crew working in a basement standing next to a lolly column image courtesy of Holly BertschMy first day off in ages, and what am I doing?  I am blogging of course!  Michael was nice enough to take the kids on the weekend job — we are putting a sliding glass door in where there is now a window.  By “kids,” I mean the guys we work with, the team.  So today is like a paid vacation,  and paid meaning — one I have to pay the guys overtime for.

Speaking of the guys, they should all be back on board soon.  Jim is finally done with his shoot from the hip, I didn’t make any money and the job took forever work.  Scott is almost done building a house.  Junior is coming back from vacation to Niagara Falls.  Isaiah, the newest addition, has been working his butt off this whole time.  It looks like we will soon be able to reinstate weekends off.

So how was I lucky enough to get a Saturday off?  I begged for it!  No, actually my doctor told me I had to take it.  We have been working 30 days straight trying to get three whole house remodels done.  We’ve been doing it short-handed too.  And sad to say when you are short-handed and spread too thin, nothing gets done . . . on time.  And this was starting to make me . . . physically ill.

So how does one go about getting a job done on time?  Well, it all comes down to planning.  By planning I mean — get your (special) orders in on time.  That has been what has been slowing us down recently.  I am constantly waiting for this . . . to be able to do that.  The granite can’t be measured for the kitchen, because the cabinets came in wrong.  The shower door can’t be measured for the custom shower, because the client couldn’t decide on the marble they wanted for the enclosure.  These things, I felt, were totally out of my control.  Yet . . . they have left me strung out on remodeling and .  . . caffeine.

Our days have turned to nights, our weeks to weekends, and the work is not getting done.  Why has this happened?  I prefer to blame Jim.  If he hadn’t taken that silly job of his — the one he did for a discount for a friend, we wouldn’t be in this situation.  A three week project took him over three months.  She (the homeowner) just kept adding things, and upgrading things, and changing things.  Now, she is filing bankruptcy and he is not going to get paid.  I tried to warn him, but he didn’t listen.

Now before this starts to sound like a rant (which I suppose it already does), I do want to say that Jim does awesome work and we would like to have him back.  We would also like to pay him handsomely to help us finish our projects.  I think he is looking forward to this too.  He would like to make some money for a change.  Plus, then . . . we can all be one big happy team again!