This podcast is brought to you by Heatcraft Refrigeration Find out more about them at Heatcraftrpd.com All right, welcome to another Hvacr Videos podcast. I've got my good friend Bill Russell here and uh, we have some interesting topics to talk about today. so you know, obviously both of us right now at this point in our careers are in the restaurant side of the Hvacr world. Uh well actually what is there an do we add another letter to the acronym of Hvacr? That's because you you do hot side like HVAC RH HVAC RH that's our new thing we're going to call it.

that's like some new STD that's coming out I like that. that's a that's a sexy acronym crh I'm in the heating ventilation, air conditioning and Refrigeration side of things and then Bill he's got a one-up meet and he adds the hot side to that. I Will say though, as far as the ventilation I mean I don't do too much of the ventilation I think you, um, along with your new project are a little bit more well-versed in in ventilation. You do more stuff with ventilation, you test more, you test even buildings you're testing for negative pressure zone.

So yeah, maybe I'll leave the V out. But anyways, so Bill and I both are in the restaurant side of things and uh, we have some interesting stories. You know we find ourselves talking to each other throughout the day throughout the week about oh dude, you should have seen this or oh, you should have seen that and oftentimes they turn into ideas that we decided to do a podcast about. So here we are.

we're here. We're gonna do a podcast. So we are podcasters now. It feels good.

So you know something that I wanted to talk about when we're in the restaurants. You know, if you aren't already in the restaurant space doing HVAC work or hot side work or whatever, you know there's very stringent times stringent I don't know if that's the right word, but there's there's times that you're allowed to be in the restaurants and there's times that it's physically impossible for you to be in these restaurants because of different schedules. Back in the day, these restaurants, they used to build big giant spaces, big giant kitchens. and that is a thing of the past.

When it comes to investors and all this money going into these restaurant chains, they're building smaller and smaller. And smaller and smaller and smaller. Even like not just a fast food side of things. like the fast casual the yeah, your chains, your B dubs your Applebee's your Bob Evans You know they all have much smaller kitchens.

like you said and it's very very difficult to work within those kitchens. So oftentimes there's technically times that the restaurant says they don't want you in your kitchens. Now we also have like service agreements and different things that we sign that says you know we won't show up for service calls at these times or whatever. Really, that's at the discretion of management because sometimes they need a particular piece of equipment fixed and they're like just get in there, you know and you just got to do what you got to do but understanding when you're going out to a service call you know, looking at the notes and saying okay, I'm going out to work on a flat top cooler Okay, there's some key words right there: flat top cooler.

So that typically means that it's some sort of a unit that a flat top grill is sitting on top of. And let me tell you, trying to work on a flat top grill in the middle of a lunch rush in a restaurant, That can be a challenge I Would eventually say it's got to be near impossible because chances are, they don't have a whole lot of flat top grills around so they probably still want to use that. I Used to do work for some IHOPs and it was interesting because IHOPs used to have uh, a redundant side of their kitchen that they would only use on Sundays So it was cool there because they would have a redundant side of their Cooks line that they would never use unless it was a weekend. and I Know that some of the breakfast places like some of the Denny's and some of the places you know like that have those types of kitchens where when they get super busy in the morning or on Sundays you know they'll move over to that other side so they can have two flat top griddles going.

But as these restaurants keep getting more and more cookie cutter, they're taking that redundancy out of them and it's making it more and more difficult for us as service technicians to get into these restaurants to service their equipment. And it's really important that we are aware of that and we're going to go dive into this a little bit. But you know, when we're going out to these places, we need to be thinking in our head instead of just being in robot mode and just driving to a call and then showing up and saying oh, they're too busy I Can't get in that Cooks line. In a perfect world.

As a technician, we should be talking to our offices and saying there's no way possible I'm getting into that Cooks line right now like I Really don't think it's a good time for us to be heading to this call. So over the years I've had uh, dispatchers send me to places knowing full well that it's It's either going into lunch, dinner, or a busy part of the day and we don't really need to be there. It's not an emergency, it's something we can do later. We can reschedule for a more inactive time in the restaurant.

but I don't know if it's a contractual thing or if it's like an app thing to get the statistics boosted up on some of these apps that you have to check in when you're on site but they they tell me like I understand what you're saying bill I Get it, it's going to be busy when you get there, it's in the middle of lunch. it's a friar like I get it But we have to show up and if that doesn't make any sense to me, like I and again I don't know the back side of the office things I don't know if they're working with Statistics with apps with uh, it's a contractual thing we gotta show up and just say hey I know I can't work on it right and they're like yeah, you're right I don't know that always gets my my goat me if you will. Some of these uh, invoice softwares um the service channels the Eco tracks the curry go is the there's more of them right? Um some of these things they have like rating systems and and scores and you know you get better scores if you show up within so much time. I don't pay attention to any of that stuff.

