I am a newer contractor and am currently pondering the thought of hiring my replacement and going into the office. The thought of expanding sounds risky but we keep getting busier causing customer service and organization to suffer. I currently have 3 employees and do most of the field work and office work. Any advice is appreciated.
Hi there,
I thought that this would be a nice change myself, after a "coronary incident" a few years back, I looked to do the admin side of the Lines dept of the PoCo I work for.
To be honest mate, it nearly sent me around the bend.
As soon as an "urgent" call for someone to help with a given job comes in, you want to get out there again, as much as you fight it.
Dis-regard any thoughts of "I can do this", you are in an office now, hand your tools in at the door.
Working in the field was a lot less stressful than the office.
Of course not all enviroments will be the same, but my experience with it while employed by others was a revelation to me about how much time is wasted screwing off by various employee's in the office enviroment. The same people would stand around the coffee maker complaining about the field people not producing enough. I dig the field more myself, but good luck to you sir, hope this blossoms for you.
I am with ITO. Working in the field is MUCH less stressful than working in the office. Since I am inside 100% of the time now, here is my list of peeves that I've noticed:
1. Answer a phone call and within 20 seconds, another call will arrive. The phone might not ring for an hour, but as soon as it does, another call will show up right behind it.
2. Make the mistake of going to the bathroom. As soon as the door closes, the phone will ring.
3. When your secretary goes out to lunch, all of her friends, all of the field technicians and your mother will call. In addition, the UPS man will show up with COD deliveries, along with someone looking for a job.
4. While you are spending 30 minutes on the phone with someone who barely has a pulse explaining why your price is more expensive than from someone on e-bay, you miss three potential money-making calls.
5. As soon as you start a conversation with a co-worker about ANYTHING, the phone will ring. You will all spend hours trying to remember what it was you started to ask each other before the interruption. Something ends up being overlooked and you have three field people complaining that they can't get the work done as a result.
6. While you are responding to a very important e-mail, you will receive no fewer than three e-mails from phony (but realistic) senders, only to find that they are nobody that you know, but they have one heck of a deal on Viagra.
7. The parts that you needed today didn't show up, but the ones that you don't need (and can't afford to pay for) until next week will be waiting on your desk.
8. A lunch break is yet again optional since you have three calls on hold and several proposals to rush out. You keep saying that you'll grab a bite later, yet it becomes later, later and later.
9. The Monday after an NFL football game arrives and half of the staff calls in "sick". You wanted to do this yourself, but since you know them so well, you came in. It's a good thing that you did since you are the only one there except the delivery people (wanting checks; see #7 above) before the sun has risen.
10. EVERYTHING is an emergency. I don't care if it's a simple matter of a vehicle maintenance issue, you are expected to drop what you are doing.
11. Somebody in the office doesn't like somebody else and somehow it's your problem to resolve this matter.
12. It's a lot harder to lie on your time sheet when you work in the office. I'm here an hour before the other folks and stay at least an hour later, yet they still manage to have more hours worked.
13. Running up the street to pick up something at the store, like toilet paper (yet another issue) can only take ten minutes before the cell phone is ringing, yet two men can somehow justify spending two hours at the supply house counter picking up a part.
I guess that I should stop there and strongly suggest that if you have the option of working in the field, you might want to consider it.
No wonder I get overwhelmed at times I have all of the above and work in the field 3 days a week.
Thanks for adding some humor to the situation even though its all true.
Hey I keep asking myself the same thing.
Seems like when I'm busy working in the field, and then I have office work to do at night the customer service hurts. It can be hard enough to find the time to do bids, material orders, return phone calls (because you missed it working on a job), bills, etc. You don't have much time to work on marketing and improving your business. I know I could find more jobs to bid on if I was in the office. But I can't say if the improvements in operations, marketing, and bidding more jobs would pay for a J-man. It sould at least reduce my hours to something more reasonable.
Also a goal sometimes is to create a business that is self sustaining with little owner involvement. I think the first step in that is getting out of the truck.
Tom,
You need to get that truck fixed before you can pass it on to someone
As a business owner once you do move into the office get ready to work more than 40 hours a week too. Typically my day starts before 5am, and I don't head home until after 5pm and sometimes plans go home with me to take off for the next day. Your new job becomes keeping the work flowing.
Also keep in mind the material manager/ purchasing agent job will eat much more time than you think.
How many guys in the field do you have to have to support your salary? I know there are a lot of variables ,but is there a general rule of thumb?
Four at a minimum in my area and that's assuming that they are actually working and the customers are paying promptly. Don't forget; the boss is always the last one to get paid.
I have enough work to keep 4 guys at the present but I don't have enough saved for payroll yet. I have learned well how most customers pay and a 4 man payroll can deplete even a moderate savings fast.
Has anyone made the jump, figure it wasn't profitable and went back to working with the tools?
I would love too, but only because I am getting fat, and my stress level is through the roof.
What about managing 40 projects at the same time, and:
- Someone asking "About _THAT_ Quote"
- E-mails with one project's name in the subject, contains info about 4 other projects,
- Quotes for materials without project name,
- Client wants to go back to the "3rd change" of 6,
- Trying to eat Lunch,,,
- Figure out what someone's name &/or phone number is, from a "Rapid-Fire" voicemail message,
- Actually finding SOMEONE in their Office when you call,
- The only Person with the Information needed is - of course, on Vacation for 2 weeks,
- following up on the RFIs,
- Engineering / Designing a Project, performing Take-Offs, compiling Proposals, Fax, UPS & E-mail everything out by the near-impossible due dates, etc.,
- Another P.M. calls you, and asks you to "Do A Quick Take-Off, It Will Only Take a Few Minutes" - which occupies 4 hours of your day,
- I can't think of any more...
As mentioned before by others - and somewhat in my Parody List, taking an Office position is anything but relaxing (as compared to working in the field); which makes me wonder why we do it at all???
Scott
Ed,
I just read your post and couldn't stop cracking up. I've experienced everyone of the top "13". My favorite was the customer with barely a pulse.
I recently just took a long overdue honeymoon with my wife of 15 years. While calling into the field I found out the 22K sf house we just wired was stripped of all the wire.
Thanks for sharing!!
Bob
I spent about 25 of my 30 on the road with no office to go to , 4 split between road and office and about 1 stuck in an office 9-5 (6 months instructor and 6 months service planning/support center rep). I was literally "itching" to get out of both of those jobs.
The only good thing I can say about office work is you don't have to fight traffic all day. The rest sux.