We also have to move. More on that in a moment…

Sunrise in the Outer Banks

In order to avoid simultaneous nervous breakdowns, we went to the beach last week. For my wife, it was necessary because she’s with two very needy little boys all day long. Both are perfect, or as close to perfect as they can get at their ages in my view, but let’s face it — there’s a lot of poop and they can destroy a house just as fast as Judie can put it together. She needed a break — a break with maid service.

For my part, I reached the end of my will. Well, it felt like it. I’ve been pedal-to-the-medal for about four years now. We’ve had a lot of great successes, but they haven’t come easy. There have been times when I thought “Well, that’s it, we’re finished,” only to see some miracle reset everything. In fact, that happens almost every day, and the other day I tested it. We were dangerously short-handed for a job the following day. I was driving a truck, Truck Buddy Crew Leader Tyler was with me. “Watch this,” I said, “Somehow, we’ll see a miracle in the next few hours that’ll save our bacon.”

Sure enough, Operations Manager Jimmy called and said he had a guy who could fill in. Another guy who I didn’t think would be available suddenly was, and we were then all set.

“See? Miracles.”

Regardless, hoping for miracles, or even expecting them, kills my nerves. We run a moving company — a high-risk, low-margin, ridiculously expensive operation that generates a few bucks in profit every month. Savings? Hah. Among the daily crises: guys don’t show up; guys don’t even show up to interviews; guys break things; guys ding luxury sports cars with our beat up trucks; people graffiti our trucks; guys get hurt and can’t work; people hit our trucks. And then there’s the never-ending grind of scheduling jobs on the calendar, and assigning guys TO those jobs. (“I don’t want to work with that guy”…”That guy is too slow, put me with someone else…” Etc.)

So, I reached the end of what willpower could do, and I booked a room at a hotel in the Outer Banks. Maybe I’ll find time to carve some time out and write about it later, but for now here’s the bottom line for me: It’s time to get back to basics. But also, it’s definitely time to do something big. Really big.

What kind of big? I’d been thinking about some funky/insane marketing schemes, but after getting a frank email from a potential administrative assistance vendor, I think it may be time to go looking for investors. We need so many things, and I’ve resisted loans or any kind of investment “capital” (not even sure why they call it “capital” rather than just “money.” That’s how naive and inexperienced I am. Lol.) The goal of getting investment capital would be to upgrade or create our administrative systems like scheduling, to get a fleet of trucks of our own (we currently lease), and, of course, blitz the area with marketing materials. We have a solid base of a few thousand (mostly) happy customers, and they’re doing a great job of advertising MTB. But it’s barely enough. Three trucks and crews running full-time is barely enough to pay the bills. God help us if we have any major breakdowns or incidents. Four crews running has been giving us a little more of a cushion. Five crews could really do something, but at that point, it’s more than what two guys can manage. Jimmy and I are overworked and definitely underpaid.

So, it might be time for “the next big thing,” and that’s starting to look like an infusion of cash to me. I loathe the idea of going into debt. (Being debt-free is one of our stronger selling points, I think.) But we’re not going anywhere without some major expansion and upgrades.

Time to start pulling on some threads…

What we now know was a disgruntled employee (or, more accurately, a former employee who had a beef with a co-worker) entered the barber shop with a shotgun and opened fire. He killed one man and wounded another. My family was just a few feet from where it happened when it happened.

She was calm as she called me. She’d helped rush the boys to the back of Safeway with the help of the employee who’d come running out. I’d just wrapped up a lunch meeting with some of the guys.

“I have to go,” I said. And I did.

Next to the murder, the saddest thing is how calm everyone was. It was as though we’d been expecting something like this to happen for a long time. I’ve taken certain precautions for situations like this, and I often think I’m just being paranoid. This confirmed my belief that we have to be vigilant. There are crazies everywhere, even in nice, upper-middle class suburban neighborhoods like ours. It can happen anywhere.

I stopped at a coffee shop this morning solely to put some business cards in a little holder I keep on their refrigerator there. Otherwise, I wouldn’t bother. Their coffee is probably the worst in the Beltway, they they definitely benefit from that maxim “location, location, location.” Their barristas also seem to start the day at “pissed off” and their attitudes go downhill from there.

