3 weeks with no days off. Or is it 4? 5? Who the hell knows. I do know however it’s at least over 3 months where 70+ hour weeks have just become so normal that the numb feeling above the shoulders blends into the same mundane mood the body portrays on a daily basis….limping and whinging as we stumble down the road ahead whilst telling ourselves we should be thankful for being so busy, there are plenty who aren’t.

Which of course, we are, but that isn’t to say my old body isn’t getting tired, along with the few braincells that still output some semblance of stability starting to spark failures.

Thanks to government incentives, effectively throwing money back into the general persons pockets (one could say lowering taxes *cough*), whilst cutting a little of the red tape and letting business go as hard as they can to try and limit what was seen as a devastating pandemic, turning it into a “possible” economic recovery…..from the GFC in 2008!

Yes, I said that correctly….2008. Maybe my mind is a little too analytical at the expense of common sense, but if you wish to have a further conversation on this topic, a concreter’s blog isn’t the place to do so.

Let’s just say, I’m noticing changes that “could” help re-adjust the inflation and wage disparity caused by the 2008 GFC, and bring things more in line with how the every day person lives their lives.

But I digress…

Since rebuilding after 2008 myself, I had a focus in mind for what I wanted to acheive with the business and we’re slowly making progress towards that. I have an end goal in mind, of staying small and providing quality, customised hardscape services to residential clientelle throughout South East Queensland.

My end game? Nothing but high end, decorative concrete, epoxy and overlay installations, booked steadily for 4-6 months at a time.

Whether we get there or not is one tale to tell, which we will only read about through constant and consistent hard work and dedication to our trade, projects and clients. We shall not fail this section through lack of trying hard enough.

But, in the mean time, we also need to tread carefully on the cobblestone road, because although it is paved, it is easy to stumble and slip in the joints when we’re too tired to take notice of the little things, the minor details that will cause a trip and take us backwards from our future.

After over 3 months without a break, we are now looking to take a small, 10-14 day “reset” away from work. We have clients and projects booked in until January now and we completely appreciate your bookings and your trust to have us complete your work, but, without a reset when we are exahusted, we will find ourselves (at times), tripping over the smaller details and not fully appreciating the workmanship that has gone into building the road in the first place.

We understand that some of our near future clients have been waiting patiently for us to start their projects. We also completely thank you for understanding that we need a break. If you can have just a little more patience, we promise to deliver to you a great piece of workmanship that is not only worth the wait, but that you can trust will remain that way for years to come.

We have about another week of work left before heading off (weather permitting). We will inform all of you as we make the decision and we thoroughly look forward to starting your project as soon as the brain (and body), have received a reset.

Cheers guys and chat soon.

I’m sitting here on yet another “Saturday” night without you (actually Friday but I like that song), my daughter. I’m meant to be able to spend time with you on weekends at least these days. Even if just for a few days each week, at least it’s something for one of the few people in this world I actually give a fuck about. But it’s been so long since I’ve seen you, three months, feels like a lifetime……

But I understand. Covid has you worried and your mother moved so far away it’s hard…..I’ll be patient. I have no choice.

I do miss you though, with all my heart. Even just to be in the same house as each other, warmed my heart and calmed me. Not much else in this world has let me be at ease, but having you close by, has always made me feel full, complete.

After I found out my girlfriend was pregnant, I was completely shocked to say the least. I mean, I know very well what unprotected sex leads to, I’m not a complete fool…..but when it happens at the dumbshit age of 23, it comes as quite an eye opener. I’m fresh back from Warranbool playing in the Hamptons League in Western Victoria following my 3rd knee injury, met the girl of my dreams (at the time) and one thing leads to another…..

I guess this kicked me into gear a little bit. I come from a family that swings to the right and is business orientated to the small to medium degree, so I guess I just followed my path laid out before me by my role models as I assumed everything should happen.

“Mother holds the child, Father holds the family”.

Fuck me! How much is that proverb completely out of fashion and almost sounds like rythmic swearing in the modern age?

Either way, this is the only path that I saw before me. I would put everything into my new business while my partner held our child.

But given the modern age, equality between sexes, political correctness and all that new age jibberish that a bush kid struggles to understand…….that old age adage just does not ring true anymore.

I spent four years at this stage, working like a dog. 70+hrs a week. Running a crew as all good dads should. Pushing. Striving. Defiant. Only to run into a dead end and be bitch slapped by the GFC. Fuck you bankers, you very well knew what you were doing. Shame on you.

Unpaid invoices. Insolvency. No money left after paying my men. Payment plans to no evail. Broke…..

