SS Manager Hours and Days Off?

[KleanRide]

All -

The 7-bay SS that I've just finished renovating came with a manager when I purchased it. In addition to mine, he takes care of two other SS washes in our city.

In addition to trash and wash downs, he can make most repairs and does a great job of monitoring all of the wash functions for me. He is honest, almost to a fault, no drugs or alcohol, communicates well and is very reliable. Problem is: he's just turned 60 and the 365 day a year grind is starting to wear him down. I'm starting to see some slacking off and attitude issues.

He's typically at my wash 2 hours on weekdays and 2-3 hours on weekend days. He's doing basically the same time at the other two washes.

I've never had a problem giving him a day off, even though he rarely asks, but I'm kicking around the idea of offering him a scheduled day off in the middle of each week when business is really slow. Either I'll clean the wash on that day, or I can pay someone a few bucks to do it. Is anyone else doing this with their SS helpers? Or is anybody doing the 7-day-a-week schedule with a week or two of vacation every year for their helpers?

I'd hate to lose this guy and have to start over with an unknown, so just wanted to get some ideas from the group.

Thanks for any input.

 

[MEP001]

I've been trying to give myself the same sort of break - fortunately my job has extremely flexible hours, and I've been planning to take Tuesdays and Wednesdays off. I'll probably have to hire a regular clean-up person for the car wash and focus on repairs and money handling myself. I've been doing the 7-day-a-week schedule thing myself, and it definitely gets old.

 

[Greg Pack]

Wednesday is probably my least busy day on average. Tuesday is probably second least. That's just a gut feeling.

Monday morning is busy with moms cleaning their cars after they drop their kids off at school, and Thursday afternoon starts to see a ramp up for weekend traffic.

 

[MEP001]

Same here, Tues/Wed/Thurs are noticeably slower than Mon/Fri. I have been trying for years to get where we can take a day trip once a month to just get away. It's so much easier to do during the week - weekend traffic around here is horrible.

 

[Sequoia]

Sort of contrary to other posts, I have someone who cleans up the wash Mon-Fri and has weekends off. Weekends with family are very important to him. And he has a regular job also with Sat/Sun off.

It works well. The wash holds up surprisingly well even with the two busiest days having no one come in.

Over the years, the biggest issue was someone dumping a large object on the weekend, with no one coming in to haul it away. But since I removed the dumpster, that problem went away. At least so far.

 

[MEP001]

I might have to post pictures of the mess I get on a normal Saturday. I can't skip a day during the week, much less an entire weekend.

 

[srr5008]

We have a guy that spends 1-2 hours each morning (M-F) at our wash - strictly cleaning, we do all of our own repairs. My brother and I alternate each evening and spend an hour there in the evenings. Our guy has the weekends off, and again my brother and I alternate the morning and evening visit(s) (Sat-Sun). If we are out of town for a weekend, our guy covers for us and we pay him extra (a bonus, if you will) for doing the weekends. That seems to work well for us. Gives him a break (he offered to work 7 days a week, initially) and he is willing to cover for us a couple weekends a year because he isn't burnt out from doing it 7 days a week.

 

[Waxman]

I would give him 2 consecutive days off , like Tues./ Wed.

However, I'm not sure if you can fix a bad attitude with a couple days off per week. He may just be burnt out and you need someone new for the job. Honesty is great, but keeping proper security protocols in place is better.

I'm at my wash 6 days/week now. I worked 7 days/week for the first 10 years, then decided I needed a day to myself.

 

[Randy]

Our cleanup guy works 4 days a week, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. He gets paid $19.50 an hour. He cleans the lot, dumps the garbage cans and hoses out the bays. If there is an equipment problem he calls. If we want to take a week off and go on holiday he’s always willing to take on more hours, he’s 84 years old, but you’d think he was only 70. We go to the wash the days that he’s not there, pull the cash, meet the garbage truck with all the extra garbage and do whatever repairs that are needed.

 

[Randy]

I might have to post pictures of the mess I get on a normal Saturday. I can't skip a day during the week, much less an entire weekend.

We get dumped on almost every day, there’s no way we couldn’t go to the car wash every day and clean up, the household garbage is getting out of hand since the pandemic started. The car wash seems to be a transfer site for the dump

 

[Rfreeman]

I have a father & son that work for me. Father is a jack of all trades and son (20 yrs old) is just an extra pair of hands for the dad and he (dad) asked me if I could do him the favor of allowing him to work and he has worked out pretty good. Together they work M-F and the son works weekends one location and my brother in law steps in at my other location. I have 10 rental properties as well and allocate their cost across the washes and rental properties so it has worked out really well for me.

Father makes $19/hr. electrician by trade but knows plumbing, a/c, and welding. Son I pay $10/hr. bc he's a millennial and well....enough said haha

At one location I always get 1 or 2 people approach me about helping around the lot for extra cash and they all seem to be 60+ yrs. old and I have my doubts if they can handle the grind of taking out the trash on a daily basis

 

[KleanRide]

Thanks, guys, good suggestions. I'm leaning toward giving him Wednesday off and I've got a line on a stand-in to do the minor cleanup on that day.

I can't skip a day during the week, much less an entire weekend.

No kidding, most Wednesday mornings aren't bad at my wash but occasionally we'll be left with a small bomb blast. Weekends? No way in hell I can go a Fri-Sat-Sun or Mon without cleaning up. It's the nature of the beast here in Upper Texico.

 

[CarWashBoy]

I have 3 part time Attendants. We have attendant on duty 8AM till 6PM 7 days a week rain or shine . spendy but WELL worth it.. no messes for over 5 minutes!
DG

 

[soonermajic]

Thanks, guys, good suggestions. I'm leaning toward giving him Wednesday off and I've got a line on a stand-in to do the minor cleanup on that day.



No kidding, most Wednesday mornings aren't bad at my wash but occasionally we'll be left with a small bomb blast. Weekends? No way in hell I can go a Fri-Sat-Sun or Mon without cleaning up. It's the nature of the beast here in Upper Texico.

Kleenride, where are you located? Im 2 hrs E of big D. Your guy actually spunds pretty good, compared to a lot of the horror stories I hear.
I pay my 2 guys around $40k/yr & they work 6 days/week 9:30 --5:00ish. They also pull in another $15k + in tips!
Like you guys, NO WAY i could be unattended on the weekend. If I could figure out a way to stop the dumpers though...

 

[KleanRide]

Kleenride, where are you located?

We're on the north side of San Antonio, just inside Loop 1604. Glad to hear you're on the mend from Covid.

 

[MEP001]

I might have to post pictures of the mess I get on a normal Saturday. I can't skip a day during the week, much less an entire weekend.

So this is today, about five hours after my afternoon cleanup...

 

[KleanRide]

Holy crap! And I thought my crowd was bad...

 

[chaz]

Yuk. Looks like they tried to use cans. Likely one person filling the cans. Hopefully you did some decent business!

 

[celica]

MEP001, I see that your vacuums are only 75 cents. That's way too low. At least get paid for getting that kind of mess. I'm $ 2 (Canadian) which is $ 1.50 American. Since I raised my start price from $ 1 to $ 2 , revenue jumped $ 7k a year. The cheapies who also dump the most and spend the least go somewhere else. A couple of my competitor's are still at $ 1. They get dumped on big time and don't get anything for it.

 

[slash007]

I've seen similar sometimes only 1 hour after a clean up. I noticed the .75 price as well. I changed mine to $2 long ago and nothing but more income overall.