A reflective moment

I have looked at that pile of debris for 3 days.  Today…..

My morning started off with a call from the owner of the company I partnered with on the Houston job, 07:42 to be exact.  

Where the F@$& are your guys? We aren’t very PC around here.  We still cuss, and there is definitely a hierarchy. I listened, then said, it’s still early.  The next statement was a surprise, “we agreed to start tomorrow at 07:00”.  

So…. I hung up and started making calls.  I did not raise my voice, the calm in my voice made it all the worse for the parties on the other line.  

When you say you will start at 07:00, that means you get there for 06:30. When you are working and I am not there, you represent me, and your actions reflect more than you think.  Let me be very f’ing clear, you will work today until David says stop.  

After that call I drove to to Fort Worth to purchase materials.  When I got back on site, I saw the debris, I then took this picture. 

I called my supervisor and calmly stated, come meet me at the site.  I pointed to the debris, pointed to the dumpster then spoke.  I had a dumpster delivered on Sunday, that debris has not moved since Saturday, it is Tuesday…. This is not how I run my business.  

We had an easy talk, he has seen me go off on people before. The fact that I was calm, made the meeting even more serious.  It needed to happen.  I also told him to get rid of one of the guys, I just don’t like him.  

Here is the thing about running crews, there is one HMFIC, I am that MF’er.  The way this guy carries himself rubs me wrong.  I just get a bad feeling about him, I see violence, I decided to put an end to it before it gets there.  This work is still savage.  Throwing fists is always right under the surface, a quiet underlying tension.  

I secretly love it, the idea that at any moment I could be throwing fists either bleeding or causing someone else to bleed.  This behavior would never fly in the corpotrate world I used to inhabit.  Perhaps that is why I had to leave, perhaps I was the aggressor.  

I have read stories about great leaders, and their almost ruthless pursuit to build their companies.  I am a firm believer in FAFO.  I now have 2 leutenants, I want them to lead with an iron fist and a laser focus on quality.  Building a company from the ground up is not easy, it is a battle, and every day you have to be willing to draw blood.

I know this is not my usual positive message.  I did not want yall to think that I went soft.