At any rate, I stopped outside the shop around 6:45 this morning. I reached for a handful of business cards which I conveniently keep in a pile on the passenger side floor, and split the deck numerous times trying to guess the right number for the card holder slot. I didn’t realize how out of it I was, but that should have been a clue, because the effort to choose the right number of cards took an obscenely long time. I mention this because when I finally frustrated the hell out of myself, I bolted from the truck like a cannon ball and shot the locked door behind me.

You know the feeling in the millisecond after you do it. “Ohhh, shiiii–”

Before the sound of the door slamming had even ceased to echo off the surrounding buildings, a man came up to me and asked if we were hiring.

“You probably don’t want to work for a company run by a moron,” I said.

Undeterred, he pressed on until I told him we were more than fully staffed. Then I explained the situation with the truck.

“Here’s what we can do,” he said. “You can use my bike to get to your office, get your keys, and bring the bike back.” For the service, he only asked for $8 so he could get to a job interview in Rockville — quite a haul from Old Town. That seemed like an unusually specific amount, so I believed that’s all he wanted. (Yes, I know that’s a bit much for a Metro fee, but he was potentially saving my butt.)

“Sure,” I said, and took what I thought was a homeless man’s bike.

It was about a mile ride, maybe two. There was always someone at the office, and crew leader Pete was on the first job of the day, so I hoped he’d be there.

Nope. It was a ghost town. I waited 30 minutes for no one to show up. Oh, did I mention my office keys were on the keychain in my truck?

Phone rings. It’s some guy from the horrible coffee shop. “George needs his bike back. He needs to get to his interview.”

Eff. So now I’m probably costing an unemployed guy a job.

I booked it back, pissing off commuters all along the way. George was there, very concerned about me, not his potential job interview. I apologize profusely and gave him $20.

“It’s alright,” he said, “My wife is late anyway.”

Wait — he needs to pay his wife to get to the interview? Never mind.

We chatted for a second while I texted Pete (“Give me a ride now!)

“I’ll try my girlfriend,” George said.

Girlfriend? Oh, George…

I ended up walking back to the office. So, for those keeping track, that’s one bike ride to and from the office, and one little hike on foot.

Pete was there, as was everyone else. They probably got there just after I left. My spare truck key, however, was not in the secret place as it had been for two years. The little clicker transmitter was, though, but I hadn’t used it in at least three years, so who knows?

Pete gave me a ride, and I explained to my wife via text what was happening. “You know we have Triple A, right?”

Yes. Yes, I did know that. I even organized my wallet recently and found the card.

“Do you need the AAA information?” she asked.

“Uh, no.”

And all that was before 8:00. I can’t wait to see what happens next.

UPDATE: The guys forgot to bring tools to the job, so I have to run to the job site with the tool bag. Did I mention that this is Tuesday, one of two days a week where I take the afternoon off so my wife can do what she needs to do (it’s impossible to get anything done with two babies at home.)

Productivity? Maybe Wednesday.

It’s a little weird that she posted that today because I was wondering that myself on the drive home last night. It’s a question I’ve asked myself numerous times in the last year or so. I didn’t ask that question very often in the previous 36 years or so, though, because the answer was, I thought, “definitely not.”

But lately? Yes, I believe I am. Am I not sure? I guess I’m not sure, primarily because for the longest time I wouldn’t have recognized happiness. Whatever this…”state”…is, though, it sure feels like happiness. Peace, certainly.

A good question. Are you happy? If you are, why? And if you are not, what might make you happy? And how much of what you are feeling — happy, or unhappy — is related to how aware you are of the blessings you have in your life.

I hate to admit it, but yes, my happiness is related to the blessings in my life. I have “stuff,” in both the material sense and in the “relational” sense. As in, I have a great wife and two astoundingly beautiful children. We have enough food and a cozy little house that will be the first home I’ve ever had after leaving my parents’ place that I’ll be sad to leave. (We rent, but our place is perfect for us — we no longer live in that permanent state of dislocation known as “apartment living.”) We even have two cars.

More than anything else, perhaps ironically, I’m happy because I’ve struggled. I’ve worked damn hard to accomplish what I have. I’ve been knocked down at least as many times as I’ve soared higher. In the last 3-4 years, I’ve put in more 15 hours days than I care to count, both doing brutal manual labor and stretching the limits of my mind to create a little business. All through that, I’ve tried — sometimes successfully, sometimes not so successfully — to be a good and available husband and father. I have new scars, vastly diminished sentimentality, and a lot more faith. Maturity? Maybe. I like to think of it as a lot less BS in my life.