We have those like I think I logged into one of them I don't know if it was service Channel or something else and it says we have like a D minus or something as a service provider I was like I don't care like did? does it change anything with your like do you get less service now than you did before? Perhaps? Well, the theory behind it is that if you use some of these invoice and softwares, it's a marketing effort for your company, right? Because if you're an approved vendor on service Channel okay, um, other service Channel Users can look for you if they're like their facilities directors have a window that they can look and they say hey, I want to find another contractor So then they look within the app and then they look at those contractors and they say this contractor has an A I'm going to look into them and I'll call them. So if you're interested in that kind of work and you're interested in that kind of marketing, then those things might mean something to you. For me, I mean and I don't want to sound like I'm flexing or anything but I don't care about that stuff because we don't use those invoicing softwares the way that we're supposed to use them. You know I still deal with the corporate offices I still have a direct line of communication with every one of my restaurants and their Corporate Offices So I know some of the restaurant chains use these invoicing softwares too eliminate positions in the facilities offices.

but I don't have to deal with that kind of stuff. So let's see that's that's interesting because I've often wondered why like we do service for I Don't want to say it directly, but we do service for a large chain restaurant, they own multiple franchises. Um, BDubs is one of them. You can figure out who I'm talking about I'm sure.

but I've often wondered like why are we not getting into the other work from this same because they only same Brands every same brand falls under this umbrella and we don't get any of the other work and I've often wondered if it had something to do with us not utilizing the app properly because I've I've heard that does have an impact, but nobody's been able to tell me why or how to manipulate that into our favor. You know I don't know I mean maybe some companies are looking for that kind of marketing and stuff I I just am not. So I really don't care what the app scores are and the way that I look at it again and I'm not trying to say every company should be like me. I'm sure there's many things that I'm failing out with my company, but I'm there to perform a service and I'm I'm gonna do it to the best of my ability.

but getting back to the whole getting to the restaurants at the the correct time and knowing when as a service technician, my opinion is that your input as a service tech should be listened to and I mean it's the most important input you know I understand that in an office and I I have a couple different perspectives because I'm a business owner and I deal with the high end. You know the upper end of the business and stuff. but you know I want to listen to my service text if my service tech tells me when I call him and I say hey, you're probably going to be going out here to do this call and he goes. dude, there's no way I'm getting in that cooks line, they're too busy or the manager the last time I was there told me he doesn't want me showing up at 10 A.M you know I need to take that and I need to listen to that and there might be a time.

like like you mentioned, there might be a time that I do have to say hey, you know what I understand they told you not to come but you just gotta go like there is those times that I that I say that stuff you know But for the most part I don't want to waste time and I don't want a technician to show up to a job for the restaurant to say no. So what I typically do is I try to schedule my stuff with the restaurant. so in in what this does, when I schedule my calls and let them know I'm making an agreement with the the general manager usually hey, we're going to show up and we're going to be out there between these times and if they're okay with that, they've made an agreement, it's in an email Then if I show up and they don't let me in their kitchen I'm billing for my time I'm billing for all my time we don't eat labor, you know it's one thing. if I show up and I and they don't know I'm coming and then they say dude, you just can't be in here.

Okay, there's an argument to be made that maybe I can't bill for that or something, but I'm not about wasting time, travel time, and all that different stuff because there's better things we could be doing in those situations. But I think it's so important that as technicians we communicate and you know on the other side you know you were mentioning something about a dispatcher and I know a lot of people have a lot of apprehension about dispatchers. They think dispatchers suck and all these different things and you know they don't know what they're doing. They're always frustrating me.

