Ethical way to receve payment from Power washing owner to another company owner

[nlantz 14]

Hey everyone, Not sure if this is the right place to post this but here we go !

So for the last 12 years or so I have been working in this trade and I find myself very professional in the way I conduct business.

Due to a location change moved up into Canada from the states I have not been able to commit myself into the field but started building up everything to start up shop this coming spring. About a month ago Wile looking for some cold units on kijiji ( its like craigs list) I saw a help wanted post for weekend fleet power washing. So I fired a email his way telling him my story and prior experience for some extra cash and to see how fleet washing gets done up here. So I met the guy, told him I have a nice 4000 psi hot unit 5.5gpm and I am able to run it if he would need me to.

We get to meeting up for a coffee for my interview and he ask's me why I have the unit ? was I planing on starting something up ? So I said yea but I am unsure of the market and pricing so I dont expect much to come out of it untill I figure some more things out. He says well we only do truck washing as of now but I am interested in opening up to other markets. I tell him well the majority of my experience is residential, commercial, some industrial clean up, told him a bout some of the cool jobs I did for movie sets, truck washing at the slaughter house and I offered the extent of my knowledge to him to help him open up into other places. Then I also said I do not plan on doing any fleet washing with my startup because I am unsure of the Clean Water Act and how it is enforced up here in Canada.

He then tells me he just purchased the company 6 months ago for $30,000 after seeing it on the market for over a year and he really has no idea of anything or any experience in the field. Then he tells me the company came with an employe that has been with the last owner for about 15 years. The reason he placed the add was he was going to fire the guy who was there for 15 years because he thinks he runs the show and did not go out to clean trucks in -5 deg Fahrenheit. But when he took ownership of the company there was a" you cannot fire me for a year clause" and he was hoping to have someone trained so when the remainder of the year runs out he can fire him. he said lets just keep this between you and me.

Unknowing the full story I took the job. He said Well we dont have any sort of shop or anything and the truck is parked in a rent a spot located at .........

meet the guy there for 6am on saturday and work sunday too even tho the guy will tell you not to come. by the way he may be pissy your there, any problems call me. Puzzled I said ok sure. I was very intrested to see how this guys operation ran. It is 2deg below zero out and he has no shop to park his truck in, where is his soap ?. So I met the guy turns out at 9am because a new account didn't want washed in -2deg weather and he seems like an ok dude, we open up the back of the truck and there is a little space heater on the ball valve of the water inlet to portable 3gpm cute little beat to hell hot unit. More or less just jump in and go. We have our day out spraying in freezing temps and im feeling good getting back into the swing of things. The worker is happy someone who knows about the field is there instead of the same old teenager that quits after a weekend or mid way threw. we finnish off the day and I say so what time for tomarrow ? Well I dont need help tomorrow there is not much that needs done, he says. So I said well the boss told me to come in for saturday and sunday last night regardless so I can get a feel for what you guys do. So 8am on sunday it is. Called the boss that night and said yea me and the worker hit it off good idd say, He's a good guy and worker. told him the hours and said yea he tried to keep me home for sunday but I told him you wanted me there. I got a thats good dont listen to what he says.

Sunday I find out some more about the owner and the history of the company from the worker and how he gets a decent % of the work done. Then we get to one job with 2 nice glossy black peterbuilt gas tanker trucks and he says ok since the sun is out we need to brush these wile we have the chance. So he gets out a mop bucket and a hard bristle 6 inch deck brush on a wooden pole, puts a gulp of truck wash in it and fills her up with water. he then points at a rim and says start there and work your way around to the other side while he is putting the high pressure tip back in, then he heads on back to the end of the tanker ? I asked him if he wants to pre wet the truck before i start to brush or anything. he says no just have at it, So going against everything I know I dunked the "deck brush" in the mop bucket, said to myself "Wholy #$%# I cannot believe I am about to do this" and did my best to use the brillopad of a brush to pre lubricate everywhere I was brushing. I ended up getting the cab cleaned of all the 2 weeks worth of snow coverd dirt, road salt and grime in about 5 min. by the time I am finished he is getting mid way on the first side of the tanker so I said cabs done. He then goes under the tanker and starts up the other side for 10 min working on the tanker before he gets around to the now dry soap coverd black cab and puts just about enough water on it to pre wet it. then goes around with a sham wow and touches up around the headlights and fenders. Not my place to say anything or question his 15 years experience on how to do trucks I ask should I crank out the next one ? then ask him to at least knock off heavy stuff so I can keep my mop bucket free from dirt. we bang out that one and I have about 5 cups of water left in the bucket. he said keep that soap in case we need to brush the next place.

