Broken Down Equipment & Demo Problems

The story started as I hired a new guy Eliot to come into the company and we have to be snowballing that may be the moment Eliot shows up but it's front-end loader with a tire right up the road. We worked hard to try to pop it back on the beat but we didn't have any luck before we were even done with that.One of my loaders blew a rear transmission hose which should have never happened but the mechanic said he's never seen that hose blow before his life. So lucky me of course but then I had the fun doesn’t end there my want to let other front end loaders blew one of the lift our cylinder hoses and so Elliot is walking around with me he's looking at all the equipment breaking down all the things happening around me and he looks at me says Is this normal and that's when I realize that you guys don't get to see what happens behind the scenes and that these companies do everything in their power to cover up all of their battle wounds and scars and it's those wounds and scars .

And it's those battle wounds and scars that make them great so today I'm going to take you with me on a job where you get to see how many fires I had to put out so let's get started.

Three, two, one.

So the job started I was pretty easy job had to remove a concrete swimming pool remove a tennis court remove a retaining wall import about six hundred cubic yards of fill soil grade everything down to create a flat back yard in a hockey rink no big deal.

We'd get the project started and one problem after another after another before we were even into the job the engine and they dump truck goes out that's fifteen thousand dollar loss. What do you do about it you shrug your shoulders to get over it no big deal then we start getting into the project and the swing motor on excavator decides to kick out on me we broke the excavator there's nobody in the seat the swing my motor got busted. And that's now Tim’s gotta stop it.

But I think I'm swing motor when we're doing a demolition job and if the swing motor was there and you'd never be able to do that with a machine.

That makes it pretty dangerous and something we got to go get fixed it wasn't because of the job it was just because it was just bad luck less wear into the job and things are going well like guys are getting creative. There's thinking outside the box and I'm really appreciating how they are able to take what we have for equipment and use it.

We lost the swing so what he's doing is getting by but the fun doesn't end there when we remove the shallow end of the concrete swimming pool we find a line directly underneath the pool now.

My main guy Tim stops everything and he says this doesn't feel right in his gut and I go off and look at like doesn't feel right and my God either said let's fix it let's just put it back together and let's fix it there's a fix it doesn't feel right to me we're going to repair and keep moving up so we gathered all of the the tools we needed to start doing the repair job on this pipe and homeowner comes off as well we were No no no don't worry about that that is not the storm sewer or that's not the sanitary like the poop line .

OK that's not the same material that's part of the swimming pool remove it it was less than four feet ahead zero zero frost protection and takes because it was literally connected to the concrete of the swimming pool so would easily freeze up over the winter when the swimming pool is empty and furthermore you're not supposed to put a sanitary line underneath a swimming pool because there's no way to ever repaired if anything ever happens without removing the swimming pool .

Third I checked the ticket and iron located said it was clear no conflict in fact you could see in bold letters where says said Terry St Paul water sewer water clear no conflict everything is telling me the homeowner is right he's telling us to remove the Iine, physically He said physically remove that line it's part of the swimming pool I want to go on are located saying it we should remove it our guts are saying No.

OK we listen to her brain we're going to listen to brain not our gut I mean everything was telling us we've got to get this line out including the property owner saying I want this line out.

He told us that the line came in from the front of the house and out the back of the house it was the sanitary line it was at the point where we were putting everything together to fix it it was an easy repair it was simple splice maybe an hour's worth of work what would have been a thirty dollars fix when we had the trench opened up turned out to be thirteen thousand dollars.

After the fact and in the world of contracting this is always what happens when there's a problem. Everybody points their fingers at somebody else but still everybody's pointing the finger back this way I have to get this is clear no conflict this is not the sanitary line I have a property owner coming out and telling us to physically remove this line.

It's one project where you think it should go through this so we do a fifteen thousand dollar motor and dump truck we poor twelve thousand dollar swing motor on an excavator and we had a thirteen thousand dollars repair bill on a pipe that we could have fixed for less than thirty dollars in parts and materials.

Those battles wounds it's those battle scars that every company encounters they try so hard to cover them up that is what makes them great you are going to have those same challenges dead on. And it's not going to be your ability to of conflict that makes you great it's a good point it's going to be your ability to take it smack in the face and overcome all of the issues that are in admittedly going to a occur to you in your business.

It is those fires that you put up that will make you great not your ability to talk and run and hide so don't back down want to challenge comes up hit it dead out and give it everything you've got in understand it's the conflict that makes you great now your ability to run from the point of this video is that every business faces challenges but most of them try to hide it they want to seem perfect and that it's abnormal if you find that you're running a business and your back is against the wall it's perfectly fine all businesses have problems that they've got to overcome but I want to hear from you about your conflicts your issues with challenges that you faced and how do you overcome. God Bless and go get ‘em.