I'd Rather Be the Fisherman

After 16 years in this business my goals went from getting a good job in the trades to turning Streamline Craftsman into an remodeling enterprise.  Not sure if that is the male ego in me or if having a successful company sounded fun, but nonetheless this is what I have been steering Streamline towards.  And frankly having great success in doing so.  It's amazing how quickly it's grown!

The industry is booming right now and its actually pretty crazy to see.  Most of us in this business have struggled a great deal over the past 5 years.  People calling around begging for work, myself included at times.  And now things are so busy even finding good labor is difficult!  Anyone that can actually do good work is doing just that, but on their own.  My school of thought has always been never say no.  If work comes your way take it!  Ill figure out a way to get it done.  So this year I have been a yes man per usual and before I knew it I had 4 jobs going on at once.  I now am running around all day meeting with clients, managing workers and delivering materials.  Then I come home and handle the admin side of things.  It's tiring but I was focused on getting through this because I wanted to reach my goal of running my "enterprise".  

As I lie awake every night, unable to sleep, thinking about my days and weeks to come, I always felt hollow.  Like something was missing.  It took awhile for me to realize what it was but finally while having a stress filled venting session to my lovely gal I said: "I'm not having fun.  I got into this business because I enjoy it and THIS, I do not enjoy".  I love working on homes and providing quality craftsmanship.  It was then I noticed that I personally hadn't started and finished an actual project with my own two hands in months!  That rant inspired Jess to tell me the story of The Fisherman and the Businessman by Paulo Coelho.  

I was working double time so that I could relax one day.  But does that day ever come?  Am I ever going to be satisfied with the business?  Does it one day just get easier?  Will I live long enough to ever enjoy the "good life"?  Because I feel I have aged 10 years just in these past 3 months!  I had a extremely skilled master craftsman working for me last year.  He was striving to be the businessman and worked night and day to get there.  At 46 years old his heart stopped in his sleep.  The world will no longer get to benefit from his abilities......  Do I run that same risk if I keep this up?  We can't answer questions like these but we can ask ourselves what we really, really want.  Not what we are trained to want, but what we truly want.

I want to provide excellent craftsmanship and customer service.  I want to challenge my abilities and use my creativity to give my clients one of a kind remodels.  I want to continue my new found passion for building furniture.  I want to live, be healthy and be able to appreciate what I have daily, not just in hindsight.  I want, to be the fisherman.  Hell, I was the fisherman!  I just didn't understand what I had and I left his ass at the docks while I pursued "bigger and better" things.   

The quality of work we provide is unmatched and I am lucky that people are willing to wait for our services.  So from now on Streamline will be taking one project on a time at a time and focusing all our energy on making that job AMAZING.  Now those clients will get ALL my attention rather than the dazed looking, mind in 15 other places, needs a drink guy they have been getting.  I still have a busy summer ahead of me but I look forward to getting my hands dirty and creating again!  

I promise my next blog will be less deep!  

Suburban life ain't what it seems

Maybe I have been lucky in my life but minus an evil lady when I was in high school, I have always had nice neighbors.  Or at the very least ones that kept to themselves and let me do the same.

Day one in our new home almost went off without a hitch.  We began demo of the flooring and kitchen.  Jess found a love for power tools and new respect of what I do for a living.  Our fencing materials also arrived.  See, we live on a corner lot where our house is set back.  This gives us a large front yard but a smaller backyard that corners up to the backyards of our side neighbors.  Since one of our biggest draws of moving to the burbs was having a fenced in yard for our dogs, I planned to waste no time on building one in our backyard.

While the fencing was being unloaded I got to meet my first neighbor.  Out of the corner of my eye I see a man walking up to me.  Mid 40's with signs of oddness in his eyes.  I turn to look at him with a smile on my face only to hear "Let me see your permit".  Point blank.  I respond by saying "Hi, my name is Mark and I am your new neighbor".  Thinking that he may just assume I am the contractor and not the owner.  He looked shocked at first.  Shook my hand, said nice to meet you and then said "I need to see your permit for this fence."  Against my instincts I calmly state I don't need a permit to have something delivered sir but when I get my permit I would be happy to show it to you if it would help you sleep at night.  This seemed to appease him so we moved on to regular new neighbor small talk/interrogations.  Me being the criminal in this scenario.  

After some discussion I learned that he likes the "country" feel of our backyards.  Country feel?  Oddly enough this is the very feel we want to block with our fence.  We just didn't have a name for it yet.  Apparently "country" means unkept yards, broken down above ground pools, a blue elephant statue laying on its side and moomoo's drying on a cloths line.  For the most part, although odd, our remaining talks were fine all things considered.  But I have a feeling this is the calm before the storm.  And this calm kinda freaked me out.  

This fence would be for our dogs more than us, so after discussions with Tank and Sneaky, majority rules. Its 4-1 and a fence WILL be erected!  Regardless of it being a Beverly Hillbilly's ambiance killer.