Maybe that’s where the happiness comes from. If you downsize both in terms of possessions and bad ideas/bad thinking/rotten ideologies, get down to the bare necessities and the basics, you’ll naturally “feel lighter.” That’s how it worked for me. All that dead wood was burned away, leaving nothing left but me. “Me” needed a lot of work, but at least I wasn’t up to my eyeballs in a lot of other junk.

I dunno. I’m just happy. I have a simple life and a manageable level of BS. Life is good.

I know, I know. I’ve made promises before. I bet if I looked (and I won’t) I’d find the ratio of “I’ll try to blog more” posts to actual substantive posts is, shall we say, “skewed.” In my defense, here’s what I’ve been up to:

Mainly, building the business: www.MyTruckBuddy.com. Until recently, if I wasn’t devoting 16-20 hours per day on it, our only source of income, we’d have starved. Well, maybe we wouldn’t have starved — I never did rule out shaking a tin cup at some intersection — but it would have been tough. For one thing, I would have had to cancel my Internet access.

As it happens, starting a small business from scratch takes a lot of work. Had I known how much work, I probably would have mooched off my parents until I found a nice, decent, safe job. I’m not kidding. I wouldn’t have been proud of it, but my default activity in the shadow of crises has been to run and hide and hope the problem goes away. But, I was ignorant, and eventually I was pretty ticked off at getting knocked down, and I was stupid enough to keep throwing myself in traffic. The result: a fairly successful little business that is by no means finished, but at least pays the bills.

So, there’s that. There’s also the kids, Joseph and Kolbe. Joe is three now, and Kolbe is nine months. Same problem there: had I known how much kids are…

No, I wouldn’t have avoided kids. No way — especially after these years with them. But yeah, they take up a lot of time. A. LOT. OF. TIME.

I have been doing a little bit of blogging at the company’s “off-campus” blog. It’s mostly pointless drivel that attempts to drive up my page rank. So far: mission unsuccessful. Serves me right for trying to game Google.

What have I learned since my last post about a year ago? Oh, several things:

• Persistence pays off better than genius. Like I said before, the biz is a lot of hard work. My informal poll reveals that most successful business owners aren’t more intelligent or gifted than everyone else. In fact, they might be a little bit on the slow side because what makes them successful is their infuriating inability to stop after someone says “no.”
• Words are powerful. We’ll get into this a lot more, but it’s a scary realization. An off-the-cuff sarcastic remark, or a stupid little joke, or a random thought given voice can set off a chain of events that wound or cause people to do things you wish they wouldn’t.
• People will screw you any way they can — but you can’t expect them to. A German efficiency expert told me that, basically. When you expect to run into thieves and morons all day long, you will. The reason is so simple: we never make ourselves wrong. This goes along with “words are powerful.” What we say we tend to believe because we never make ourselves wrong. Likewise, if you expect people to be thieves and morons, (and vandals — more on that later, really!), every person you meet will be a thief, moron, vandal, whatever.

Et cetera.

So, however you came across this blog, stick around. More to come!

The wind broke the monotony a bit though. Instead of inch upon inch of new snow, today we got blizzard winds. They create some pretty neat snow dunes, though. You almost don’t mind the flesh-hardening shock of it when the wind slams into you.

Here’s a pic from a couple of days ago:

That’s back when it was just snow. Almost pleasant, isn’t it?

Normally I’d be thrilled with a few days off from work, but this is killing my bottom line. I’m going to be digging out of this hole for weeks. It’s amazing what a week off will do when you run the show. Amazing to me, anyway — I’m still a newbie at this game.

“T.!” I said.

“Sweetie!” she  replied.

It was the same woman who got us into our last apartment building. She’s some kind of rep for the parent company. Very cool chick, very nice. It was good seeing her again, even if she chided me for not networking with her. Hey, I’ve been swamped for nine months…

On the second job of the day, I ended up moving the couple into an apartment I’d moved someone else into. Kind of a sad situation, though — the previous tenants broke up and I was supposed to move him to a new place. We couldn’t get our schedules to sync up, though, so he kind of drifted away.