the next Saturday is more of the same thing. only this time the worker is kinda pissed im coming in for sunday. To not throw up any red flags to him i came up with the boss just wants me to work every day on the weekends so I know the routes in case you call in sick or something. and I know its a waste of time and money having both of us out here to just dust off the trucks because of the weather. So I then say well I will call the boss and see what he says again,

He then asks for my phone number in case the one place cancels next Saturday morning. being bad with numbers I gave him one of my demo business cards I had printed off at home. So I get home and send the boss 3 phone calls and 2 text messages and decide after no reply to not go in on the sunday. Monday night he finally calls and ask why I didn't go in on sunday. So I said well I tried to call you a couple of time to see what you would say, but seeing as how this worker you got basically makes or breaks your company as of now, I dont want to step on his toes. told him how he has all the accounts phone numbers and from working with them over the past 15 years he has developed a strong friendship and has the potential if provoked to take all your 9 contracts and leave you high and dry if he finds out the real reason why Im here. He then asked if I handed him a biz card ? I said yea I had a couple in my wallet from checking out different designs I never remember my cell number. Then I told him I had some old issues of cleaner times and a price list to help him out wile making the jump into residential to help him with bidding. and asked if he cared if I use my own equipment for him on the weekends because I cannot drive a stick and I dont want to put his truck in the back of a car with a full tank of water in it. Thats fine he says, So I offer to meet up with him on Monday to give him some papers to help out with his bidding. ok ill give you a call on monday was his reply.

So monday comes and passes, mid day tuesday I remembered that Wednesday is payday and figure he will just catch it then. Then Wednesday comes and goes. So thursday afternoon. I send him a text asking whats going on ? according to what i have written down yesterday was payday and I still have this pile of helpful material for you. About a hour later I get a text that simply says Please text me your address and we will mail it out to you today, and as for work, we have decided it would not work out with you because you are thinking of starting up your own business, thanks. So I replied Well that's unfortunate but I understand where you are coming from, I truly have no intent of doing fleet washing with my company, Frankly the clean water act scares the crap out of me. My offer still stands if you need any help growing your business and I still have this pricing guideline, Its only fair if we all bid the same. No hard feelings, nick.

and up untill last thursday I never heard from him since. No reply thanking me, no reply saying im sure you were just trying to steal my fleet accounts or anything.

Then thursday comes around and I get a text to landline message from him saying he deleted my texts and forgot my address. So I reply Hey I think you tried texting my house, gave him my address again and again offered to meet up and give him the price lists.Again he has yet to reply.

As of today it has been 2 weeks since I should have received payment for the 3 days I worked for him. It is not the 360 bucks he owes me that pisses me off, Its the principal of the fact that he never replied back to me when he admitting said he erased the first text message containing my address, never replied back about any of the help I offered him, and now I can assume thinks its ok to hold back money owed. If he really felt I was trying to steal his accounts why would he bring me on board in the first place ? He could simply check my business card, website,any of my coupons, facebook page or google listing for the services I have listed that I do. Im not hard to find on the internet, Noone cares to advertise i guess.

So Tomarrow around noon when he is on his day job lunch break I plan to text him, You have till next Wednesday to 1 have a check in my mailbox, 2 a darn good explanation of why its not or 3 a reply text apologizing for your actions and a partial payment if you cannot afford to pay the amount owing in full. If you fail to follow any of these simple requests I am going to call your worker and explain why you hired me in the first place, assist him in starting up his own operation and if he feels he will just look for a job else where, then I will personally place bids on every account you have that I want. I can offer the a far superior service to them for the same price they pay you. But just to make sure I get them I will bid under.

Anyone read this whole thing ? What are your thoughts on if this is a moral thing to do ?