I Mean honestly? I wouldn't I would say that if you have a problem with the dispatcher, your actual problem is with the dispatcher's boss, the owner of the company or something because the dispatcher is put in a position that they just have to do their job. Um, someone above them should be coordinating and paying attention and knowing that the technicians are getting upset with the dispatchers. and I I think that you know I know that sometimes when companies get really big, you know people can have that frustration towards a dispatcher. but to me, they're just doing their job.

they're just doing what they're supposed to do. They're dispatching the calls. I Also feel like in an environment where you're a mechanical contractor or any sort of service provider and you do? Hot Side cold restaurant equipment I Feel like within that company, it should be almost ingrained into dispatchers like the service manager, the owner, or somebody should very well understand the the complexities of of the restaurant life and trying to service in a restaurant. And they should.

You know, talk about this and not on a daily basis. But you know, like hey, um, last week I seen uh I seen you had Bill go out and check out an ice machine and he got there in the middle of lunch. um couldn't do anything. we had to reschedule.

you know, like let's let's avoid this. You know, like stuff like that should be talked about and re-educated consistently. But I guess that goes back to um, you know, upper management knowing things in community? Yeah and I think you know what we did with and again, we're a small company. but what? I did with my secretary.

You know she doesn't really do any dispatching, all she does is invoicing and and you know, communicating with technicians. But for the most part, uh, in our business, it's either myself or my dad that's dispatching. now. my dad is basically retired so that's all he does is just come into the office basically two to three days a week and he'll answer the phones every once in a while and deal with some paperwork and stuff.

So between him and I we are the dispatchers. Occasionally we will call the secretary and say hey, can you get a hold of this technician and let him know to go here But usually it's us and it's important because we are. You know, you know And and as I'm saying this I can start to think even my dad is becoming out of touch with the business because he hasn't been in the field for 20 years. So you know oftentimes he'll be like oh yeah, go out here and I'm like no, you can't send him there So I act as the go-between So usually what will happen is my dad will call me and he's like hey, what do you think about me sending technician B over here and I'm like nope, not happening right now.

Uh, that technician is not strong enough to handle that call or you know they're not going to let us into that kitchen at this time. you know? So someone has to be a go between. Someone has to know what's going on in the company, Someone has to know the restaurants. Um, that's another good point is the not only just you can't service X piece of equipment during these hours in a restaurant, you know what guy is best suited to go do whatever it is in restaurants.

you know in in your case you do a lot of refrigeration like in my case we have hot side stuff. In a lot of people make the mistake like it. Granted, a lot of hot side stuff in my opinion is pretty simplistic. It's just buttons and switches and heaters really.

but you can't just send just anybody out to do Hot Side stuff anymore and a lot of times they make a mistake of like let's just send, just send So and so out there it's a fryer. it's a middle lunch. you can get it knocked out real fast. it'll be okay and next thing you know you know the whole Friar shut down.

He made a huge mistake and and it turns in this big thing because nobody is playing to their strengths for sure. You know you have to think about that. Um what? I was starting to say a few minutes ago and then I went off on a tangent as I usually do is uh, we took our secretary even though she doesn't deal with dispatching or anything and we, uh, probably about once or twice a year. we take her on tours of the restaurant and we'll walk her through a kitchen.

You know we'll We'll take her through a slippery kitchen and we'll stand beside her and we'll make her walk through that kitchen and walk through. And so that way she can understand that You know you can't rush in a kitchen. That's a really good way to teach someone how important it is to be fishing in a kitchen is. you take someone who normally doesn't walk in a kitchen and you don't prepare her right? I Mean you obviously make sure she's not wearing high heels or something, but you know, just let her wear her normal tennis shoes and then let her walk through the back of a kitchen in the busy time and see how chaotic it is when there's a cook walking by with a plate you know, full of food and stuff and and let her or him see you know and experience the chaos of the restaurant.

Let them walk through the server line right where the waitresses and the waiters are at as they're running food. um you know, walking so that way they can kind of understand. walk them into the bar when it's busy and the bartenders are throwing drinks everywhere you know and and let them see like what it's like. You know what's really cool and a lot of them don't like it is.

take them over by the Friars when they're cooking a lot of food and and have them kneel down on the reaching cooler next to it and watch as the cooks are dropping those baskets down there and the oils. It's it gives people a good perspective. This kind of gets into something that I know is taboo and is almost impossible. But I Really think that for someone to be a dispatcher, they should have some sort of experience in the kitchens because they need to understand things.