But worse than all that? I lost you. My young, new family was broken. Your mother and I, we’re adults and we’ll manage. But your little face shadowing my every step in that amazing little fairy costume…..just brought me to tears.

After all the smoke cleared and the bankruptcy took place. Your mother and I split with an arrangement for a 50/50 split on what we would provide you. Not just money, but time, effort and everything else involved….we BOTH, wanted the best for you in a bad situation.

I said at this stage I would never put working 70+hrs  a week ahead of spending time with my daughter again. My one and only daughter. My light in this dark sub-conscience state of mind where nothing else shines so brightly. I spend the next 3 years of my mandatory bankruptcy dedicating myself to giving myself to my daughter, as much as I could, while learning again, how to be a father.

Not long after this, your mother wanted to move away. She had found someone else and sought an opportunity away from the horrific Gold Coast that had tainted so much of our family in the past. But I refused. I refused to let you go. I refused to let you move away from a dad who was trying his hardest to be a “good” dad. I’d tell myself mothers don’t pull thier child away from thier father if the father wants to be there, trying to be good and do the right thing.

With my definance, that I’ve always had, I held on tight to you for a few years. Your mother moved away. I sacrificed business to make sure my dauthter did not get second place again. But alas. Puberty comes, you miss your mother and need more support from a closer aspect than your red neck, bush kid father can provide…..so I made the decision to let you go. To move with your mother down south and for me, to be become the weekend component in your life.

I return to the first section of this blog. “Oh no another Saturday night!”

After this stupid fucking Covid19, media shit storm hit…..you my daugher, the direct descendant of complete hatred of the modern, conglomerate system, has decided it’s better to listen to the media blackmail, sit tight and do exactly as this government tells you to do, only to not see your father for over three months now.

I sit here on one side of the fence, working my butt off making hay while the sun shines, back into that 70+hrs a week for lack of a better choice. Yet I find myself completely confused again internally with what balance I’ve been trying to find for the past 13-14 years, between family and work.

I hope through all this, it’s the little things that you’re able to appreciate if you get a chance to read dad’s fumblings. The little contextual components to writing, where you can see through the bullshit and take note of the simplest things, like I did my best to put family before work in every pretext of my life, as at the time, I understood throughout several generational changes in our life time.

Although I love my work and I’m so proud of how far this ugly bush kid has come in life….

It’s still you sweetheart. Until my dieing breath. You are my breath.

I love you.

Just to start this post off, for those who don’t know me, a little back ground.

I’m just a kid from the bush, jam full of ADHD to the point where education was as likely as Elvis entering a body building competition.

I’ve read a grand total of 4 books in my entire life.

1: The White Spider – Heinricch Harrer
2: Gates of Fire – Steven Pressfield
3: We Were Soldiers Once, and Young – Harold Moore and Joseph Galloway
4: Chicken Hawk – Robert Mason

Don’t ask me why these books drew my attention long enough to finish them. Maybe the sense of adventure through a world where society said it shouldn’t…..couldn’t happen. Absolute defiance just because the social norms said…….”you can’t”, fuck you!.

A single page can literally take me 20 minutes to read by the time I lose focus and have to restart it. But writing…for some reason, albeit with grammatical and spelling errors comfounded, have always come naturally and I enjoy telling a few tales for those interested enough to lend an ear.

I hate conformity. Whether it’s to do with my social limitations or my learning difficulties, I just hate it. Try and put me in a box, I’ll rip that damn thing apart and come out banging my chest like fucking the rock ape I am.

At one time though, I did follow that road. With youth, naivety and lack of a better role model, I started out my business following the corporate mentality to business SUCCESS!!!!! Pffft. What a fucking joke…..Take your corporate carrot and stick it up your ass.

2008. GFC. Nearly 100K in debt through builders and debt contracts following the yellow brick road….bankruptcy hit. What a drag. 3 years it took me to stabalise somewhat from that garbage. Just a young guy from the sticks trying to make it big in the city…..only to be slapped back to earth by the smarties working the system more effectively. Lesson learned. Never again.

After stablising, rebuilding, slowly. I have brought the business through a more secure growing phase, over several years.

I threw away the builders, developers and middle men and made myself that direct person that the residential industry can contact for all their concrete, decorative concrete, resurfacing and epoxy services, backed up now by a solid history of experience, through blood sweat and tears…..literally.

Servicing the Gold Coast only firstly. Booked 4 weeks sporadic. Then 4 weeks doubled up. Then 8 weeks sporadic. 8 weeks doubled up. 3 months sporodic before I started to branch out farther into the southern and eastern Brisbane regions. The same time frame before facing what we do now.