[bigchaz 157]

I made it about halfway through...too much reading

Sent from my DROID BIONIC using Tapatalk

[nlantz 14]

to condense it best as possible

guy buys a fleet washing company after it sat for sale for a year for 30,000 .Has no prior power washing experience,The company has 7 accounts,

he owns it 6 months, hires me to replace the worker that has been there 15 years,He feels the worker thinks he is the boss and is making decisions on his own " worker could not wash because temps below -5deg F" Water in the inlet and hoses frozen, Owner tells me he is looking to expand into others areas I excel in,

He was told in my interview that I am currently in the start up process of starting up my own company dealing in residential with no plans on fleet work with my company. I offer all of my 10+ years experience to help him on his way, and show him proper ways of the business. He lets me go after the 2nd weekend saying it will not work out because I am planing to run my own operation. After numerous attempts to make contact about paycheck. its 3 weeks late, he is not returning my calls / text messages.

I am not really to upset about the money owed, its more on the principal of how he handles himself and his business. I do not think he understands the implications of what all I could do. Note the last paragraph in above post.

I am just unsure if its the right thing to do,

There is no chance I would take something like this to small claims court.

or even tho i probably could, report him for numerous Clean water act violations, and running an overweight vehicle with a busted u bolt holding the box to the frame

[Chad A 14]

Nick,

I have been a general manager for a restuarant for 15 years, before I got into pressure cleaning. My advice on collecting the money owe is simple. You have only 2 options and 1 of them only gets the money from the business owner. 1. File a small claims in the court system(not sure how it works in Canada tho) once he contacts you to stop the law suit you can get paid. Make sure you add any fees you accure to the total that he owes, and then if he doesn't want to pay then say see you in court. 2. Texting and threatening doesn't do any good it is a waste of your time and money on cell bill. Just go and place bids on the accounts that he has. I hate to say that but you can always retracted a bid once he finds out you bidded on his contracts. Then later on down the road when he fails to maintain his contract with those companies they already have your number and you would be the first called. Kinda under handed but money is money.

[bigchaz 157]

No one likes a d***. You only worked two weekend, so he owes you what like 200 bucks? Not worth spending your entire month exacting revenge on the guy...and why is it your concern how he operates his business? If you want to start up then do it, but let him run his company how he wants, and you run yours differently if thats what you want to do.

[nlantz 14]

I am sure I am over reacting, and chaz its a little under $400. I would not like to take the entire month or longer exacting revenge on the poor guy There is no record of me being employed with the company. Since he never asked for my tax info I assume he was going to try to pay me under the table.

The reason I care how he conducts his business is that I take pride in my work and how its performed. How he conducts his business affects myself aswell as every company in my area. If he is going around providing the service of truck washing and butchering the hell out of most of the vehicles, Doing residential work without proper chemical knowledge, and messing up on most of his job's. How dose that look for our industry ? anyone unsatisfied with his work is going to let there friends know. Then you will have a good percent of the public thinking "hey, Don't hire a power washer, they damage your property and do bad work." So if you do fleet washing they will head on down to blue beacon or whatever is in there area. If you do residential they will just buy a $200 electric unit at home depot or walmart and do it themselves.

How would you feel if you went to a job and saw someone gouged half the grain of a deck down 1/4th inch by using way to much pressure ? Then they killed all the landscaping underneath by improper chemical usage and were to lazy to use a ladder so they 0deg across the railings ,outside of the banisters and under the deck. How do you think the home owner would feel about power washing ?

Would they let there friends know ?

Probably just going to let it go..

[NJWashingGuy 31]

Just open your business and go for whatever work you see fit. I would also try to get some face time with the guy to get my money. You could try to ruin the guy if you wanted..... thats the only leverage you have to get paid. From what you describe, this guy shouldn't be in business long so whats the point of trying to hurt him......sounds like he is doing a great job of that on his own.....

[bigchaz 157]

The only thing you can control is the way you conduct your business and the manner in which you provide quality service to your clients. Unfortunately there are bad powerwashers out there. Just like any industry. You or I trying to figure out a way to ruin their livelihood by stealing their signs, reporting them to thee government, letting air out of their tires, following them around, poaching their customers, or any of the other ideas people come up with doesn't do anything to help us grow a company.

If he is in fact as bad as you claim and there is no other company in the area then it sounds like you have a good business opportunity. Because you worked for this guy and found out all his customers I personally wouldn't make a point to approach them right away and bad mouth the other guy, but that doesn't mean once you have a business developed and advertising in place that word won't spread and give you opportunity to offer these folks a free demo and illustrate what you can do. If the customer chooses to switch to you, than thats great. If they stay with the hack than you just keep on trying.