This is beginning to happen a lot now. Not only can I tell you what the loading docks are like for 99 percent of the city’s buildings, I know who lives in half of them. Is this success? Maybe. The U.S. Census Bureau ought to talk to me.

The problem is b.s., initially. I put the word out that I’m looking for some labor help, and I get 50-60 responses over about a week. Seventy-five percent of those will be from pre-literate guys, and while I’m not looking for Shakespeares here, it’d be nice to have guys at least attempt a coherent request for work from a new employer. Of those guys, about half of them will promise–swear, actually–that they’re the hardest-working men I’ve ever seen. One guy, usually a younger guy, inevitably sends his resume. Oy.

The remaining 25 percent will sound interesting, and I’ll respond to them. Of those, maybe ten or so guys will get back to me. Maybe three of the final guys will make the cut, and two of them will disappear after their first day on the job.

But, every now and then, I get lucky and find someone who’s eager to work, has good instincts, and cares for my customers’ belongings. That’s when the real training begins.

Unfortunately, I can’t just tell them how to do the bare-bones, boots-on-the-ground work. I’m writing the manual for the business right now, and that’s one of the hardest things I’ve done so far. The real training begins when they pick up their first dresser out on the job. Actually, the real training begins when we show up and I tell them to put their “jazz hands” on.

At least half of the job is grace and charm in the customer’s presence. At least half. If a guy is strong and careful, he has nothing to worry about. But a bad or even just aloof attitude can mean the difference between a big tip and a good review, or no tip and no review. Look at reviews for movers at Yelp.com sometime. It’s shocking how often people are put off by movers’ complaining. I’ve had a few of my guys cost me some money because they bitched about stairs.

Anyway, my June deadline for a fully automated business with multiple streams of income and several independently operating crews is looming, and I need to find some dudes. It’s tough work but someone (oh way–it’s me!) has to do it. Oy.

I spent a good chunk of the day flow-charting on this gigantic white board someone gave me during an office move. It’s bigger than most walls in my house, but I thought (rightly) that it would be a good tool to flesh out my random thoughts.

In the last two years I’ve re-worked the moving biz plan several times, usually going in a circular motion. There are several significant regulatory hurdles to overcome or comply with (at a not insignificant cost), but as I’m now grossing a decent amount every month, and, the relatively arbitrary Rubicon of the New Year has been crossed, it’s go-time. The hurdles are about to get jumped.

And I’m scared shitless. Pardon the French, but as I told my wife today, my body is going through what feels like a seared conscience. To the best of my knowledge, I haven’t done anything that would merit a seared conscience, but the phsyiological feelings (sorry, it’s late) are about the same. I’m so nervous that my hands are shaking, my thoughts are jumping all the fences, and I’m waiting for something to go horribly, horribly wrong. I think of this as a “light” blog — no particularly deep thoughts involved — but I have to confess this not-so-particularly-light sentiment: I feel like I’m about to die.

Crazy, isn’t it? I hope so. But that’s what it feels like. Remember that Seinfeld episode where George says he doesn’t think God would ever let him be successful? Jerry says “I thought you didn’t believe in God.” George replies that he does, but only for the bad stuff.

I’m about to push this business into a very serious, very potentially profitable place, and if all goes according to plan, it will probably get a lot more attention. Working as it has been “behind the scenes,” that scares the hell out of me.

Call it stage fright. Call it opening night jitters. Call it buck fever. Call it whatever you want, but I got it.

This is where I would normally throw in the towel and say I made a good effort. But I have a family, and if not for them, that’s exactly what I would do. However, since I’m responsible for the well-being of two, and soon to be three people, I have no choice but to take this little business to wherever it’s going to go.

I ran the numbers today. (About time, right?) By replicating what I do with four or so moving crews and taking a small percentage of their income as a referral fee, I’ll make…well, that wouldn’t be very polite of me, would it? Suffice it to say it’ll be comfortable. In the beginning, it’ll be hell, of course. I’ll be dealing with logistical complications that have made all my prior work seem like stacking my son’s blocks, but the potential payoff is well worth the effort.

I have until June. That’s when I need to be available for my wife and the kids. It’s not as though I’m totally unavailable right now, but unless things are well along by June, there’s no way I can maintain my current work schedule AND help out around here. I just can’t do it.

So, pressure’s on. It scares the hell out of me, but man, life has never been more exciting.