Fits and Starts: A Well-Wish For You All
Sounds like a law firm or comedy team, doesn’t it? Only there is nothing remotely funny about the way many of us in the pressure washing industry begin our seasons.
We have just finished a stretch of months of weather-mandated downtime, we have been running down the saved money from last season that we salted away, we haven’t seen our equipment since we put it away (winterized) in storage, and we aren’t ready. Even when we are ready, we don’t think we are.
The last season stretched out longer than we thought, so we booked extra work and put off storing the machinery. We were making hay while the sun shone, right up to the day before the first winter storm. On that day, we remembered suddenly how urgently we needed to get the equipment put safely away. We rushed to get the job done, and then spent the next months fretting over what we might have overlooked.
We hoped for a January thaw like we “always” get, but this year, no dice. No January specials or chances to drag the machines out to be sure they are wintering well. The cold dragged on, and we spent our planned marketing bucks, took the early calls, followed up with the last Fall customers, tentatively scheduled the work, and the thaw just stayed away. The tentative dates passed, the fall-back dates passed, now the Spring finally springs and we find ourselves overscheduled and understaffed.
The phone is ringing better than expected, but we are so booked we can’t see daylight. We work every available second, getting the equipment back in running order, buying supplies, and actually (finally) washing something. Just as we have the schedule functioning right…late-winter storm. An unexpected return to sustained temps hovering five degrees either side of freezing. We could cope with that, if it weren’t for the sudden addition of 6 new inches of heavy snow and slush, that just starts to thaw each day, and then freezes each night as soon as the sun has set.
Back into winterized limbo goes the machinery, and the chems that mustn’t freeze. We run heaters as well, just to be safe, and that isn’t free but it is cheaper than a frozen line would be now. Daylight Savings ends, and still we freeze each night. The jobs we can do have to be inside, or chemical-free, as the frozen substrates slow the processes unacceptably. Work is piling up, which is good in a way, but the latent fist of sleepless nights and endless days is looming larger as the temps inexorably rise, waiting to smash my sensibilities, to make a zombie of me and my help…if I can ever hire any.
And then we are busting loose. The fist falls, and just as I expect I get crabby, tired, and hard to deal with. I’m working so much that I don’t know when I ate last, or what it was. My son begins to be visible only in the wee-est morning hours; to him I am missing, or at least invisible. My wife knows I’m around because the coffee is disappearing faster than she can buy it, and the business account balances are constantly in flux. We become desk-blotter pen pals, and share an occasional phone call at odd hours. We can’t find any hirable help, we are going it alone.
Pressure washing contractors, I know your pains. My earnest prayer for you all, is that you stay safe and profitable, and that you can see the points in the story above that can be changed by systematizing and being better at business. I pray you all can work smart enough this season, that you needn’t work so hard at the job.
Every crisis is also an opportunity, so I wish you so much business this year that you have to make changes to accommodate it. Here is to all of us having too much to do, and to finding ways to do it.
Scott Millen