But your first step is to start your business, doesn't really matter much if your just a regular guy who happens to know about fleetwashing.

[Guy B 70]

If someone owing you money upsets you that much better think twice about starting your business up. And really this is all it's about. I agree that if this is the way this guy runs his business, he won't have a business for long, not much you can do about it but learn how not to run your business.

Personally I'd find out where he lives and go get my money........But That's Just Me.

[Neighborly Services 14]

The sunny side is that you have had excellent insight practically dropped into your lap about local competitors, and your new market.

[Chazz 14]

And then what happened ?

[nlantz 14]

Truthfully I could care less about the $400 bucks, even tho that's what the title of this thread is about. The thing that upsets me is I had every intent on helping this fella out. Even quit my last current day job drywalling "Pay was about the same as working just weekends for this guy" so no real big deal there it just opened up my week so I could take some small business classes,get licensed and registered and check out the market. The reason I wanted to help the guy out is I felt bad for him. Even tho I'd put a price tag of his businesses net worth at 5-8 grand. He paid 30,000 for it. Also I feel in this trade there is importance in having an good relationship with another local company especially if you are both considered start ups, It is good to have someone to call on in case anything comes up. From needing a hand because your machines coil just blew and you only have a couple hours left on the job to catching a job that is to big to take on yourself.

It was nice to get out there and see what my competition is all about but I do not plan on doing any fleet washing, up here any monkey can wash a truck. There are at least 12 weekend warriors out there and the lowest Ive seen is 7 bucks per semi. Even tho I know the quality of my work is superior to what Ive seen, from his company and inspecting his competition "the $7 semi", the clean water act still scares the hell out of me, especially in todays echo friendly green age. As a startup getting nabbed for one violation would bankrupt me. From what I saw he was within the regulations for 3 out of the 12 accounts.

Back home we did it the same but from what I have heard about Ontario, its reclaim, reclaim, reclaim!! and if you cant ? Pay for a washbay. Maybe the ministry of natural resources is closed on weekends ? I don't know but just like back home 90% don't comply.

Anyway I am rambling again, was upset about how he presents himself. He probably just got the company because he assumed this profession is easy and just wanted to be a boss to hire,fire and increase profits by simply raising prices.

After reading your replays im just going to let it go! after hearing his machine its due to cease up sometime this spring, running way to high with a dirty air filter but what do I know ? im sure ill get a couple calls from his accounts by summer.

Thanks guys

[Thomas Anthony 14]

$400 and a few days work is fair payment for a priceless education about writing things down. I firmly agree with the small claims court response, but if he don't respond, it will only work if you have proof. At the end of the day it's not about moral or not, or right or wrong, it's all about what you can prove in court. You are paying a low price for the education of writing things down and contracts.

The first time you take on a large job, with a substantial payroll, I'm sure you will remember this small speed bump. I believe you should thank your God for the lesson. Good luck with your business.

[nlantz 14]

When it comes to jobs, the 1st thing I do is take pictures wile checking out a job during the bid for any signs of preexisting damage.

I learned that lesson indirectly years ago when someone with the company I was working for decided to not use any chemicals on a new construction brick job, Long story short High Pressure and sandy faced brick don't get along together, Powerwashing insurance will cover everything except what you are cleaning, you can still get sued on a personal level even if you are inc and home owners can be a real pain. If I remember correctly they sued the business owner and home builder to try to get there house for free. They purposely held back on signing over on the house for 3 months at a cost of $80 a day after the original closing date to the builder and received 80,000 from the lawsuit. The husband of the homeowners said, I really dont care to much about the brick. my wife is just doing because she wants to refurnish the house.

After this I always check before I touch a job, If I find anything like damage from a homeowner trying to D.I.Y, I make them sign a little liability waver that is written on my copy of the invoice.

[nlantz 14]

oh and I did have a nice log of text messages for just this case, unfortunately I took my phone in for service and everything got wiped.

[mick m 19]

And then what happened ?

Hahahahahaha. Nice one Centurion!!!!

[Scott Stone 604]

Just my opinion, Get over it and move on. If you don't want to wash Fleets, just go ahead and do the type of work that you think you want to do. Sometimes you just need to keep moving forward, and not worry about how you were not treated properly in the past. That just drags you down, and incapacitates you.

[nlantz 14]

payments received

[Chad A 14]

Glad to hear that.