Decommissioned clothing stores, pickle ball courts, a little rapture and some plumbing plans – the juxtaposition of a project is where the magic is. Ok, maybe these aren’t all of our tools but they are part of someone’s and we’re happy to help build the dream… or at least supply hot water to them.
Coming Along...
We're making some progress on this one! Building a factory!!!
Digging
Anthony on the Job:
Sometimes the main line just happens to be in the bathroom… so we have to do some digging. And excavating… here’s some random things found on a dig ... the depths of Seattle!
Nate's sidekick
One of the prime working positions catching up on jobs at home.
We have a home office but it’s hard to hold your cat at you desk. And this cat can’t get enough of him. (Neither can I.)
Somehow he manages to accomplish a lot of things at once.
Who doesn’t want to multi-task with a cat?
Anthony, new guy!
Anthony is one of our new guys we hired out of a trade school last summer. He’s super helpful and talented and on his way to being an amazing plumber. We couldn’t do the work we do without our amazing apprentices. Everyone starts somewhere and in 4 years Anthony is on track to being a certified commercial plumber. And by working with us he’ll do plumbing most plumbers only dream of.
Thanks for being part of the team, Anthony.
Back at Parker Services
I’m back working at Parker Services but still coaching a few people on topics related to life and business.
Most of the people I coach are trying to start or grow a business and many people ask me how to be an entrepreneur. And at this point I’ll stop pretending like I can’t answer the question, because I do believe it’s possible for all of us to figure it out.
So, if you want a business, here’s some advice...
Tell great stories about yourself to yourself, know what you deliver and to who (whether broad or narrow), always do your best, never take no for an answer if you know it’s possible, know your #s, respect your team, apologize quickly, and mean it, be honest with yourself and LOVE your work and clients. The rest is gravy.
PS: I decided to focus on one business instead of two so I could have more time for being a wife, a mom, a daughter, a friend and spend as much time as I could traveling, having fun and living. So far it’s working.
Job Walks
Macy... contemplating a future restaurant.
Job walks with this guy are one of my favorite parts of the week! He’s thoughtful, intelligent and a damn good plumber. It’s so great to have an estimator who know the ins and outs of the field and what it takes to get the work done.
Macy – thanks for being so amazing.
Nobody wanted to know this...
Ok, this is disgusting. Honestly, I read this and now you can read it. And now I am going to just forget that I read it, but I am definitely lowering all toilet seats from now on.
Rockstar Plumber!
This guy is a rock star! I barely need to say more… but I will. David is the OG of our employees. He’s thoughtful, smart and if he’s on your jobsite you can be assured you have one of the top plumbers in Seattle working for you. I love visiting him on job sites and learning what he’s up to.
Plus plumbing a factory in Georgetown is pretty fun…especially doing another amazing job for BMDC.
The Wrong Faucet?
The face we make when we ask ourselves, why did we install this?
One of the ways we help our clients is by calling out crappy fixtures BEFORE they get installed. We consider it our job to know and pass it on to the contractor and client.
The contractor or customer might think they’re saving a little money going for a faucet that is $50 cheaper but the headache of it breaking isn’t worth the cost of all the humans you have to pay to fix it and deal with it.
We’ve learned this from years of installation. This mop sink faucet that had too many issues to count and was one that we should have called out and explained to the contractor that the brand was a POS out of the gate - we should have just said - don’t install that.
Next time we will because we’re all learning. And the biggest thing that we can do is make sure it doesn’t happen again.
So if you are installing a mop sink faucet, just start with T&S brass brand. 🙂