Hell Week Begins

Tonight is night number one of my 5-day Hell Week. I still can't find any help for any except the final day, so that is looking very bad right now, but even tonight is turning into a real mess.

The temperature is 38 degrees (1:30 pm) with 40 mph winds and rain. I leave for the job at 5 pm, but the temps are supposed to keep falling down to freezing by midnight, so I will have to face bitter wind chills, freezing rain, hail, and even snow is in the forecast of about an inch.

This is not the way to start your week. This also excludes the use of my box truck until the weather improves, so I am down to a single TM for a couple of days where a break down could spell trouble. Lots of pitfalls going into this week and I even went to bed with a fever last night....hopefully, that doesn't turn into anything more than a cold.

I may not be posting much until mid-week as there will be very little time for sleep until then Wish me luck....I will need it.

Yikes, we just had a thunder roll for 10 full seconds that cracked my living room window.

This is NOT good weather for late April and it is starting to change to a freezing rain now.

I should have gone to trucking school.

Good luck. I wouldn't want your week!

You'll make it !!
Before you realize it, you'll be complaining of how hot it is, it's been 80 degrees here in the last few days, I don't sweat easily but I broke a few sweats already, not looking forward to summer.

Good luck partner.

You just reminded me why I don't do much commercial work " the night shift"

First night in the books....this is a Nebraska Spring.

Damn ! And you took that picture while driving ? You bad boy !! Lol.

Thats crazy for that to be happening this time of year

I am over the rough part of this week now, so I should be okay. I just returned from a killer day....12 hours of straight cleaning, I can barley walk.

It was supposed to be about 7,500 sqft and nearly 400 chairs with the customer having their staff deal with moving and stacking the chairs. I was set against doing both on the same day, but since they were telling me that the chairs would lined up and ready for me, I decided to accept it.

Well, first, nobody knew I was coming. No staff was available to pull the chairs out of storage and set them up for cleaning. I ended up having to pull all of them out and stage them for cleaning. Looks like fun doesn't it?



End totals: 90 minutes to set up the chairs; 4.5 hours to wet clean them; 90 minutes to stack them up and place back into storage; and then 5 hours to clean the carpets.

If I can get out of bed again, I will be having a chat with the Site Manager over this fiasco, but at least it is done and my help returns in time to team up on the remaining jobs for the week.

It wasn't pretty, but it looks like I survived. Even more surprising, the old Butler survived the flogging without fail. We are both well past our prime so I don't know which one is more surprising.

dp1 wrote:Damn ! And you took that picture while driving ? You bad boy !! Lol.

I mean, while I was parked of course.

Amazing! I would let my invoice do the talking

That brings up another point Mo, I am curious what you guys think.

On Monday night, I was staring down 10k sqft of commercial solo and just didn't think I could get it down in the 9 hour window that I had. So, I called another commercial cleaner that I met at a gas station earlier in the day.

This guy showed up late, but he brought 3 employees with him. One ran the wand, one sprayed, and one pulled hoses. The last one "supervised" and drank coffee.

I couldn't figure out how he was going to make any money with so many mouths to feed, but then they also finished that 5k sqft in less than 3 hours compared to my 5 hours.

When I did the math, sure I made a little more total, but that owner made more per hour than me and didn't lift a finger except to raise his drink. His employees all got paid pretty low, but they worked hard. Results weren't too bad....a little wetter than I like.....but acceptable.

On the drive home I kept wondering if I have the wrong approach to this business. Maybe it is worth it to bring lots of help to a job?

Mo wrote:Amazing! I would let my invoice do the talking

Oh, it does that as well. I made more in that 12 hours than I used to make in 3 weeks working at the plant for 55 hours per week. That was the only reason I was able to keep working past the 7th hour.

Once the soreness goes away, I will forget all about the misery.

That's whybthe guys running with comes can male.momeu at 15 per square ft.

I can just see that sub stealing that account from you now

Nothing like a nice paycheck at the end of the job to keep.you going.

No wonder you're looking for new toys

I am very territorial Mo and one of the reasons I am not letting those guys get comfortable around that place. They would sure love to take it away from me like all the rest of them.

I didn't want to bring them at all, but the math just working out for me cleaning that one solo.

For 5000 sq ft, I would bring 1 guy, just for wanding, I can pull the hoses and spray the carpets myself instead of sipping on coffees and supervise.

Plus I can still get the cleaning done in 3 hours

That's the way I saw it as well, one cleaner and one helper. I just need to find more reliable helpers these days.

Rob I have tried looking for helpers at the home depot parking lot

I don't need that kind of help.

lol Mo, the company I used to work for a long time ago looked for helper at HD parking lot. It's cheap
If only his customers know where he got his helpers from, ha..ha....

Thankfully the week ended with me and the machine in one piece. I just returned from the final 10k sqft and I am ready to recover this weekend.

Congrats, now go spend your HARD earned $$ !! Lol.

I wish I could, but being commercial, I will not see that money for a few weeks. I am still a broke cleaner until then.