Grafix
New Member
Come down to New Zealand!!
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How does a signmaker take a vacation?
- Thread starter depps74
- Start date
ddarlak
Go Bills!
DerbyCitySignGuy
New Member
Is this your business partner or life partner? Either way, "that is his problem, not mine" makes me laugh.
Bly
New Member
Like some others here my wife books everything & I just go.
She knows what I like heh.
We're going away for a couple of weeks shortly to the US.
She's doing Surtex in NY and I'll visit my sister in Colorado then meet up with her.
I always take my laptop and spend an hour or so a day doing quotes and answering emails
which I don't really mind as I rest better knowing everything is under control.
She knows what I like heh.
We're going away for a couple of weeks shortly to the US.
She's doing Surtex in NY and I'll visit my sister in Colorado then meet up with her.
I always take my laptop and spend an hour or so a day doing quotes and answering emails
which I don't really mind as I rest better knowing everything is under control.
Johnny Best
Active Member
I am going to do some Tarpon fishing on a four day excursion on Thursday.
ddarlak that looks less like a whale and more like a buffalo haha
This is one of the reasons I haven't went full blown on my own business.
I'm the only printer operator for my company - last vacation they got lucky since I had people visiting me.. so I worked 2 days a week and took 3 weeks off. Got most of my work done doing a 12 hour shift.
This vacation I'm going out of town... 2 weeks and they have no one to operate the machines. One guy knows enough to do basic run of the mill stuff... But any color matching, or non standard signs and they plan on scheduling it for when I get back.
I have a kid who just turned 5, I enjoy working 8 hours a day and spending time with family. I don't go overboard on vacations... But I feel bad even taking two weeks off and leaving them "stranded" on some jobs.
I can see why a lot of you guys don't want to/feel like you can't take vacations... If it were my business, I'd likely never take a day off either.
I'm the only printer operator for my company - last vacation they got lucky since I had people visiting me.. so I worked 2 days a week and took 3 weeks off. Got most of my work done doing a 12 hour shift.
This vacation I'm going out of town... 2 weeks and they have no one to operate the machines. One guy knows enough to do basic run of the mill stuff... But any color matching, or non standard signs and they plan on scheduling it for when I get back.
I have a kid who just turned 5, I enjoy working 8 hours a day and spending time with family. I don't go overboard on vacations... But I feel bad even taking two weeks off and leaving them "stranded" on some jobs.
I can see why a lot of you guys don't want to/feel like you can't take vacations... If it were my business, I'd likely never take a day off either.
JJGraphics
New Member
My wife found a 10 day vacation to Europe on Groupon. Flew overnight from Detroit to London, then 3 nights each in London, Paris and Rome and then Rome back to the states. The Groupon covered all flights, hotels and breakfast every morning for $1300 a person.
We LOVED it. No, it wasn't 5 star hotels but we always felt safe. We were nervous about Paris and Rome and language issues but restaurants all had english menus and google translate took care of the rest. Most people spoke English too. We bought 3 day transit passes in each city to handle getting around the cities. It was a whirlwind trip, more like 3 short vacations all in a row but it was so much fun!
In addition to the $2600 on Groupon we spent about $2500 on booking tickets for all the tourist attractions (BOOK 100% OF EVERYTHING IN ADVANCE OR YOU'LL NEVER GET IN) food and souvenirs.
I completely removed work email and slack (instant messenger) from my phone before we left Detroit. My staff knows enough to handle everything while I'm gone. Even if they don't do things 100% the way I would want them, it's not like they're going to charge $500 for a $10,000 job. They knew what to do without me, and what to save for me.
We took a few more days after the trip to recover from all of it. It was so good for my soul to get away for 2 weeks.
We LOVED it. No, it wasn't 5 star hotels but we always felt safe. We were nervous about Paris and Rome and language issues but restaurants all had english menus and google translate took care of the rest. Most people spoke English too. We bought 3 day transit passes in each city to handle getting around the cities. It was a whirlwind trip, more like 3 short vacations all in a row but it was so much fun!
In addition to the $2600 on Groupon we spent about $2500 on booking tickets for all the tourist attractions (BOOK 100% OF EVERYTHING IN ADVANCE OR YOU'LL NEVER GET IN) food and souvenirs.
I completely removed work email and slack (instant messenger) from my phone before we left Detroit. My staff knows enough to handle everything while I'm gone. Even if they don't do things 100% the way I would want them, it's not like they're going to charge $500 for a $10,000 job. They knew what to do without me, and what to save for me.
We took a few more days after the trip to recover from all of it. It was so good for my soul to get away for 2 weeks.
current business partner, former life partner... literally never taking a vacation with only me when he was able to close up a few days every year to go away with his family, maybe had something to do with it.
