put out there is undercut by 50%, but sometimes you just have to press on and hope it turns around, like it usually does. Tomorrow I'll take soil samples and run them in my lab for another company in town, and then it's back to a two-day take-down of an oak that gave up in the heat and drought, here. While I hate this weather, it is setting the stage for a very busy Fall, as all of these stressed trees fail and need to be taken out. I hate to see them fail, too, but at least there's some money to be made.