The Latest.......

[Mojo]

Ever had to look yourself in the mirror and then admit to yourself you have gotten older and because of this you now have limitations ?

I just went through a month of these feelings. I have had them for a couple years but always ignored them and pushed onward.  But having battled with the wife/boss I finally was honest with myself and realized - I need help. So with that in mind we hired a new girl ( Mindy ) and she started last week. Mindy has been our house cleaner for a couple years and also was our sales rep at our RV parts supplier. I put a bug in her ear recently and got her thinking about the future and she left the parts place and came on board.

Mindy is young, energetic, motivated and has a real sharp mind. Her customer service skills are awesome which has been paramount to our success. Her previous employer is crying a river at the moment because she wore so many hats but in her words " she needed a change " as they were using her up. She stayed on there for two weeks and trained her replacements which speaks of her integrity. In the end their loss is our gain.

My wife had last week off from school ( Easter break ) and assumed the role of trainer. She started her out on learning our different fabric offerings, work shop/order sequence and then went through measuring/cutting procedures. At the end of the week she had her measuring, cutting, sewing and she did a great job never having sat at a sewing machine before. The plan is for her to do all the cutting and keep feeding me prepped fabric to sew.

Business has just been crazy and we are in our third year of double digit growth. I had to face the fact that because of my age and my disease I just cannot carry this company by myself anymore. Paying a salary is a bite at the bottom line but I realize it is necessary. She is going to be working three days a week and I am going to try and expand into other RV product line's to help keep her busy. In the end our goal is to be able to bring her on full time.

Old, tired and worn out sucks but I believe this is going to be very beneficial for us. We did hire a book keeper but we just fired her for not showing up for work............for two fricking weeks. Never mistake my kindness for weakness. Just so happens that Mindy also has alot of accounting experience. :)

We are still back logged and while we have tried to get caught up more orders keep pouring in and they have kept us buried. Hopefully now Mindy can get us to the point where we are on weekly turn around's instead of the 3 week backlogs.

So there you have it the latest from the swamp. :)

Chris   

[sofadoc]

We used to call it "Easter vacation" when I was a kid. But in this modern age of political correctness, it's now referred to as "Spring break". Paying homage to Easter Sunday is somehow admitting at least a shred of religious belief. We can't have that.

Something else you said reminds me of a sharp contrast to the old days. When I was just starting to make my way in the world, if somebody didn't show up for work........they weren't considered fired.........they were considered quit. And they were promptly replaced. But nowadays, it almost takes an act of Congress to fire someone. Most bad employees have HR on speed dial.  It's almost tougher than evicting a bad tenant.


My guess  is that you won't even miss the hit to your bottom line. Usually when we think something is going to cut into our profits, it has it's way of working out.

Good luck with Mindy. Try not to creep her out too much.

[MinUph]

Chris,
  Employee's aren't all bad. I don't know what I would do without mine now. Payroll is a bit scary every two weeks but it has worked out so far LOL. My office girl Amanda really save my butt all the time. It allows me to work. The others 2 seamstresses a highly experienced Upholsterer and a trainee are all very good, honest and there all the time.
  Good luck with the new people I'm sure you will find them indispensable in short order. If their good keep them happy.
  Now you can get a nice recliner to put behind the sewing machine. :)

[Mike]

I don't know chris if all I had to do was dit at the machine id nevcer streach my legs I get awfully stif if im sewing too long (ya im old too) I have rto take a walk every couple hours,

me id hate having the responsibility of another person livelihood. my last employee was 20 years ago , had to let him go bcause  my canvas work was paying him to run my baitshop when it wasa so slow I could walk to the other room myself.

[Mojo]

The hardest part of Mindy's job is going to be keeping me organized. Ever since I had a couple of the strokes I had my brain is not very good staying organized. Mainly because my brain is not organized. :)

We are looking at expanding into new lines and with her coming on board this is going to allow me the time to start researching these other markets. I am really geeked actually about having this massive load taken off my shoulders. I am still amazed I have gone this long without help.

My kids are really thankful I got off my cheap ass and hired a second person. They have been on me big time to start slowing down and bring in extra help.