That or they have to have someone that is really communicating that understands a service manager or something that's helping to dispatch. Because when people blindly dispatch calls to technicians like we were just talking about, you never know what that technician's strengths are. And if the dispatcher doesn't know them, you're just. it's going to be an epic failure.

and it's going to lead to technicians blaming the dispatcher for the service manager giving the dispatcher too much control and power. You know when the dispatcher really shouldn't have that because they don't understand the complexities of these restaurants and what these technicians have to go through. A little bit of the devil's advocate here. Um, I understand.

a lot of people out there listening probably are saying what I'm thinking they're like. Well, how are you going to play the technician's strengths when it's hard to find technicians that are strong in anything, let alone one thing or two things or three things. And I mean I get that. But there's even even in the say, a C minus C plus technician.

There's things that he is slowly excelling at and things that he is not so good at. And I agree that technicians you know it is difficult to find technicians. but I'm gonna say again and you know this is going to show my whatever you know I'm not a good business person. it is what it is.

But I don't want to grow to a point that I have to hire technicians to just fill a void I don't want that I am limited by my technicians abilities. That plain and simple, my technicians are the backbone of my company now I work every single day too and I'm out there turning wrenches every day. And just because I may have more skills than you know, our particular technician still doesn't make my skills the point at which the company can perform because it's really the technicians that are that are out there working every day. So I can't take on work that my technicians aren't capable of doing.

That's a very good point too. And I personally don't want to become and I've done this. You know for me, I at the most technicians I've ever had was either it was six or seven technicians including myself at the time and it was chaotic. the the Callback rate was through the roof and I didn't like it.

Okay and I know you know there's people out there laughing at me because your company has 600 technicians. Okay, but I can guarantee you that your quality control and the quality of work you give with 600 technicians sucks. It just does. There's no freaking way that you have an A plus technician in every you know one of those 600 technicians.

You just don't. Okay, there's going to be technicians that aren't as good as others and your worst technician is basically your company. It really is because you know you can do a million great things in your company. But if you have, you know five bad things.

That's what people are going to see. That's exactly what they remember. They're just they just screw up all the time. Yeah, but we just performed literally 200 000 service calls for you and we had you.

You know, a hundred of them that were bad. You know? Well, yeah, but you know what? you really screwed up on that one. Like that's what people see. So you know you really have to understand your service technicians in my opinion and again, take it for what it is.

I'm just a silly little company that only has four trucks. you know, So it is what it is. But it's so important though that the communication and something that I want to get into too. You know we talked about the dispatching side of things a little bit and and also I understand that a dispatcher is just doing their job right.

and I said earlier that you know we may be frustrated with the dispatcher, but they're doing what they're told and maybe they're not prepared properly so it I Don't know if it's quite fair to be angry at the dispatcher. Oh, that dispatcher hates me? Well, you know that can go both ways. Are you a jerk on the phone? Because do you have a lot? Like do you see that dispatcher every day? Do you go and talk to them in the office every day? Probably not. You probably just communicate on the phone.

so your relationship is literally a 45 second phone call two times a day. you know. So you know maybe they're having a bad day. Maybe maybe something you know, Maybe they're under a bunch of stress.

So I don't know if it's quite fair to say that they're the worst dispatcher in the world and they have a uh, you know they're against you and all this different stuff and there's there's a lot going on there that maybe you're not understanding in the office. I would have entered to say too. if you do have a dispatcher that in your opinion, seems to be lacking. I Would venture to say that you should probably look up the chain you know.

Is there a service manager over top of them that should be supporting them and isn't Is there an owner that isn't capable of recognizing that they're falling behind and they need assistance? Or they're They're lacking some sort of resource that they need to provide the level of service that the company needs. You know, is it a poor communication from technicians to the dispatcher? like I Don't call my dispatcher very often. The majority of communication that we have is through my notes and uh, with those notes I'm trying to be very, very specific I Try not to write a huge book I try not to write a novel in my notes, but I also try to write enough information, give them enough detail that anybody, even in a cubicle at corporate who's going to approve this job, or who's going to analyze this job and say why are we paying them so much money they can understand what I'm getting at for the most part with the pictures in my detail and everything like that. Which that leads me to a point I wanted to bring up earlier you were you were kind of touching on a subject that reminded me of this.

um, in the notes in the communication I Often forget because I kind of make this assumption that my dispatcher and people in charge are gonna understand that if I'm going to go to an ice machine or a fryer or anything that's directly in the kitchen that's used consistently to provide food to a customer. I have become to assume that they understand like I probably can't go do this during lunch. So I've gotten in the bad habit of not like relaying in the notes and um, something like this piece of equipment can only be serviced like re-end or re-emphasizing that every time you're out there like in your in your service notes. like is that something that your guys do or you do or I know you mentioned that they call you and they talk to you about it.

