20 years ago

[EZ]

Talk to a full time sawyer today, well he talk to me. Said he has a full time business about 30 miles from me. Said he heard about me and wanted to know if I wanted to come and mill for him. I would have to use my own mill and saw railroad ties and pallet wood. $.15 bf for the ties and $.20 bf for the pallet wood. A contract would be made up for a year and I could saw 7 days a week if I wanted to. They would load logs on my mill and all I would have to do is saw. ;D I pay for my own blades.
As much as I like to saw I just cant leave my day job. What an opporturnity.
EZ

[Tom]

Not just trying to make you feel better, Ez, but I had that same thing happen to me about 6 years ago and I turned it down.

I'm glad I did.  I would have lost the custom sawing business I have built and would have gotten myself back into the punching-a-clock schedule.   I would have also had a boss, that I've found out later, I would not have enjoyed working for. He's one to yell and cuss his help, find fault at every turn, micro manage every operation and pass out unsigned checks and other stunts to gain time to move his money around.

If the guy's company is stable, he will be there when you need him and so will the deal, I'll bet.  If you thinkyou might like that kind of work, he would probably entertain your doing it part-time  (as in weekends).  That would let you both know if it will work.

Each to his own, but I'm glad I didn't do it.  I've enjoyed the independence of being my own boss and the opportunity to service so many good people too much.  It's not important to many, but, I get a thrill when I'm driving my rig down a dirt road 75 miles from home and have folks honking and waving from recognition rather than just the "folksy" wave that is common in rural America.  Yee hI-i-i !  It makes me feel important.

[EZ]

I agree with you ,Tom. Even tho I'm still thinking about it. ;D The very first thing I thought about was messing up my business. I really enjoy the people I meet at different jobs. 20 years ago I would have jump on it in a second to get out of the shop. ;)
Thanks
EZ

[etat]

EZ, when I first started my businessI would get  calls from high production, low quality house builders that wanted me to do all thier work. The type of contractors that skimp on material, labor, quality, and anything else they can.  It would have been steady pay but they would have been calling all the shots.  I declined, even though sometimes at first I could have used the work.  I LIKE going out and meeting different people and trading with individual homeowners and with the few higher end contractors I work for.  Today I have no regrets.

[Percy]

Ill echo Toms sentiments on this on EZ. I got a 'contract" cutting job about two months after I got my first mill and worked at it all summer of 97. Made close to 10 G's amonth cutting for the now defunct sawmill here in town. The money was great and the people were pretty decent as well but the flavor was completely different than what I am/you are doing now(controling all the company strings). At the time I did this, I had just been bamboozzeld outa 20,000 by the same company I went contract cutting for(long story but I was being paid in advance via certified check). Anyhow, I made a little over 40,000 in 4 months and hated every miniute of it.

An alternative would be to make up your own contract saying Ill supply you(this tie company) with so many ties a month(whatever you think you can do without jeopardizing your current business). This way you can test the water, keep your day job, and fill in extra time cutting for this tie fella AND keep your current customers as long as you dont over extend yourself. If you are like me though, you work better with a deadline.
Good luck on whatever you decide.
Later
Percy ;D

[oakiemac]

I'm doing the contract sawing thing right now. $.2/bdft for pallet stock.
I can understand people not wanting to do this kind of work, but I don't understand the comments about not being your own boss. I come and go when I want and I move the mill to other custom jobs then back again when I'm done. I feel that I have more lee way working this way then cutom sawing.
Plus for me it works out good because I get paid half in logs which helps tremendously in my fledgling lumber buisness.

How is this "punching the clock"? When you custom saw, you have to be at the cutomers site at a certain time and stay until done-all around some one elses schedule. This is why some day I wont do portable custom milling. That day will come when the mill and other equipment is paid for.

[Tom]

Because, when I work for a sawmill or pallet mill, they expect me there everyday.  The volumes demand it, in their eyes.  To treat them as another custom sawing customer is ok of you can do it.  But, my experience is that they get the idea that they exist so that you can have a job.  They are purely production minded and could care less that you might have other customers.   They have "office" hours and you are expected to abide by them.  You get a check once a week rather than the end of a job because they have a payroll system.   That's about as close to "punching-a -clock" as you can get without actually giving yourself up to them totally.

My portable custom sawing is done on my schedule with an effort to fit into my customer's schedule.  I call, and if they arent' ready, call someone else. I leave the house at 8am because "I'm" not ready to leave before then.  I usually get on a customers site between 8:f30 and 9 and saw till they want to quit. When they suggest that I could have sawn more if I had been there at daybreak, I hold the key up and say "The store opens when I get here."  That is usually in jest because my customers welcome the early morning hours to get their "chores" done.

I get to meet and work with fine people all day, different people from week to week and cut varying species of trees into a myriad of different products.  I have my name written in the top of barns and houses.  I have pictures of my sawmill hanging on the walls of homes all over the area.  I get waved at and recognized in some of the darnest places.  

If I don't want to work, I don't have to because I'm in charge.  Not being the kind to shirk work, it happens seldomly, but, sometimes I just want to take off.   Moultry's Ag Expo is a good example.  I also went to the Pig Roast in Michigan and my Brother's birthday party and Grand neice's baptism in Minnehaha.  I didn't have to ask permission from anyone.

If you can treat a job at a production mill as if it were a custom customer and stay in control of your business, then it isn't a bad gig.  I've just found that they have a tendency to think that they own you.

[Minnesota_boy]

Part of the decision on this depends on who needs who the worst.  If you need the job so badly that you have to accept the conditions they offer, you just bought yourself a clock to punch.  If they need you badly enough to accept your terms, then you are in control.  Always get it in writing.  When you work for the man doing custom cutting, it's a contract.  Oral contracts may be fine most of the time, but if you have to go to court the written contract will be way more valuable.  Even if you don't go to court, the written contract is pretty valuable as if you are asked to do more than you contracted for, you can just dig out the paper and say "show me the clause or show me the money" and the writing on the paper doesn't fade nearly as fast as the boss' memory.

[oakiemac]

Well I come and go as I please. I just mill for them in between other jobs and milling for myself. To me this isn't a punch the clock situation.  Although I'm sure they would like me there more often, but I told them for the get go that was how it had to be and they have not complained.
Although cutting cants is not particularly exciting, it does help pay the bills.

[Percy]

Heya Oakiemac.
Sounds like you have the ideal contract job. They signed yours instead of you, theirs. You are lucky ;D to have that job. If I had one like that, Id be grinnin like a kid in a candy store.

The  contract job I did in 97  was pretty stringent. I couldnt move the mill to clean under it without permission, had to cut stuff for upper management, that wasnt on the cutting program...it was tense to say the least. I needed the money back then so I put up with it. Just left a bad taste in my mouth.

[EZ]

I decided to stay where I'm at. I ask him if he could bring the logs down here and he said it would be to costly, which I understand. He wanted or would like to have 4 to 6 thous bf sawn in a wk, which I can do that but no more custom sawing.
EZ