Dan, Dave H and Larry, Ken .... et al..unemployment= opportunity = community = help.

Rob Keeble

Member
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Location
GTA Ontario Canada
Well Dave you suggested something which i have picked up on with regards to the guys that are out of work right now.


Way i see it we have a few categories of members here in no order.
  • guys who are retired and do woodworking as a hobby but make all sorts of things to suite their own desires.
  • guys who are retired and do a specific part of woodworking and make something they get a real kick out of and do it darn well and have mastered making it and sell the items in some cases to supplement income and in other cases to recoup sunk cost so they can do it all again.
  • guys who work 9- 5 or there abouts or are self employed doing something other than woodworking as a primary source of income and do woodworking as a weekend warrior again a few different camps there but mostly hobby orientated.
  • guys who are pros and work in a business where they do some form of woodworking for a living could be cabinet maker, fine furniture maker, home building, or as Dave who motivated this thought ..restoring. Some guys here are self employed (small business) others work for someone else.
I would also suggest that the majority of our active membership are pretty much US based.

What does strike me and has done so for a substantial amount of time, is our general inability to assist to resolve this issue of unemployment that hits our community.

The treasure trove of knowledge and experience among the members is something a corporate leader could never hope to assemble under one roof. Yet in my view it goes untapped.

I dont have the greatest family background, war brides and soldiers seldom worked out and add to that a change of culture and my folks were pretty much doomed before they got going. But my view of a family culture has come from a belief in helping out your fellow man for "there but for the grace of the almight go i" is what i was taught in my various schoolings.

Dave has mentioned and idea which hit a nerve with this serial entrepreneur....oh and we have a bunch of these types too in our family here (some with pretty high intellectual capabilities that have or do operate way above my measely pay grade :D)

I dont think by now we can question whether or not Dave has the skills of a restorer or an artist......maybe we can question the old coots bike riding ability ;):) (only funning you Dave i aint turkey so dont want toget shot) but he is mentioning an idea which could be huge especially if he is willing to train and travel.

The costs to get started in restoration i cannot see being very great in relation to the fact that most would already have the woodworking tools. What would be needed is the added knowledge and skill and experience being passed down.

Dave here is opportunity for you to kind of Franchise out and establish branches of your business run by others that would like to get into doing this kind of work. The name and brand has been established where you are and you could use this and the guys could use this as an opportunity to piggy back off this in other parts.

Sure if we wish we can conjure up 1000 long list of risks etc associated with this whole idea. But business is fundamentally about taking risk and getting a return. Its about managing risk and mitigating risk and taking well thought out calculated risks.

You guys all live in a country that has proven this time and time again.

So many small elements that exist that i feel get totally taken for granted in our part of the world. Take the service of FedEX, UPS etc. To this very day i admire them like no other business. They offer a logistical service thats simply incredible but i guess it takes an outsider to see this. Being able to send something from California to Maine overnight means you do not have tohave everything on hand. Add the internet and skype and video and heck guys whats stopping people collaborating.

Here we have Chuck mentioning how he is battling to get someone to come and do cabinets and he even mentions the price. I dont see anyone stepping up saying heck i will do that for you Chuck, you got place for me to park my trailer while i do the install. You haul (yeah i know not the best company but you all know what i mean) offer rental trailers that could be used for delivery from X to y and hey it would make for a nice roadtrip to maine to deliver cabinets. (mmmmm i am thinking Maine Lobster can be bought for the return trip home).
Pics/video could be used to show the progress to Chuck to give him assurance and peace of mind of quality and progress.

(Just on a side note to highlight this point i want to share how real this benefit can be. I introduced the whole point of using Webex and a video link like is possible with skype to a client i have that manufactures machines and has clients all around the world. Before this they would need the client to send very senior execs at significant cost to the plant for about a week at least for pre delivery inspection and sign off. This affected several things. One the net cost of acquisition of the machine to the customer due to them having to spend the coin to come and check on the machine, delay in payment since if the sign off did not take place and they had to wait for the execs to be able to schedule the event they had a completed machine ready for shipment waiting for payment of the pre delivery portion of the contract, space in the shop because they could not move another machine into the shop until they moved this one out of a special test bay and on and on. The customer was absolutely delighted to have the service. They enhanced their relationships as a result improved cash flow and all the other efficiencies that followed but even more they offered a value to the customer that allowed for them to reduce their cost to the customer and further embedd themselves in a long term relationship. All for a simple improvement in communication.)

But i see Glenn making the point about whether people want to work if its not easy. Real good point Glenn... i experienced the same here. I asked a guy to come out fix the roof just before winter. Price was huge but i said ok because i aint getting up there. Well he comes and i add more to the job, stuff that is actually his primary job, well he said he would be back and that was 6 months ago. I paid him for the completed part on the day andthat was the most difficult part the rest was something i can do and now will do. I dont get it either Glenn.


Here is my view....At age 40 plus way too many have been burnt by prior experiences such that we have closed certain doors. Trouble is the more doors we have closed the more opportunity we have shut out. The net is the picture of opportunity ahead begins to appear very narrow with very few doors left open that we are prepared to step through.

We need to think back to the days when we were oblivious to being burnt. When we were 18 months old we got up off our knees and tried to walk. Fell down and hit our heads on all sorts. But the fundamental thing is we got back up again and gave it another shot. If we did not do that then we would have stayed on the ground.