Yeah, yeah, they we we ask for that communication. Um, it's really important. You know for us as a service company, really, the only call I can guarantee is the first 7 A.M 8 A.M call. That's the only one because after that point you're limited.

You're you know you're You're service calls dictate how your day is going to go. So and I don't say that we have a two-hour service call Window Like I'm not pressuring my guys again. Maybe I'm wrong for doing things the way that I do them. But the only call I worry about is that first call.

You know when they get done with that and the key word is when they get done, when they get done with it and everything is to my expectations. Then we worry about the next call. So I can only plan for that one first call in the morning. Everything after that point is just.

we'll get there when we get there. so we oftentimes will have to. you know we finish that first call. it's 10 a.m and then now we have another call working on a reach in next to the Friars or something you know.

Then we have to say you know what? that's not happening today. We have to do that tomorrow morning. It makes things inconvenient because now we have a we don't have anything else for him to do you know well. but I'm still not going to waste money and time by sending him over to that call.

or if I am again I will call the restaurant and say hey, we have a technician available but he's going to be there at 10 30 a.m You guys open at 11. are you going to let me in there to work on it and when they say yeah, yeah, we need it I say okay. But and this is what I'll say to the restaurant. You have to understand I'll make it the worst scenario possible for them.

That entire region needs to be emptied out, no food in the bottom or the top and he needs to be able to pull the region out to get behind it and get in front of it. He may not need to, but I get the customer for a bit. Well, we can't do that. We're going to be open, it's lunchtime.

that's cool. Then let's schedule it for another morning. but we need you now. Okay, so make a decision.

You either let me get in there, you know or you don't and I try to get information from the customer. So yes, I'm asking my technicians for their feedback right and I'm using mine. The customer calls me and says yeah dude, the whole Region's iced up Okay cool. all the food has to come out and we're taking a water hose into the cook's line.

can we come in there and do that at 10 A.M Yeah, we'll let you in. Okay, cool. Now if I go out there and they don't let me in there I have a verbal phone call from the manager. wrote down his name one time I spoke to him and he said he'd let me in.

So now we're billing for that time and it's not wasted money. It's not wasted time. Yeah, it still sucks that we went out there and he said oh no, we can't let you in but at least I'm getting paid for it now. let's see what you said there is is I Think it's key to making all this come together cohesively like the the just the idea that you call the manager ahead of time and and go over these things like worst case scenario, that's the best way to do it because oftentimes that's you know, not every time but oftentimes that's what we're running into like oh we got empty it out.

we got to do this. We got to pull it out. We gotta move it around all this other stuff and if you go over that with them before you set the expectation, this is what could happen now a lot of times with the companies that I work for no phone calls made beforehand. um I could probably do the phone call myself like before getting to the job.

but oftentimes I'm uh, I I just get these things put on my board and I don't see the call really until I start heading that way. So I'll look at my phone I'm done with this call. All right I'm going here next and I'll look at it I'm like oh, it's uh, let's say it's a fryer and it's already 10 30. I'm gonna get through at 11 30.

it's gonna be middle lunch. um and and usually when it reaches that point I don't as a technician in a van I don't call ahead at that point I just like I'm gonna go there and I'm gonna have a conversation in person with the manager before I do anything and let them know what's going to go on. um and I do that for a couple reasons. One I do that because I feel like I've gotten Kickback where I've uh, I've got the impression that when I call my uh, my current office or my previous office, any of these companies that I work for currently or worked for previously um when I call them and I explain to them like hey, I don't think we're going to be able to do this.

It's this lunch. it's a fryer I get the impression that what they hear is Bill doesn't want to work Bill's just being lazy. he doesn't want to do this and so that's when I was like you know what I'm just gonna go there I'm gonna go there I'm going to talk with him, do it in person this way they you know the Restaurant level knows we showed up, we made an effort I explained to him everything and then I put in my notes and um, granted it. Yeah, I hear you on that and that's a communication thing for sure.

Um, one thing I will say that I appreciate which. There's not a lot of things that I like about these new invoicing programs and dispatching programs. and Eco tracks and service channels and Curry goes and you know there's there's some good things. But one of the good things uh I will say about Ecotrack Eco track alone is they have a section for notes and those notes go to whoever they need to go to.

