The sub contractor

As your business grows you will find yourself needing additional help.  Sub-contractors can provide you with the extra help you need.  These personnel usually get paid on a 1099 basis.  Now let me enlighten you what you can expect.  There are some important things you need from a subcontractor such as cleanliness, neatness, hygiene, timeliness, quality of work, and communication skills.  Good luck finding all of these attributes in one person.  Don’t be alarmed by the presence of who will apply. It's honestly not much different than looking for a full time employee.

Sub-contractors for the most part do not have any loyalty to your company.  They will throw you under the bus with your customers in a heartbeat.  If they are supposed to show up for work on a particular day but they found a higher paying job for that day, they will ghost you in a heartbeat.  Just when you think you found a good one, you will be disappointed again.  The interesting thing is that no matter how much you pay them, they will exhibit the same traits.  Its very perplexing.  Oh, and let me tell you, the most common excuse is my truck broke down.  Let me tell you, there is no worse feeling than a customer calling you and stating that no one has shown up to do the work.  Talk about a giant F U! You end up doing the job for free just to make amends with the customer. 

The sub-contractor is a nightmare.  They will demand payment for their work even if their work sucks ass.  My god, I have seen some shitty tile jobs, bad patch jobs, and paint jobs that suck so bad you can’t believe what you are looking at.  They get all excited and say they have completed the work and demand their payment.  If you tell them that their work sucks and they need to fix it before you can pay them, they get violent.  They threaten you.  They threaten your company. They threaten your customer. They threaten to damage the homeowner’s house. 

One sub-contractor left food on the floor in the kitchen of a customer’s home.  One threw up in the toilet and clogged it up so that it over ran and damaged 240 square feet of flooring, baseboard, and drywall.  One demanded payment before the work was even completed and when I refused, he got pissed off and put concrete mix down the toilet and shower that was being renovated in another room.  One decided to sand the ceiling without covering the stairs, furniture or anything for that matter.  It looked like it had snowed inside the house.  That customer was beyond pissed off at me.  I had to pay a tiny fortune to clean that house.  You can’t make this stuff up.  They will steal equipment, break windows, cut beams, you name it.

There really isn’t anything you can do about it.  You can interview them until you are blue in the face.  You can run a background check on them.  You can call their references.  Just know that it will happen. They are notorious for being late.  They will leave a mess for you to clean up.  They just don’t give a damn about you or your company. 

I had one sub that was super talented. His work was amazing. He seemed to be rebuilding his life so I even paid his truck insurance. No matter how many chances I gave him and no matter how much I invested in him, he finally drove the last nail in his own coffin.

I had another you man that was a super talented painter. His painting skills were excellent. After a few months he started screwing up so I cut him loose. Later on he texted me asking for more work. I gave him three more chances and he screwed me every time. He either didn't show up. He abandoned a job and he upset a customer. He texted me for months begging for work. He promised me he would straighten up. He promised he wouldn't let me down. It was like the boy who cried wolf. I would block his phone number and he would get a new phone number. It was ridiculous. I am ok with giving someone a second chance but at some point in time you have to draw a line in the sand and move on.