Just because an opportunity once upon a time, involving someone else, went sour, dont mean its always going to go sour. Each time we bashed our heads we got wiser as and developed that extra muscle power to prevent it next time.

Same thing in my view with opportunity.

Heck i have made many wrong steps. But my ratio has to be better than 51 to 49 because i am still going. The idea that we have to hit paydirt or not try is a myth. Just the same to me as the whole concept of a "JOB" .

We may live in a modern time with loads of technology etc but some things have not changed.

Opportunity abounds if you prepared to take its hand.

Never in my life did i think i would be lucky enough to end up living in Canada. I could never in a million years have predicted that an opportunity that started out at the end of the Rugby World Cup in 1995 would have a path that put me in Canada today.

Ok i will get off my soapbox now, but if we gonna live up to the name of this forum well it has to be more to me than just making the content family friendly cause i really wonder about how many family members actually view the content we so carefully guard. :)
 
well dave, i can see doing the fixing part but i am not interested in the chemical part of the stripping..i have breathed in enough toxins in my days already..as for being part of a team here, i think i can do that part well..
 
Larry there are ways of stripping with chemicals if done correctly. There are lest toxic chemicals that work just fine.

It would be very interisting to see what the cost start up for a refinishing business would be. I'll see about getting something figured out. But right now I am working on getting healed and getting my painting framed for the show on the 2nd of June.
 
Dang Rob...it would have taken me all day to type that there post....and I as well am gunna sit back and see where it goes...I like the idea of doing something as part of a bigger, collective experience base that can draw on others' ideas and perspectives.
 
Well Ron John and anyone else for that matter, the ideas i suggest in my thread will only go somewhere if we dont all adopt the modern day democratic approach of apathy. Everyone wants to do just that, sit back and see where things go and play it safe.
Well do that while the rest of the world passes you buy.

You gotta put your hands in the dough if you want to make good bread and that means people chiming in with moving an idea forward and kicking off new ideas and doing something with them.

I am sorry if i offend you but i think our generation has had it easy by comparison to our parents and now we expect easy street or we aint up to trying.

Many people have been put out to pasture by corporations or the circumstances of the financial meltdown. Many i know have started up new businesses where at 50 odd they are in business for the first time. For some its nerve racking. But once one adjusts to a new reality things get easier.

I have never ever forgotten the feeling i had pushing a wheelbarrow with a big dunce cap on made of sheet steel to the wage office cubicle to get my measly pay as an apprentice maintenance electrician (job i got during school holidays in grade 9). I had a factory of nearly 1000 men hollering at me. But it did not stop me going back the next week. I have never forgotten the beating i took from the journeyman whose 6 inch adjustable wrench i melted to a 4 inch when i shorted it on a bank of batteries used in powering electric trains for mining underground. But i got back up and worked with him. I learnt a great deal at that plant and summer job. For a kid of 15 i learnt you gotta keep on trucking when the going gets tough and you gotta take the opportunities that are presented when they are and if possible make some of your own.

Most of all i learnt they aint gonna come knocking on their own by sitting back and watching the world go buy. BTW i also learnt to type real fast and can type as fast as i can talk.
 
Absolutely no offense taken by me, Rob...I guess I used a poor choice of words and attitude with the sit back and see... and I remain interested in this idea, as I have done some amateur refinishing and reclaiming of old furniture, enough to know that the minute detail work and endless scraping don't bother me, and that I love the endless variations in what people see as nice, constantly making me see more and better ideas. Thanks for the boot in the seat...wifey would like you!!!
 
...i think our generation has had it easy by comparison to our parents and now we expect easy street or we aint up to trying.

Many people have been put out to pasture by corporations or the circumstances of the financial meltdown. Many i know have started up new businesses where at 50 odd they are in business for the first time. For some its nerve racking. But once one adjusts to a new reality things get easier...

Gotta disagree with you, Rob. (unless you're from a different generation than me. I'm 67.)

Most of our parents came home from WWII, or worked through it, and had jobs that they worked at pretty much 'for life.' They did'nt have to worry much about 'downsizing,' 'rightsizing,' or whatever the current buzzword for dumping employees is. They had job security - unless they really screwed up, or something. The last generation pretty much held one job for most of their lives, and many of our generation initially entered the job market with that mindset, too. Didn't happen that way for us, though...

I got downsized about a week after my fiftieth birthday. Chicken boss didn't even tell me face-to-face. He left me a voicemail while I was out on a road trip - fifth day of a nine day trip. ("Just finish your trip and clean out your desk when you get back..."

Anyway, I started two businesses after fifty, and bought and sold a third one. I'd agree that it is nerve-wracking, but not that it gets easier. If it gets easier, I'd say you're getting complacent. You have to keep up with the times and technology, as well as all the ever-changing government regulations. If you grow the business to the point of having employees, then there's all sort of new regulations, employee relations, taking responsibility for employees actions (including screw-ups), while still trying to make payroll, make a living/profit, and avoid having to 'downsize/rightsize' the company to stay afloat.

Sure, you can do it, but it stays nervewracking and stressful. I know - I did it three times.

edit/addendum: Forgot to mention Insurance - all kinds: Health (Extremely expensive as a sole proprietor); liability (both for property (office and vehicles) and also personal/professional, including employee coverage); errors & omissions; unemployment (state required), and perhaps others depending on where the business is. Insurance premiums take a huge slice of revenue - even without having any claims.
 
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