So I really do like that about Ecotrack because when you call and have that conversation with the manager, put it in the notes and and make sure you tag the appropriate people so that way they know you know. Like let's say for instance, an Eco track. One of the things you could do is you can tag the GM Well what what happens if the General manager of that restaurant isn't there that day? But you called and talked to the assistant manager? Well you put in the notes called at and I'll kill him with these notes too. Called at 706 am, spoke to Bob The assistant manager told him that we were potentially going to have to work on this reach and remove all this stuff and and my notes are usually really long and I say Bob denied the service call and didn't want us to come out.

So that way when the general manager the next day says hey how come you didn't show up you were scheduled We called and talked to Bob and Bob told us not to come. you know and it's in their note system. But back to you know the the the dispatcher you know in the office staff thinking that you know potentially your your theory is is that they think you don't want to perform service calls. well that's a failure of the office for not knowing the the the environment that we're working in and again it's so important for the office staff to be work walking, getting their feet on the ground in these restaurants.

So once a month once every six months you should be rotating. In my opinion, everybody from your office through that I mean even the delivery drivers. If you have delivery drivers, they should be doing a rotation through these restaurants just walking through. Again, get them in the back of that kitchen when they're busy right along.

You know, do a ride along. walk through these restaurants and see what we have to go through. Take you know in my situation, take a dispatcher or a secretary. you know someone who's not usually in the field up on a roof when it is 115 degrees outside and you have you know something down and guess what we got to Lug my entire van on the roof.

Okay, get my entire van up on the roof and then we got to perform a seven eight hour service call. changing a compressor with nitrogen and vacuum pumps and all this stuff. and then when we get it downstairs and then we go to call dispatch and dispatch says I have another call for you and you're like okay, you know, like for real and then they tell you that you know it's you know, they tell you the call and you're like oh my gosh, that call is going to take eight hours like for real I'm never getting home. The office needs to understand what's going on in their their locations.

If they're sending service techs out to these, they need to know the environment that we're going into. I Want to kind of wrap this up, but I Want to close this out with another point and this kind of ties everything that we're talking about. Communication here is one of the biggest things. Communicating with the office, communicating with the customer, communicating with the technicians, and maybe even most importantly, the technicians communicating with each other.

Okay, and you know something that I've tried to do and it you know I put it in my videos and it's just like a silly thing that I always say is I'm always thinking about the next guy. Okay, spoiler alert The next guy is me. Okay, but if it's not me, I'm not giving anybody that that's going to come behind me ammunition to talk crap about me. So when I'm out at a service call, I'm always performing it as if someone else is going to come behind me and either critique my work or finish my service call.

And this is a really important point because if we're working on an ice machine, Let's just say we're working on an ice machine and it's a Manitowoc quiet Cube machine and it has a bad cool Vapor valve and it's going to be really difficult when you change the cool Vapor valves that's the Harvest valve, you change them as a set. It's going to be really difficult to get in there and do it. you know I'm Gonna Leave notes or I'm gonna communicate or I'm gonna set the job up or I'm gonna quote the job in a way that if someone comes behind me to finish that call, one of my other texts or whatever, it's easy for them. So I want to communicate with the office I want to communicate in my notes and I want to have all the proper Parts ordered even if it's something as simple as in your work order putting part numbers.

You know we're gonna have to change all this stuff. Here's the part numbers. Guess what When when your office sends the invoice and they attach the work order notes, you can delete the part numbers. but for your office staff, put the part numbers in there so that way someone knows or at least the names of the parts.

more information. If you have a dispatcher that's ordering your parts and maybe they're not experienced in the field, don't just say we have to change a compressor. No, because that doesn't mean anything to them. We have to change a compressor.

We're going to need a dual pressure control. We're going to need a contactor. We're going to need the compressor we're going to need. It's a burnout.

We're going to need a Uh numbers. Yeah, we're gonna list even if it's not. the part numbers the items. So that way when someone in the office goes to quote this job, you're not because I know we've all done this.

You're not going to get to the job with the parts and be like, well, this is a burnout. We need to flush the system. We need to sweep it with nitrogen. We need you know, high acid capacity dryers we need.

