Aka_Hobbes
11-01-2016, 09:53 PM
So recently I decided to quit my job and start my own business, and its going well. Im currently in the process of getting all of the legal aspects of running a business together, such as insurance and what not, and thats stressful, but its nothing I cant handle. The money is amazing, so it balances out. The issue im having is with hiring my father. Now dont get me wrong, hes great at what he does, but I personally think im better. Its not a competition, and it doesnt have anything to do with ego, its purely an issue from the standpoint of being a business owner. I have certain standards that I uphold, and his just arent up to par. Being the business owner everything rests on my shoulders, its my name being paraded around, so if something goes wrong I have to take the blame. Not only can I not blame it on my father, because hes my father, but I cant blame it on my employees period, because either way it goes im the one to blame. Im the one who chose my employees and decided they were good enough to let loose on peoples homes. So if something goes wrong its ultimately my fault, because im the one who decided my employees were skilled enough to do the job. The problem is ive done a lot of work with my dad in the past, but all of that was under his name, they were his jobs, so I just focused on what I had to do. I never paid as much attention to his work as I do now. And hes the one that taught me everything I know, so of course I hired him right off the bat, but after working with him for some time now ive noticed a lot of the work he does isnt as good as it should be. He doesnt pay attention to detail, which is very important being a painter. I could go into detail with his lack of detail, but the point is almost everything he does I have to go back and touch up. He misses things, or gets paint on stuff he shouldnt, or one of my biggest annoyances, he'll try to save time by not prepping something off or by cutting corners, which only makes whatever it is were doing take longer because I have to go back and fix it. So not only is that costing me time and money, but it makes me look unprofessional, which in turn causes me to lose clients, and therefore lose money. Its very frustrating because I dont advertise, all of the work I do is by word of mouth. Before I hired him I had plenty of work, im a perfectionist so everything I do looks amazing when its done. Not to mention I do everything in the right order and I dont cut corners, so the job gets done in less time, which enables me to be able to charge the customer less money. So when a client would talke about me before they would tell people how good of a job I did, how fast I did it, and how cheap it was. I dont want to charge people more money because being cheaper gets me more jobs, but now its taking me more time to do the job since I have to go back and fix all my dads work. Im really at a crossroads here because so far I havent had the heart to tell him his work is shit, and I dont want to have to fire him, so I just dont know what to do. Ive tried dropping hints here and there, and sometimes I do get frustrated and say something, but I havent actually seriously told him how much of an issue I have with his quality of work, and whenever I do say something he just brushes it off. For instance, the job we just finished was an exterior, it was half brick and half siding. The customer wanted the brick painted, and I specifically told him to make sure he backrolls the brick when he sprays it, it helps make sure the paint gets into every crack and crevice. Backrolling is basically using a roller to push in all the paint while youre spraying it, so normally someone would be spraying, and another person would be right behind them with a roller. On this particular job I didnt want to hire someone else so I just did it with him, but I had to go bid a job so I left him there to keep working. When I came back he was finished spraying, and I assumed he had backrolled so I went about my normal work day. The next day after we had already cleaned out the sprayer and did all the touch ups and packed up all our tools I noticed there were little spots all over the brick that were missed. I asked him if he had backrolled and he said he didnt need too, that he just sprayed the paint on heavy so it would cover. This is one of those instances I was telling you about where he tried to save time. Since I already had the sprayer at a different job I had to go through and roll out all the brick on the entire house, which takes so much longer when you dont do it as you spray the house, because now you have to carry your paint around with you and dunk your roller every couple of feet instead of just using the paint as it was getting sprayed on. This took all day long as it was a very big house owned by a millionaire. As if that wasn't bad enough, when I told him I had to backroll it all he just scoffed and blamed it on the sprayer, so not only is his work shit but hes completely oblivious to it even when I call him out. The sprayer works fine, it sprayed the rest of the house just fine, and its spraying the house im working on now just fine. Its one of the best sprayers money can buy, and its brand new! Aside from losing time and money, im also losing out on potential clients because of him, and the stress from it all is getting to be too much. I can't afford to be losing out on so much time, money, and business when im trying to start up a business. He doesnt understand that he needs to pay more attention to detail, and I dont have the heart to fire him because hes my dad, and also my number 1 supporter, so I dont know what to do. I guess I just wanted to vent, but if anyone has any advice itd be much appreciated. I have a biased opinion because hes my father, so to hear input from an outsiders point of view could really help.