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08-02-2020, 10:07 PM | #11 | |
Supporter
Join Date: Apr 2007
Location: Scott City KS
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Quote:
I'm pretty efficient. I've removed virtually all the non-value added activities from my workload. As far as the structure, there is my farm, dad's farm and a couple other ancillary entities that don't matter. I have some operations and dad has some operations that we pay each other for. In 2019 he had a full time and a part time dude working for him and I had none. I reimbursed him for the little bit of labor they did on me. 2019 had a bunch of weird shit. First and foremost Dad's fulltime and partime guys were shit they barely did anything, meanwhile dad and I were killing ourselves. Second, I crammed a fairly big system change in our operation in the winter, which typically I work fewer hours. So that added a lot of hours to a normally slow time. Third, the spring was goddamned wet. That did 2 things, 1, allowed us to move a lot of acres to fall crops that we hadn't planned on, which really stacked up a bunch more work in an already busy timeframe. So much so that I hired out some acres to go under one of my machines. Great way to NOT make money, but it is what needed to happen. Then when it came time to roll, it stayed wet, further compressing the busy timeframe. So I worked my ever loving ass off. Fourth, I made some agronomic changes that needed some additional management to incorporate properly, because we hadn't done them before. As far as moving forward, That shitheel guy isn't around anymore. The part time guy is now full time, and his work is better, but he wants a lot of time off. So the answer is obviously to hire more employees. But that's a tough ask in my part of the world. Everybody has labor problems it seems like and objectively, a lot of places can pay more than I can. Labor management will be pretty big moving forward as dad slows down. Also, margins are ass. So it's difficult to make structural decisions which will further erode my already shit margins, which in 2020 are certainly going to be negative. And I'm pretty efficient. I already eliminated most every non-value added activity from my life. Dad and his guy do some piddly shit, but I don't. I GTFO if I'm caught up. There are also some functions that lend itself to screwing up my life, most importantly is irrigation, but I push the structure pretty hard, which puts me out there at 3 AM or whenever it needs swapping. But I'm doing it because it pays compared to the alternatives. So I do it. I run the numbers pretty studiously, so I continually evaluate operations and am not afraid to make systemic changes. All that being said, I'm not burned out. I make time for my kids, and my wife does a good job of bringing them out when they can. Overall, I'm pretty happy. I'm also pretty self-aware and can objectively analyze my mental state. It's not what I should be doing almost certainly, and definitely wouldn't be if I could secure higher level labor, but it's not in the cards and it's what I'm doing. Well shit, I just looked at my payroll and I've already worked 2100 hours. I'll for sure be over 3000, but hopefully I can keep it around 3200 and under the 3700 I did last year. |
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