You know all this different stuff if if you're not communicating that to the office, if you're not putting that in your notes, then how's the next person going to know? Yeah, if it's you going back, sure you're going to know it. But again, what happens if the customer doesn't approve it for three months I don't know about you Bill But I forget crap all the time I got so much stuff going on that you know Oh I need you to, you know the office says I need you to go do that call that you quoted three months ago. Okay, what was the call? What do you mean? What was it called? You don't remember it? Nope I don't because I'm prioritizing the call I'm on now you know, like I forgot what happened back then. if you can fall back on your own notes and it helps to remind you what's going on man.

I can't tell you how tingly that makes me feel because that's like the same thing I preach to other guys at my place in I'm like just give me some notes, give me some information because I'll get a job and I don't know. So-and-so went did that job two three months ago but uh you know but this company was on a budget free so like we gotta we gotta hold off on this. They finally approve it. I Get this work order and it says fix ice machine I'm like okay, um what am I fixing on it There's no, there's no information, there's no communication previous technician his notes are super vague because he assumed he'd be going back out on on the job.

and let's say I show up there and it's like there's a bundle of wires that have just been unplugged and moved around me. Oh what's this you know and maybe a previous technician probably said well, I'm going to be coming back on this I'm going to take this stuff off. There's no reason for me to put this stuff back in place where I went because I'm coming back out here I know where this stuff went I have diagrams, drawings, pictures, whatever it is, you know. So all that just to say yeah, you're 100 right? Chris uh, you know I'm you're touching on a subject that I'm really.

he gets me frustrated is unwiring things I Don't leave things unwired. Okay, if I do, it's very easy for someone else to fix it. I Don't cut wires out I Don't take things from the job that someone's going to need to finish that job. you know? Oh, you know, let's just take the motor with us and then the customer doesn't approve it for three months.

and then guess what, You cleaned out your van in the midst and you threw that motor away that had the motor bracket on it. So now the new technician goes out with the motor and there's no motor bracket. What the you know? Like what am I supposed to do? You know, don't leave a job again. Always assume someone's going to come behind you.

Why are the equipment back up? I Know it's useless I know you're going to change. You know, whatever, you're changing right? but still wire it back up. Something that drives me nuts and this is something my this will just make. there's a lot of things that make me angry, you know? and I know I'm very OCD about a lot of stuff right or whatever you want to call it dumb.

leave reaching coolers like evaporator covers and crap just undone. even if you're coming back to change the evaporator coil. I'll come back two days later and someone has four screws in the bottom of the box and the evaporator cover is just laying on the ground. Don't do that.

Put them back together again. Assemble it like you. You know it was when you came because you know it's gonna happen. Changing it.

Somebody, one of these cooks or cleaners or whatever might see that down there and they're just going. I just throw it away like they don't need this or change it anyway. You know what? As a service technician you might be thinking, not my problem, but don't for real. make your job easy.

Make the next guy's job easy. So I said earlier. You know when I said make the next guy's job easy. You know what? 99 of the time that next guy is going to end up being me.

but what if it's not okay, You're giving someone ammunition to talk crap about you. You're making it harder for the next guy. Make it easier for the next guy in hopes that it's going to be you right? But just make it easier. Be a better person, you know I say this in my my videos and my closing words and stuff all the time is you never know what the next person's going through.

you never know what you know kind of a day. that person has good point. Just just you know. Make it easier for people.

be kind to one another. try to think about the next guy I know you know what? He's a jerk I know that he doesn't care about you and I know that it's a one-sided You know you're trying to be kind and that guy's a jerk. But guess what, just be kind like. you know.

think about it. Think about the next technician in hopes that it's going to be yourself. Well think about this like that other technician who's getting sent out on your job. He might have just got off of a roof doing a 10 hour job and they're like hey, I need to go knock this job out real quick and if he gets out there and he looks at this, it's unwired.

It's missing things, Covers are gone, screws are gone. He's like this is gonna this is a mess. This is gonna take me half a day or you know he gets out there. everything's still wired, everything's still in place.