I am hoping this all turns out great.

Chris

[SteveA]

With double digit growth and your past physical set backs a helper is absolutely the right idea.  Maybe after a year you would consider offering her a piece of the business.  Transition is difficult but it's time to find the easier path.  Feel good and cheers for continued success -  the brain is still working fine -
SA

[Virgs Sew n Sew]

I don't need a stroke to have brain organization issues.  Let me get a little stressed and BAM my brain goes into underdrive.  : (

Virginia

[MinUph]

I find it very hard to be organized when I get really busy. It is kinda like I can do one thing very well but when that one thing becomes 3 or 4 it all suffers. My girl (woman) has helped greatly in the organization of the business. Without her we would be running around trying to figure it all out every day.
  Chris you made a good move.

[gene]

Old, tired and worn out

This seems to happen to everyone who doesn't die young. I felt 'old' for the first time last year. "Youth is wasted on the young" was said by someone famous.

I put new brakes on my future son in laws car a few weeks ago. The hardest part by far was sitting down on the ground and standing back up again.
------------------------

We did hire a book keeper but we just fired her for not showing up for work............for two fricking weeks.

If you can't trust someone to show up for work why would you even think about trusting them to handle your money?
------------------------

We used to call it "Easter vacation" when I was a kid. But in this modern age of political correctness, it's now referred to as "Spring break". Paying homage to Easter Sunday is somehow admitting at least a shred of religious belief. We can't have that.

My impression of Texas is that it's a hot battle ground between right wing religious nut cases and left wing liberal Democratic nut cases. As a conservative in my politics I find it unfortunate that the left has done a good job of equating right wing religious nut cases with conservatism. I've watched a few videos and read a few articles about the atheist movement in our country (American Atheist, for example) and it does seem that you have to be a left wing liberal nut case to be an atheist. And you also have to believe in man made global warming to be an atheist.

I would describe myself as a nut case without any wings.
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I find it very hard to be organized when I get really busy.

This is why I am so big on procedures. When I get busy I don't' even think about the paperwork, for example. I just come home and run through my procedures for Estimates, Invoices, Accts payable, Accts receivable - without even thinking about it. Same thing for buying supplies, when to run the vaccuum, etc. Everything that comes through the door of my studio gets a sticker put on it with the customers name, for another example.

gene

[byhammerandhand]

Gene,
You'd probably like this book http://www.amazon.com/dp/1427208980/?tag=googhydr-20&hvadid=55812921880&hvpos=1t1&hvexid=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=11226540581714507&hvpone=19.45&hvptwo=&hvqmt=b&hvdev=c&ref=pd_sl_y2lk7t0oj_b

I find it very hard to be organized when I get really busy.

This is why I am so big on procedures. When I get busy I don't' even think about the paperwork, for example. I just come home and run through my procedures for Estimates, Invoices, Accts payable, Accts receivable - without even thinking about it. Same thing for buying supplies, when to run the vaccuum, etc. Everything that comes through the door of my studio gets a sticker put on it with the customers name, for another example.

gene

[gene]

Thanks Keith. I read some of the reviews and one said you might get as much out of the original article from 2007 and save some time by not reading the book.

Here's the link to the original article - a very interesting article.

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2007/12/10/the-checklist

gene

[byhammerandhand]

Thanks for the link, Gene.   I think I originally keyed into this from and NPR program.  http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=122226184

I was in the ER a couple of weeks ago and was shocked to see the triage nurse taking notes on a paper towel (I thought those were only used for software design!!)    I'm thinking these people have obviously never heard of checklists (she wrote down vitals of height, weight, Rx taken, DOB, symptoms, etc.)   She remarked that I had very large hands.   If my wife had not been sitting right there I would have said, "You know what they say about men with big hands and big feet?    ... We have a hard time buying gloves and shoes."


A few years ago, one of my customers wanted me to go to their delivery service's warehouse to open, inspect, and repair anything pre-delivery.    Wanting some sort of a checklist of things to look for, I talked to another delivery company that I did work for who performed pre-delivery inspections for their customers to ask if they had a checklist for what to look for.  Nope.