My worst job was being a landscaper for a summer. The work itself wasn't too bad bad. The problem was in my employer and my own stupidity.
We worked 7:30am-6pm sometimes he would keep us as late as seven and not pay any extra. When we went home at six I had to drop everyone off then park the company van so I really got off at 7 or 8. Lunch lasted about ten minutes at best, and other than that we had no official break. In the end I made a total of about 9.50/hr. I would also use my own vehicle and tools several times a week.
The guy complained that we didn't do a good job. He was correct in that because we were simply over-worked. He did 52 houses per week with 2 guys. All of the houses were a minimum of 3 acres. Instead of doing all the houses on a road the same day he would have us go back on two differant days wasteing time, etc. We were expected to cut the grass, edge everything, remove any debris from the lawn, clean the driveways, weed the beds, and break up the soil in the beds. In order to finish all the houses me and the other guy would do a quick, lousy job. To make things better he wouldn't maintain our equipement. He refused to buy greese for the lawnmower and when they broke as a result he'd just take them off the truck which further slowed work down. Now I see other landscapers with more guys then us doing less than half the houses in a week.
Basically we busted our butts for this guy and made him a ton of money (I know how much he made). We were severley underpaid and overworked. Then to top it off he still owes me $600 from year ago. Meanwhile he owns 2 Ferraris, 2 Fiats he had restored, a new fully loaded diesel ford pickup, a new navigator, a wrangler, a roll off, a dump truck, just bought a new box van, bought a 900k apartment building, sold a yard he had for a million, and owns two houses totaling about 1.6 million. But he cries poverty and won't pay me. Driveing that van around, being in charge of most of his buisness, useing my personal car and tools I should have been making 15-20 an hour but I didn't know that then.
I was stupid and should have quit but for some reason I didn't.
We worked 7:30am-6pm sometimes he would keep us as late as seven and not pay any extra. When we went home at six I had to drop everyone off then park the company van so I really got off at 7 or 8. Lunch lasted about ten minutes at best, and other than that we had no official break. In the end I made a total of about 9.50/hr. I would also use my own vehicle and tools several times a week.
The guy complained that we didn't do a good job. He was correct in that because we were simply over-worked. He did 52 houses per week with 2 guys. All of the houses were a minimum of 3 acres. Instead of doing all the houses on a road the same day he would have us go back on two differant days wasteing time, etc. We were expected to cut the grass, edge everything, remove any debris from the lawn, clean the driveways, weed the beds, and break up the soil in the beds. In order to finish all the houses me and the other guy would do a quick, lousy job. To make things better he wouldn't maintain our equipement. He refused to buy greese for the lawnmower and when they broke as a result he'd just take them off the truck which further slowed work down. Now I see other landscapers with more guys then us doing less than half the houses in a week.
Basically we busted our butts for this guy and made him a ton of money (I know how much he made). We were severley underpaid and overworked. Then to top it off he still owes me $600 from year ago. Meanwhile he owns 2 Ferraris, 2 Fiats he had restored, a new fully loaded diesel ford pickup, a new navigator, a wrangler, a roll off, a dump truck, just bought a new box van, bought a 900k apartment building, sold a yard he had for a million, and owns two houses totaling about 1.6 million. But he cries poverty and won't pay me. Driveing that van around, being in charge of most of his buisness, useing my personal car and tools I should have been making 15-20 an hour but I didn't know that then.
I was stupid and should have quit but for some reason I didn't.
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