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Evening & Weekend Working
I would be interested in people’s thoughts on this one. We do jobs at all sorts of weird and wonderful times and wanted to know if others are the same.
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16 Replies
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I used to work 7 days but now I only work monday – friday. I now have a regular customer base who know that they can get me during normal working hours mon-fri and otherwise they get my answering machine.
Thing is, in my house I’m the only one who cooks, does the laundry, does most of the cleaning etc., so the weekends are my housework days. I have got to have time to be a mum too, if I work 7 days then I spend no time with Emily … that would be one thing I would regret in later life, not spending quality time with my only child! So that’s my reasons for 9 – 5.30 monday to friday hours.
Only on an extremely rare occassion for a regular customer will I break my rule.
I work to live, I don’t live to work. 😉
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How long did it take for the business to get to that stage Marcella?
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The first few years I took work on at anytime, fear of losing custom I think. But it was nothing more than a conscious decision not to do work at ridiculous hours. Usually if you say politely that weekends are your time off, they understand as that’s normally their time off too and that’s why their van is off the road!!! 9 times out of ten customers are OK with that. I haven’t lost a customer due to the fact that I would no longer do their work ‘out of hours’.
As I said I will on the odd occassion do a job for a regular who needs something urgently that goes into the evening or weekend. But not often.A few years ago I had a big job to do for Pearce Signs (when they were still on the go!!) it took 2 of us 14 days working from 8am to 2am to get it done on schedule. It was a lot of money …… but I was killing myself and swore I’d never do it again. I’d rather have a wee bit less in my pocket and more time to myself!
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I often find that I try to please my customers for there work and take time out of evenings and weekends to accommodate them a big mistake that I keep making. I for one should do exactly what Marcella say’s, she has hit the nail on the head.
Russ.
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i used to also work seven days a week….as companys were realising they could leave their vans at the weekend so it didnt distrupt their own work during the week 😕 fair enough but the kids wondered who i was…house like a tip, so no…i refuse to work weekends, unless its for a very special customer….i make enough money during the week 😉
nik
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we do jobs for customers at weekend,(if we keep them from working during the week they may not be able to pay us 😕 ) but if we do work over the weekend we can usally get a day off during the week, spect that’s how it is when you work for your self you have to decided how important your customer is to you.
Lynn
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I think we’ve all done it. Starting any business requires hard work, commitment and dedication but, just as importantly, we want it to be a success so we do what we have to. Fortunately, if we are even moderately successful, the necessity for weekend working goes away and it then becomes optional. Progressing further, after the initial enthusiasm has worn away, it takes more and more money to get us into work on a Saturday.
Well, that’s my experience anyway. 😀
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We do try to keep it to Monday – Friday as evenings and weekends we want to keep as family time with our kids. Although some jobs do require us to work in the evening or at the weekend ….. fair enough as long as we are getting paid we dont mind too much … we just dont make it a regular habit anymore like we did when we first set up.
😀
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I try to keep it to monday to friday, but because my work is in the tourism sector, I find a lot of work comes in late in the week for delivery by monday.
Also, I seem to get a lot more done if I work saturdays because the phone is not ringing all the time, and I can work away uninterupted.
I’ll work late into the evenings tho, if it means having the weekend off. Trouble is my parents are not young, and they both help me out when I’m really busy, so I’m conscious not to have them working too hard into the evening either.
keeping to a 5 day week is easier said than done for me tho 🙁
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Unlike everyone else I work more evenings and weekends than during the week! I’ve got two very young children (one not yet at school, and one in reception year), so I’ve not got much choice at the moment. It suits me because most people want their vans done at the weekend anyway, and hubby can look after the kids! I’m quite busy with t-shirts at the moment, so I usually quickly nip to the office to start cutting (checking it every so often), then I weed it all indoors (whilst trying to occupy kids), then I press them in the evening / weekend!
Nothing like a bit of juggling & multi-tasking!!
The little one starts school in September, so I’ll mainly just work during the week then, with the exception of school holidays (that’s the intention anyway)! -
I work whenever I have to. I much prefer working on busy streets on Sunday mornings when there are few people about. Don’t tell customers you work from home if you do. They’ll think it’s OK to ring you at all times of the day (and night!).
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I normally work Mon-Fri 8-5, but that’s just optimistic at best!
A few late nights a week depending on workload/how much I like a customer and a very, very rare Saturday / Sunday.
I just work when I need to, and never leave a job half done – so that can mean the very odd 10/11 pm finish by the time I’m back home if it’s been a long drive (eg. Glasgow area) or if a deadline delivery that has been dropped on me at short notice is worth enough money!
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Well, my Mon-Fri 8-5 WAS optimistic. Me & ‘young apprentice’ got out of here at 11 last night, and that was early as I couldn’t face it any longer!
Been working on MY works van. Had to keep it in ‘the corporate style’, but has a little room for manouver. Will post the results when I get it completed. (No laughing now!)
Dave
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i work when i have to ! i like working in the evening, even weekends don’t worry me,
i have my kids from thursday to tuesday every other week, so very often it means five days of little or no productive work, so i just make it up on the rest of my time, i probably have too much free time anyways !
being a new business, and being on my own, work is still a little erratic, i might have a week of design, a week or two of jobs, and another week of looking for new work, but there’s always big gaps that could do with filling, i think that’s why fishing was invented !!! still, fishing has it’s good points too, just finishing off another job for a tackle shop !!
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Work work work all days, all hours, starting to show now, people saying " you look tired". I have actually stopped taking orders now as it was just getting silly, and people were getting peeved at waiting a wee while for their signs.
Need to get my life back
Dave
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Having spent years running round at all hours fitting signs using car headlights it is now Mon-Fri 9-5..
With the exception of Exhibition work.
There is more to life than Work …..
One of the things that really used get my goat was when a custome asked if we could fit graphics on their van on a Sunday as it was the only day they had off!!!!
Me too Mate!!cheers
Ian
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