I have worked my absolute ass off not to expand the business in personel. To keep things “family friendly” so to speak. The contractor pricing your work, is the contractor completing your work. No sub-contracting, just straight up old fashioned service with a focus on quality and service. Now the problem presents of keeping the same philosophy, whilst being forced into a corner, having to punch our way out….

But there is a simple lesson I’ve learned. With the right mentality of the harder you work, the more you succeed, it is inevitable that we reach the point that my wife and I reached today….

The point where we put our hands up, surrender….and expand.

It’s just too much. 70+ hours a week, week after week after month……We’re tired and need someone to back us up. My lovely wife Camilla jumped on board about a year ago now to back me up and man, hasn’t she done a wonderful job…albeit to only make us busier and force us quicker into this position, devil’s advocate…..but a good devil to boot. I met her while she was working elsewhere with a very similar line…..it worked in a young, innocent enthusiasm at the time.

“A good woman will make you, a bad will break you”. how true can an old adage ring true”. Love you Sugar Tits.

As of today, the 15th of May 2020, we are facing down a work schedule on average 2 medium sized projects per week, until the start to mid of October 2020. Roughly 5 months booked ahead with double bookings each week.

I won’t lie, I’m comforbital with my masculinity…but I cried a little today. Cried because I haven’t a day off for fucking months and I’m exhausted. I cried because I’m so godamn proud an uneducated bush kid can actually get along in this world by sheer determination and hard work. So humble and proud of ourselves. Cheers to whomever is seeing us stand up to the “norm” and provide something a little different, at the risk of being different. Quality above quantity. End of story.

Facing the inevitable, we are now looking to “lightly” expand. A long term collegue and friend of mine is looking for other avenues in life. We have been working together for over a decade in the industry and friends for much longer.

At least this method of expanding, is still keeping the moral values of our business in tune. At least this way, we still stay that family friendly, old fashioned service without sending out sub-contractors to fuck things up and create more problems, than solutions.

Down to earth, professional, one on one service for your concrete and flooring needs throughout South East Queensland.

We will now be collapsing our 5 month schedule into a more compact schedule so as to keep clients from having to wait so long for our services and subsequently happier overall….

The next step? We’ll cross that bridge as we get to it.

For now, thank you to all our past, present and awaiting customers. I am so damn proud every time I hear you call up and accept our quotation proposal, leave a nice review or just generally work on your project while sharing a coffee and conversation.

I have met the best people of my life through work and business. I’m so grateful to you all.

Thank you all for my reasonable level of success to date, I wish you all the very best for your future goals you’re working so hard to acheive. Don’t let the goverment, society norms or other dictate how you lead your life.

Be free. Pave your own path. It’s worth effort.

Many moons ago, when I was a little younger, had much more enthusiasm and a shit load less security in my income, I found myself saying YES to pretty much anything I had to, to win the next project and move forward in my business endeavours.

Literally, if I was pricing to install your patio and you asked me hang your washing to win the contract, I washed those dirty ass long johns and hung them out again smelling like sunflowers.

But these days, things are much different and people should not get offended by it.

I did a bit of learning through a good friend of mine in the industry, cheers big Roddy, who really only taught me one thing….the ability to say NO and how to do it with ease.

Firstly. Get a bank roll. Set yourself up financially. You don’t need to be rich, I am faaaaar from it. But having enough bank roll to not “need” to complete the work being asked of me, allows me to say NO easily and move onto the next project.

Secondly, raise your standards of professionalism. Give yourself true credit for you abilities, and charge accordingly. I am here to install your decorative concrete to the best of my 20+ year ability, wash your own f*cking underwear.

I must admit, it did take a while to get there. Many years of sweat and tears, but I earned my bones thoroughly.

If you call up and ask me to do a slap job over your shitty looking concrete, cheaply, so you can sell your house and pass the problem onto the next person, you will politely get a NO as I walk away from you.

If I advise you why I won’t install a Stain to your concrete, because I don’t consider it a long lasting application for me to be taking your money for, but still ask me to do it anyways because you are selling the house, please don’t get offended by my abrupt NO.

If you’re someone who gets offended by being said NO to, then please just don’t ring us at all. We don’t want your work.

There are many things we say YES to. I’m a positive person and love a challenge. We love hearing from and working with clients who are genuinely serious about high quality, long lasting hardscape finishes, whether it is for themselves, or to pass onto the next person buying their home.

But when I say NO, there’s a good reason for it and you should take heed…..even though the next guy you get might do your cheap nasty job to get you out of trouble to sell your home…..Kharma’s a mean bitch and she slaps 10 fold. Don’t be a c*nt. You’re better than that…..