John T

What do you guys/gals think about doing a contest every now and then to give away used equipment? I just did this twice on Mike's bb(of course I still have to mail out the used equipment to the winners there). Instead of having this stuff sit on our shelves maybe we can give some of this stuff away here to someone who may have a use for these things. What do you guys think here? Do you find it sleazy to give away used things to our fellow contractors?

I removed this post. I just got a phone call from a good friend in this Industry who advised me to remove it. Thought it would help guys out in this Industry to be careful but apparently now I have the usual 3-4 guys directing people to this post for the sole reason to attack my character. I did this to show I make mistakes and I'm sorry to the ones who could learn from my mistakes. I am not perfect like these few like to tell others they are. Lesson learned which is the reason I love TGS. I still learn from bb's like this all the time.

So how does a dodging pit bull compare to an actual bull coming at you full speed ahead to gore the heck out of ya?? This Question Rob by far is the only question you and you only can answer in this Industry. Your by far the bravest guy I know who can deal with something like this without a firearm at your side.

That sucks Al. What kind of dog was that?

Lol.. So you turned the dog into a thanksgiving day float..lol

Hey Al-- I don't know if that was directed towards me and if it was thank you. If it wasn't either way I always appreciate your insightful post and your honesty.

Hey Amy-- I just sent you a PM:)

Hey Amy-- responded to your post on another bb. Good to see that you reached out to this bulletin board as well which has been top of the line professional for the longest that I know of in the Powerwashing Industry when it comes to Powerwashing bulletin boards. www.thegrimescene.com has been around 10 yrs now and this bulletin board has raised the bar tremendously thru-out the Powerwashing Industry since its inception.

Lol..Don't waste your time. The truth always comes out. Guys who try to get recognition by attacking peoples character because they can't back themselves up with anything noteworthy will bite them in the azz in the end. They get NOWHERE!! You should be at the PWRA Convention. I wish I could be there because its going to be a dynamite of a show for newbies and Guys with 20+yrs in this Industry..... Maybe will catch their 2nd one next year:)

Labor day weekend is around the corner. We got lucky that where doing our biggest commercial job to date that pretty much covers miles of walkways in a historic village here. 2 more days and this Month long job at nights is over. Hate the hours but love to be busy. Just now our phone is ringing again a little more frequent for our Residential side of our business to Powerwash/softwash houses/roofs & woodwork again. Don't you hate it when you think that your residential end stops calling? Doesn't it feel relieving to Know that come Holiday time they call again? The downside and upside of having a nice size residential base. For you Residential guys/gals does your phone ring more often now for Labor day weekend work?

I plead the 5th:)

That's why where still around John but it's never easy. Every year we go thru the same cycles and sometimes we get lucky by having some good size commercial work thrown it at the right time...sometimes. The flip side is we can get over inundated with work which to me is always a good problem to have but still is never easy to deal with.

Last time I was in Florida a couple of years ago we ate Alligator down by the keys. It was pretty good. It's good to be the dominant species:orange:

Yup same here. That's the beauty of this time of year. Also some companies have crapped out already as the season goes on so competition is less now then what we hit every spring.

I need one:) but it looks like this summer maybe the first time in as long as I can remember that we probably aren't doing any vacation. Hurricane Sandy wiped out my kids getting any time off this past winter and this summer has been crazy. So who needs a vacation and who is going on one this summer and where are you going you lucky dawgs.

Do you ever get to the point and you just say you need a break? Right now where going some days and mostly nights doing Powerwashing work. That's a good thing. But I'm feeling a bit burnt out right now because everyday it's like something is going wrong. Swivels are breaking, we broke two Surface machines this week alone where I had to Frankenstein them back together. We lost a couple of residential jobs because no one wants to hear we can't be there for at least 3 weeks etc. I also added to my shop this past week so it's go,go,go. I am going out to dinner with a bunch of my friends this Thurs nite(no girls allowed) and that will be a much needed "small break" but with most likely no vacation in site this summer the burnout is coming on a little to soon for me. So what do you do when burnout syndrome sets in a little sooner then expected?

Your right Rick. I read my post in here and I realize that I do make myself miserable at times because of what you said about come January I'll be chomping at the bit to put in a 6-7 day workweek. Thanks for pointing that out even though....it's true lol.

A few months back we had a Property Management Co. Demanding we pay $300 to be on their Vendor approved list. This company handles the Target Stores. Since the only thing we dealt with target was turning down there dumpster area cleanup we did not pay. A few emails of them requesting us to pay but A certain date came and went. So where off their list. Now I get another one from a different Prop. Management Co. we do a lot of work for. We do a couple of condo jobs for them. Now they to want a fee to be on their Vendor list. The Fee is $95 and we paid it. Not worth losing our connection with them over $95. What annoys me is these companies should be lucky to have us on their list to pick to see who can lowball far enough to get some jobs and also to keep the dependable ones(like my company) at their disposal. I wont "Bite my nose off to spite my face" but it's like another scam to squeeze $$$ out of us contractors and there is no one there to make our case that this is wrong. Just venting.

Great advice Allan! This one caught me off guard because we have dealt with this prop. Management company for a few yrs now. A couple of months ago we had to pay for a specific thing on this parking garage RFP we dealt with that cost me $300 out of pocket. In the end us and only 1 other company ended up in the final stage of the RFP and we lost. It was worth the risk of course but what a bulljazz thing we had to do for that $300 bucks. What that was is we had to register our business within that state even though we do business there all the time. It did not matter. So in that case the state got the $300 and we got Zilch and I still Legally do work in that state that never needed me to register there.

Correction on those PWRA convention dates stated above. It's August 23-24. If it was a day or two later we could have went but taking my daughter away to college the first time on the 22nd knocks us out. The PWRA lineup looks awesome.

So we pay for Liability,WC insurance, some of us pay to be a license contractor(I have to in my area), for commercial work we have to at times raise the liability on our vehicle insurance etc etc etc... And now little shizz like this. Your right. Just have to get use to paying these small extortions to possibly get more work or just "paying the piper" for nothing.

Very true. The flipside to that is even ones we do work for many years are now charging us a fee or we'll be taken off their Vendor list. To me and its just the way I think, it looks like just another way to extort money out of hard working contractors who in most cases aren't getting the money they deserve for doing the work in the first place. Keep in mind, This is my Union mind way of thinking but in this case it looks to be a small extortion out of the business owners. The "Bleeps" of these people...........

Yup I get like that to. It's tough to turn of your mind abbot business even when on vacation. There were many times I would come back from vacation(Jersey shore house) and then go back after I did some more jobs. That really sucked but I hate to pass up work and as I get older I have gotten smarter with that. Having a couple of employees helps.

Lol.. I remember the first couple of yrs I was like that but the kids were babies. Vacation with babies-- no thanks.

That's exactly what I'm going to do. I'll pad it a little more so they think it's just a small increase in price only. Goes around, comes around. The real problem is to get on some list where you may never get any jobs.