He looks at him like oh this part goes here. this part that goes there I know where the wiring goes, boom boom he's done it's I Just had a a conversation with one of my service technicians and this is a guy that I hired about two years ago. Uh, he was my Apprentice for a while and I tried something different with him I decided that I was going to take my time. well it wasn't just with him I've done it with previous technicians too but I was going to take my time training him I wasn't going to let pressure I wasn't going to let the fact that I was busy I wasn't going to let the fact that I was three weeks in a row on Call you know and I really needed him to get into the on-call rotation to you know, ease my craziness because I just felt like I was swimming.

you know, had you know with with weights on my feet or whatever. but I decided to take my time training him I decided not to pressure him I decided that you know when he goes out on a service call I'm gonna let him take as much time as he needs and ask as many questions and while it is, it was frustrating while he was coming up. you know I'd send him out to go de-iser reaching cooler and it would take him four hours, right? My instinct is like to call him hey man, how's it going What are you doing? we need to get moving but I didn't I let him just learn I let him figure things out of course I never sent him out there I never threw him to the walls. he he rode with me for a year, did service calls with me for a year and six months, you know.

and then I slowly started releasing him. But guess what? His callback rate right now is so small. like it is so small he barely has any callbacks because I don't pressure him I let him take the time that he needs and guess what if if I do call him, you know, let's say I send him out to a service call and it's 11 15 in the morning, right? That's crazy time for restaurants because I'm not talking fast food but I'm talking normal restaurants because they typically open 10 or 11 A.M Okay, so they're starting to get busy Now if I call him and I go hey man, how's it going You know I'm doing good man, but it's it's really difficult I say hey, you're at a point right now where you need to answer a question. Do we need to stop what we're doing and go back? Well, you know what? I think we probably do because I need some more time? Okay, no problem I Don't get angry with him right? We just tell the restaurant hey within reason obviously if it's something that has to be fixed, but something that I did with him was was give him the time that he needs for the longest time.

I Used to compare people to me right? but I've got 25, 20 whatever years of experience and yeah, I'm pretty quick at what I do because I think of 10 steps ahead and I knock it out. but not everybody's like me because they don't have the experience that I do. The only way he's going to become like me or that or she or whatever is going to become a very efficient technician that busts their butt and gets things done with no callbacks is by letting them learn properly and giving them the time that they need. So you know I get emails from people all the time.

How do you spend this much time on a service call? You know my my dispatchers calling me every 10 minutes saying they've got another call for me I don't do that I give them all the time as well when I watch your videos. Yeah, yeah I just give them the time they need and it is what it is now. I run my own company I do things the way that I do them I Want to wrap this up. We talked about communication.

we talked and I think that kind of goes to the bottom of everything that we were talking about. Down at the bottom. Communication is what ties this all together. Dispatchers being frustrated or us being frustrated with dispatchers communicate management not wanting us on site restaurants being too busy for when we show up.

communicate. You know all this stuff can be solved by communication, but guess what? You know what? It's not my job. They don't pay me enough to think that far ahead. You know my company.

You know. screw them. You know they're just find another job. If you treat your company like that, it's time to move on.

If you can't be happy with what you do, find another career like you as a technician deserve to be happy. You really do. You deserve to like work. You deserve to be happy.

When you go to work, you know there you shouldn't be waking up in the morning going I Hate this job I Hate this company. Even if you're making really good money, it's not worth it. It's not worth it because money doesn't solve everything. It really doesn't I Know it.

no. Quality of life is. It's key in this industry if you want to. If you're in it for the long run, quality of life is is key 100 I Think it's time we wrap this up I Really appreciate you coming on again with me Bill anytime.

Any closing words: No, no, nothing that is Uh PG enough for this. Inspirational quotes. Probably my favorite quote in the world. and Bill I Want you to guess I Think you might know what this is from? You may even know it because I probably said this quote a million times.

but the quote goes something like this: Pain heals, chicks, dig scars and Glory lasts forever. Oh I Do know is that Rocky Horror Picture Show No, that is not. Rocky Horror I Knew that was this. like it.

can't be that. But oh yeah, you know what. You were really close though because Tim Curry Keanu Reeves Just like each other, right? Keanu Reeves from The Replacements It's not a quote, that's a stupid movie. That's just a joke.

But that's where he goes in when there's the big football strike and they bring in all the replacement players. It was just oh yeah, no, never seen it. Oh, you've never seen The Replacements It's actually a really good movie night ever. You should definitely see that.

I'm a big fan of Keanu too. Yeah, Keanu it's it's a good Keanu movie dude. But yeah, Keanuary I Can see where you could be confused because Tim Curry from Rocky Horror Picture Show and Keanu Reeves They're totally just like each other, so totally understand. Doesn't seem like it's true.

All right, we'll see y'all later.