Gastankman

Life is short. I take long vacations and expect my employees to also take time off. When questioned years ago by an old timer why I was open on Saturdays I replied that I didn't want to lose the business. His answer was " how can you lose something you didn't have in the first place"? He also said if I can't make it on 5 days then I was doing something wrong. That was 15 years ago and I have not been open on Saturdays since then. As a very specialized shop I can get away with this easier than most shops. We also take advantage of 3-4 day weekends during any holidays and pay all the employees their full pay. They also get 3 weeks paid vacation time per year although only 1 week at a time can be taken during a 30 day period. I let them use my condo on Lake Michigan free of charge whenever they want. I do not pay sick days and expect them to stay late if needed which only happens 3-5 times per year. Needless to say, most of my employees have been with me 10 years and 2 of them over 20 years. I had always said to myself that if I ever had a shop of my own that I would treat my employees the way I wanted to be treated.

I refuse to sign auto renew contracts and strike out that part and have vendor initial it. Self renew is bad enough but they usually even make non renewing almost impossible. Example of typical 3-5 year contract - " notice to not renew contract must be received no more than 7 months and no less that 6 months of renewal date by cerified mail and be in our mailbox on the same day as a full moon" . LOL. Very difficult to meet their terms. My current uniform company screwed up on the pricing then refused to honor it AND would not let us walk away from it because there was a "clerical error" clause in the contract. At the end of the day we ended up with less sevice for the same price we were paying before. As a very specialized shop I'm just waiting for the day they need my services.

We have a guard cat named Rusty. Customers love him and even stop by months later to see him.