Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/401422
52 • NOVEMBER 2014 • WORLD FENCE NEWS Is your business or association positioned for the changing economy? Do you have the strategy in place to put you and your staff/members in the best position to succeed? If the answer to the above questions is anything other than a solid "YES", then contact us to discuss possible ways we can help you to improve your overall operations and to help put you and your business or association in a better position to succeed. MANAGEMENT MOTIVATIONAL ASSOCIATES, INC. When you need an experienced executive level management consultant like Jim Lucci to review overall business strategy and procedures or business specifics such as sales training, staff motivation, time management, inventory control, scheduling, yard/warehouse layout, etc., call Jim Lucci at 516-379-0903 or fill out and return the coupon below by mail or fax to 516-379-2404 or contact us by e-mail at MMAJandJ@aol.com (please identify subject as "consulting"). We will contact you promptly to discuss your needs and schedule business, seminar, meeting or convention appointments and rates. Appointments may be made for personal appearances or telephone consultations. Fill out (please print) and return to: James V. (Jim) Lucci Management Motivational Associates, Inc. 18 Hansome Place • Freeport, NY 11520 • MMAJandJ@aol.com Please call me. I'm interested in ______________________________________________________ Telephone _______________________________ Convenient time ___________________________ Fax Number ____________________________ E-mail: ___________________________________ Name ______________________________________________________________________________ Name of Business/Organization _______________________________________________________ Address ____________________________________________________________________________ City ____________________________________ State ______ Zip ___________________________ World Fence News contributing editor Read Jim Lucci's monthly column: The Human Link • Jim's Byline: PROFIT IS NOT A DIRTY WORD!™ Past IFIA Convention speaker and presenter of Eastern International Convention keynote addresses Jim Lucci COUPON You name it, this fence job has it all BY JIM HART, WFN CONTRIBUTING EDITOR EMERITUS In memory of Jim Hart, fencer, storyteller, and world class humorist, we will occasionally reprint one of the many articles that he contributed to World Fence News over the years. This column first appeared in the Feb- ruary 1992 edition of World Fence News. Sadly, Jim passed away a num- ber of years ago in Florida, where he lived. You wouldn't believe the past few days… Blood, knife wounds, gunshot wounds, cuts, contusions, non-stop! Did I mention gore? All of it happened in a section of town I always thought was pretty civilized, too. Now, before you jump to conclu- sions, I ought to point out that none of this happened to me and the boys. Actually, we had a good view of the emergency room entrance from where we were fencing in the hospital incin- erator. We underbid everyone for this one. I mistakenly figured prices from a 1987 catalog. We took a bloodbath on it. But it sure did shake up the com- petition! Keeps 'em on their toes! I hope there's a loophole somewhere that will let me write this one off! But this job set the pace for the rest of the week. We do 300 feet of "salvage and new" fence, which I also bid out of the 1987 catalog. I might make a dollar profit on it, provided I use the fumes from somebody else's gas tank to get us to and from the job! I seldom make such a mistake, but when I do, it's a real tragedy of life. I musta been bit by the "stooped bug" this week. A guy calls me and says he's got 1,200 feet of 72" + 3BW, a roll gate and a swing gate. How much to put it up? When he tells me the site, I some- how translate "pole yard" into "pole barn." Here's what that means, and how it really screwed us up. There is a pole barn being built on a beautiful landfill site nearby. It would be a piece of cake. So I quote him a buck a foot for the installation. But when we arrive at the pole barn site, no one knows anything about a fence. Uh-oh! A phone call clears up the situation. The "pole yard" where the fence is really supposed to go is located on a patch of ground that the Indians were glad to see the settlers arrive and take over – creeks, swamp, solid rock two inches down, trees, vines, mud, rubble – a classic textbook case of a "fencer's worst nightmare." Naturally, the layout gets changed from nice straight runs from here to here to there, to "follow the creek." Ah, well, what the heck? It's these little unexpected surprises that keep life from getting boring, ain't it? If my wife hadn't thrown away a $5,000 winning lottery ticket at the beginning of the week, I could have cancelled the job, right then and there! The customer sends in a front end loader to clear a right of way, and pushes everything into the swamp and piles mud on top of it. It takes a half a day to dig a passage through about a million tons of piled up rocks ranging from 6" to 8" in diameter. No one has any idea where they came from or what they were used for! They look like ballast stones from the old sailing ships, but since we are 75 miles from the ocean, maybe they are from Noah's Ark… Nah! Something is finally going in my favor. The customer agrees to fill in under the low spots on the fence line with the stones. I figure he is going to be about 500 tons short on rocks, be- cause the creek has gouged out huge depressions. That's two for me! We set the posts high, low, and in between as the contour dictat- ed. None of the posts were set deep enough to take the strain of an "around curve inside pull on the barbed wire." Oh well, hope for the best, expect the worst, and settle for defeat out of mere disaster. I needn't have worried about the barbed wire. It's some new stuff, limp, not springy like gauncho. It pulls "tight looking" around curves, by hand. This is chain link fencer's barbed wire! The weather had erased the name on the box, and the customer didn't remember where he got it. It's great! Grab it if you find it! Well, the job's fini, and it came out better than I ever dared hope for. The customer wasn't sure how to take my statement that whoever sold him the "hand-rolled" rolls of fabric shorted each by five or six feet. I didn't mention that half the 11- 1/2 gauge fabric he paid for was actual- ly 12-1/2 gauge, there weren't enough tie wires, and I had to exchange some 3" tension bands for some 3" brace bands. Minor details. The last big deal is when the hell do I get paid? The bum is outta town, and a secretary who answers the phone tells me her last two paychecks bounced. So why was I worrying over get- ting paid? The check would probably bounce anyway, she said. I hoped she was just joking, or covering the boss from the rear while he gets new funds in the account or something. I know how it is; I been there my- self. Been there, hell! I stay there! The last big deal is when the hell do I get paid? 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