A few years ago I started working as a lawn care specialist. I enjoy the work and being able to help people improve their lawn. Most of the customers are really nice people and I enjoy talking to them and helping them where they need it. On the other hand some of the customers can be down right mean. I've had customers that would verbally attack me on a personal basis. Things like mocking my laughter, death threats, and insulting my intelligence. I can usually handle an upset customer, but when they start getting personal is when I start to show frustration. I don't think they understand how hard the job really is if you want to do quality work.
In fact, I don't even think the management understands how hard it is to do quality work. They give us quotas that we have to meet and on average we have to do about 20 yards a day just to meet those quotas. Sometimes more and sometimes less depending on the sizes of the yards. I work 11 hour days most of the time just to meet these quotas. Most companies in the industry don't even pay time and a half for over time. Yea we get small quarterly bonuses based on how much money we bring in, but they never make up for the hours that are put in. The first company I worked for didn't even pay overtime at all. The company I work for now I only make around $5 for overtime hours. No, not an additional $5 on top of pay, just $5 per overtime hour.
I really hate the way this industry is ran. I wish there was something I could do to change those things, but apparently it's all legal. I just wanted to get that off my chest and hopefully it helps some other lawn care specialist know they are not alone with their frustrations. Hopefully it also makes some people that use these services realize to not take out their frustrations on the entry level employees that are killing themselves to appease you and our bosses at the same time. Thanks for taking your time to read this and I wish you all the best.