List of places he refused to go: Hawaii, Portland Oregon, and Martha's Vineyard. List of places I went without him: Hawaii, Portland, OR, and Martha's Vineyard
BIG EASY DOES IT
New Member
We close shop for 2-3 weeks during Christmas break. Most people are off and that is our slowest time of the year. So from middle of December to the beginning week of January we are on vacation. Hole shop is closed. We work around that. Try not to vacation outside of that time.
Johnny Best
Active Member
Hero Signs
If they let me make it, they will come
I thought this was going to be a joke, because when I get out of town or another country I always end up looking at signs or coming across somebody complaining about their sign. I can't escape work.
TheSnowman
New Member
I don't ever take a non working vacation, but I get to get away several times a year. I'm in Indiana, and I normally go to Orlando for a week with the family (and ISA) on spring break, and then get to Michigan for a week in the summer, and try to go somewhere else a week or so with my wife in there, and then long weekends as often as possible. I'm normally on the computer or on the phone a couple hours each day while I'm gone, but I figure that's a pretty sweet trade off I can do back at the hotel at night, or at the pool while we're just hanging out, instead of being tied to the shop.
I recently went "calls and emails only" though. So far, it's been amazing, but you kind of have to choose rather you want your life under control, or if you want to grow your business. The hardest part was training people to not stop by just because it's convenient for them anymore. They always emailed me the stuff anyway, they just wanted to stop by first to tell me they were emailing me...once I could retrain their brains, it's been great...and most of the time now, they don't know rather I'm in town or not. With so many Merchant Members that make my one man shop run like I've got 2 employees, UPS can drop off a bunch of stuff, and I can still take care of the customer while I'm gone.
Like everyone else said, send them messages and let them know you're going to be gone. I do a lot of auction company work, and I just tell them a month before I'm leaving town that I'm going to be gone, and they make sure and have everything to me the week before I leave, so they can be setting it up while I'm gone. I realize I'm lucky, and not everyone has this luxury, but the worst that normally happens is someone will get jealous that they can't get away like I can, and my response to that is.....why would I take the risk of working for myself if I also didn't get the reward of being flexible with my time.
You just have to make yourself do it. You make time for what's important to you. Everyone does. It's just different for everyone. If you have clients that won't accept that for an answer, you have to decide if you want to be a slave to them forever, or if you want to change your life and put your nuts on the chopping block and hope they understand.
I recently went "calls and emails only" though. So far, it's been amazing, but you kind of have to choose rather you want your life under control, or if you want to grow your business. The hardest part was training people to not stop by just because it's convenient for them anymore. They always emailed me the stuff anyway, they just wanted to stop by first to tell me they were emailing me...once I could retrain their brains, it's been great...and most of the time now, they don't know rather I'm in town or not. With so many Merchant Members that make my one man shop run like I've got 2 employees, UPS can drop off a bunch of stuff, and I can still take care of the customer while I'm gone.
Like everyone else said, send them messages and let them know you're going to be gone. I do a lot of auction company work, and I just tell them a month before I'm leaving town that I'm going to be gone, and they make sure and have everything to me the week before I leave, so they can be setting it up while I'm gone. I realize I'm lucky, and not everyone has this luxury, but the worst that normally happens is someone will get jealous that they can't get away like I can, and my response to that is.....why would I take the risk of working for myself if I also didn't get the reward of being flexible with my time.
You just have to make yourself do it. You make time for what's important to you. Everyone does. It's just different for everyone. If you have clients that won't accept that for an answer, you have to decide if you want to be a slave to them forever, or if you want to change your life and put your nuts on the chopping block and hope they understand.
mmblarg
New Member
I would say this boils down to trust and a personal ability to delegate (our store manager has trouble pulling himself away from work, yet is always surprised when the business runs fine while he's out.) I work in a 5 person company (myself included.) No one is allowed a vacation during summer since it's our busiest time, but beyond that, all 5 of us are able to take 1-2 week vacation so long as it doesn't overlap with a time someone else will be gone. For every business function, there are at least two people who knows how to run it - ordering materials, taking client orders, design, production, installation, payment processing, etc. The two owners have trained me and our store manager so well that they are gone (cumulatively) about 1/3 of the year. Beyond that, when we have clients that are extremely particular about who they work with and that person is out on vacation we send out automated e-mails explaining the person's absence and then follow up with them to see if they are comfortable working with someone else. Clients aren't monsters, they wont leave your business because their favorite person is out - they will openly be ok with waiting or working with another team member.
Hope this helps some!
Hope this helps some!
Taking time off has always been a problem, I didn't take time off for a few years but recently I decided that enough was enough and just booked holidays, working in a small company can mean family life gets put on hold but I found the key is just book the damn holiday and that's it you'll go, customers understand that everyone needs a break, if they don't then they're probably d*cks anyway