Our Vacation Begins

We are done…finished…completed our assignment…YEA! There were good points, bad points and many in between but for an overall opinion…it was great!

It’s hard work with long hours…6 days x 12 per day…most other lots do not give you a day off…this place has “rovers”, a management team that goes to each of his other lots to relieve management for a day, unfortunately, the wrong people were in this position and left a few weeks back. This sort of lifestyle is not for everyone…they tried but just could not manage to hang in there. We have found in this lifestyle that the only way to survive is to be flexible…this is not “our” company and if the boss chooses to do things his way then so be it…we change our ways and do it his way, whether it makes sense or not. They could not do this…they wanted to change and fix the way he does business…he has been in business for many years and this was their first time, not only at a Christmas tree lot but on a Workamping job. So, they left which left us without a day off for a few weeks…not so bad since the entire assignment only lasted 30 days and we did get two days off in the middle of it all.

We hired a great group of guys that made our lives so much easier, we did have a few that we had to let go that had been coming back for several years but continued to choose goofing off over working, this does not sit well with us. We expect our employees to do their job and in return we give them respect and a fun environment. We knew the few that would be with us to the end almost from day one and we were right. These few guys gave their all and then some…we appreciate each of their efforts and would recommend them for any future work.

We had electricity, real electricity, not off a generator…we did have water…but the sewage is pumped out weekly…which is not so bad but we still have to ration showers and dishes since we do not have huge tanks, not truly what we consider full hookups but it was better than what most other lots offered.

The weather in Pleasanton is cold, damp and foggy for the most part…November days in the 50 to 60 range and nights down to the 30 to 40 range…very moist. In November we only had one rain day but once December came, the rain and frigid temperatures were more consistent. We are complete sissy’s when it comes to cold but it has been below normal as most folks are telling us and with this weather change, business tapered off.

This change made for many long days and even longer nights without selling many trees. We had been put on a slow lot since it was our first time doing this and in the future we would definitely ask for a busier lot, knowing we could handle it. It was fun learning something new and we would consider doing the Christmas Tree lots in the future.