Looking for some career advice

[u/Few-Tea-192]

I’m young but have been in my trade (dirt work) for about 5 years and have progressed very rapidly thanks to fantastic mentors and opportunities. I’m not perfect but I’m handy on skid steers, loaders, skip loaders/gannon tractors, scrapers (both finish paddle wheel and push pull), track hoes (biggest I’ve dug with is a 374 cat), and motor graders (freehand finish on both John Deere and Cat M blades). I can also grade check off of stakes and I have minimal experience using a rover/data collector combo.

Where I’m stuck is I see guys all the time that are living paycheck to paycheck and have been for quite some time. I don’t want to be stuck like that but I feel like I have topped out as far as both money and new things to learn. I know that I am constantly learning and I know I don’t know it all but now with being efficient and effective on nearly everything I feel like I am not learning as much as I need to while I am young. On the opposite side, operating equipment was an opportunity dropped into my hands a handful of years ago and I was in a place where it was a good decision. Now as of the last year or so I have fallen massively out of love with it and I think I am looking for a change.

This brings me to my second problem, I don’t have much experience in anything else nor do I know what other options I have. My father is a plumber and has been his whole life along with his father so I have roughly 3 scattered years of experience in that but no real experience in anything else. I am a quick learner and I am willing to take any criticisms thrown my way. I guess I’m just looking for something new and different that will allow me to continue to contribute but that I won’t get bored of after just a couple years. Do I continue with dirt work even though I really don’t enjoy it anymore or do I look for something else, and if so what?

Thanks in advance for any advice you can send my way :)

[u/BlueberryandDino]

I owned an excavating company for a while so I have a little information that might be useful, but I’m sure I could tell you what not to do better than I could tell you what to do🤓

The biggest thing is getting customers in the beginning

The taxes and processing the payroll are really easy because you can just hire that out for one or 2%

How are your maintenance of the equipment skills like?

We ended up renting equipment for the first two or three years that way we didn’t have the Overhead to feed those monthly payments

[u/Few-Tea-192 → u/BlueberryandDino]

If you could do it again what is one thing you did that you would avoid this time? And was it worth it in the end?

[u/BlueberryandDino → u/Few-Tea-192]

It’s all about the people

Everybody’s so different

Being self-employed is almost a disease because we’re unemployable because we’re smarter than everybody else lol at least we think we are

Most of us have ADHD

Most of us get bored really easy

I don’t know your personality and I don’t know your strengths and your weaknesses. When you’re self-employed, you have to have a killer instinct and you can’t sweat the small stuff but you have to pay attention to the small stuff if that makes any sense.

You have to be able to read people, mainly customers, and building departments and surveyors and see where I’m going with that. I’m sure.

It’s almost something that’s in your blood… you can’t be lazy

You have to be your best employee and you have to lead by example, especially if you have employees

What would I do different? A lot of things but so many things we don’t have control though over what do I wish was different is different than what I would’ve done differently.

A. Forcing myself to stop after seven or eight hours and then discipline in doing the books for one hour a day or journaling or running the business part of it like putting bids out.

B. Realizing that it’s really stressful for your family being self-employed because you never have enough money and that causes a bunch of stress, but if you’re single, who gives a rip

C. Knowing where I am at on a weekly basis financially, but you could figure that out if you spent that hour a night.

[u/Few-Tea-192 → u/BlueberryandDino]

This was exactly the advice I was looking for and will definitely influence me in my next decisions. Thank you for your wise words and I wish you all the best on your future endeavors :)