More Cherry Burl
- Thread starter Eric Rorabaugh
- Start date
Well sounds like you had a rough day. I was just trying to get it to bring a good price I was worn out yesterday also. I was getting my camper ready to leave for vacation at Bristol for a week. It was rough.
Heat has been kicking my butt here all week, mid to upper 90s. Leave the house 8:30 - 9 every morning, come home get out the Durango in the evening, get on the tractor, turn dirt until 9:30 or later every night. Heat has everything dusty, tiller blows the dust up under the tractor, and it comes up around the driver, no matter which direction the wind blows, so absolutely filthy at the end of the day.
Then putting up with stupidity out of employees. Monday I ran to town to pick up a few things, left them to treat 37 hives, at 4:38 they were 4 miles from the bee yard when I passed them, they finally got back to the shop at 6:30 something, after treating 37 hives... 2 monkeys, 2 hours, so 4 man hours/37 hives = a whopping 13 minutes per hive to do a job that takes roughly a minute. I treated 200 hives by myself Tuesday, had to drive further, opened all my own gates, and picked up 25 dead hives in 6 hours = 1.8 minutes per hive, including picking up the dead stuff in 3 yards, tying the truck 3 times, twice as far to drive! HELLO!!
Friday I had them filling feed jars, 10 trays, 55 - 5 lb. jars to the tray. Pressure wash lids, take lids off, fill them up, put lids back on. I mixed the syrup before they got there. They arrived 10:30, supposed to be there 9 am, took the two of them until noon to wash the lids. I left for town 1:20, had to run to the bank, make a quick trip to Harbor Freight, got back an hour and a half later, they still didn't have all the lids off the jars.
If this was a difficult job I could see it, however they milk this job every time you give it to them and make it an all day affair... Last time we filled jars I wanted to wash the tank out, so we intentionally ran the tank dry and washed it out, before filling it and mixing a batch of syrup, so we were pretty much dead in the water for nearly an hour while washing the tank, filling it, and mixing syrup. With me assisting them, we emptied the tank, washed it out, mixed 2 batches of syrup that day, washed lids and took them off two batches of jars, and filled and stacked 22 trays of syrup in a little over 6 1/2 hours, and the two of them spent 6 hours Friday washing lids and filling 10 trays. They aren't stacked, they didn't mix the syrup, there was no down town washing tank out; simply filled 10 trays... It defies all logic and reason!!
One of them has been doing this for 4 years, had the door up earlier, knows there is a great big pedestal fan there that will generate a breeze up to about 20 yards away, we always run it when filling jars, and the yo-yos sat out there in the sun, in 97o sunny weather, filling jars, and weren't intelligent enough to raise the garage door and plug the fan in, until they were almost done. Told my father, if they are that dumb, they better be tough, cause if they're going to sit out there and dick around in that fashion, I'm not even going to bother telling them to plug it in, they can just damn well suffer!
I am about ready to take Spanish classes and hire Mexicans!
Then putting up with stupidity out of employees. Monday I ran to town to pick up a few things, left them to treat 37 hives, at 4:38 they were 4 miles from the bee yard when I passed them, they finally got back to the shop at 6:30 something, after treating 37 hives... 2 monkeys, 2 hours, so 4 man hours/37 hives = a whopping 13 minutes per hive to do a job that takes roughly a minute. I treated 200 hives by myself Tuesday, had to drive further, opened all my own gates, and picked up 25 dead hives in 6 hours = 1.8 minutes per hive, including picking up the dead stuff in 3 yards, tying the truck 3 times, twice as far to drive! HELLO!!
Friday I had them filling feed jars, 10 trays, 55 - 5 lb. jars to the tray. Pressure wash lids, take lids off, fill them up, put lids back on. I mixed the syrup before they got there. They arrived 10:30, supposed to be there 9 am, took the two of them until noon to wash the lids. I left for town 1:20, had to run to the bank, make a quick trip to Harbor Freight, got back an hour and a half later, they still didn't have all the lids off the jars.
If this was a difficult job I could see it, however they milk this job every time you give it to them and make it an all day affair... Last time we filled jars I wanted to wash the tank out, so we intentionally ran the tank dry and washed it out, before filling it and mixing a batch of syrup, so we were pretty much dead in the water for nearly an hour while washing the tank, filling it, and mixing syrup. With me assisting them, we emptied the tank, washed it out, mixed 2 batches of syrup that day, washed lids and took them off two batches of jars, and filled and stacked 22 trays of syrup in a little over 6 1/2 hours, and the two of them spent 6 hours Friday washing lids and filling 10 trays. They aren't stacked, they didn't mix the syrup, there was no down town washing tank out; simply filled 10 trays... It defies all logic and reason!!
One of them has been doing this for 4 years, had the door up earlier, knows there is a great big pedestal fan there that will generate a breeze up to about 20 yards away, we always run it when filling jars, and the yo-yos sat out there in the sun, in 97o sunny weather, filling jars, and weren't intelligent enough to raise the garage door and plug the fan in, until they were almost done. Told my father, if they are that dumb, they better be tough, cause if they're going to sit out there and dick around in that fashion, I'm not even going to bother telling them to plug it in, they can just damn well suffer!
I am about ready to take Spanish classes and hire Mexicans!
I can remember when the next day after school was out for the summer kids were at your door wanting if you had work for them. Most of them only had to be told once how you wanted things done and they did it.
Used to be that way in ND... Have 12 - 14 kids working over the summer months. That way when they've this to go to, or that to go to, or mom and dad want to go someplace for the weekend and they 're leaving on Thursday, or ball practice kicks in, you still had a crew. Not anymore. Got 1 or 2, only reason they're there is because they don't want a real job where they have to work year round.
Started hiring Nicaraguans on the North Dakota end 3 years ago. Got 'em for 6 months, then they go home. Hard working little rascals, lot of fun, don't any of them know English, none of us know Spanish, use Google Translate on the cell phone, point and mumble otherwise. They get it done! Want to work all weekend, want to work evenings, they're on time, run out of things to do they'll start washing trucks, cleaning shop, you name it.
Started hiring Nicaraguans on the North Dakota end 3 years ago. Got 'em for 6 months, then they go home. Hard working little rascals, lot of fun, don't any of them know English, none of us know Spanish, use Google Translate on the cell phone, point and mumble otherwise. They get it done! Want to work all weekend, want to work evenings, they're on time, run out of things to do they'll start washing trucks, cleaning shop, you name it.
The Hispanic people I have worked around have always been good workers and respectful of other people. It is a shame something cannot be done to solve the problems we have that is fair for everyone.
Have an honest conversation with them, then offer to pay them by the job vs. by the hour.
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They'd owe me money for babysitting services! Just went through 30 nucs, 20 of them on my side the truck, checked to see if queens were laying, see if they needed feed, put them back together. Got through the 20 on my side, walked to other side of the truck, the two of them had made it through 6 nucs total.