I want to start by saying that it does get better. I am not sure if this is the right sub for this but I wanted to give some hope. I know it’s a long read but I hope its worth it.
I started as a millwork estimator in 2005 with a salary of 35k a year. The president and CFO were great mentors. After abot 2 years the business closed. It was a great experience. I then went to work for my uncle estimating Glass. He was a good person but a real hot head. Every time I would get a new client he would flip out on them for one thing or another. I realizes it was time to move on.
I went to work for a drywall contractor that did residential and commercial drywall. This is where things get interesting. I was hired there at 45k a year in 2007. I learned the job pretty quickly and was doing really well. I didn’t get trained very much so I had to learn most of the software and processes on my own. It sucked then but has really helped me later. When I started the commercial division was doing about 300K a year and in 2 years we were doing around 3mil.
I took a part time security position on weekends to make extra money which was hard. I would work all week and then go to my part time job on Friday nights from 8pm till around 3am. Then again on Saturday.
In 2009 I was offered a job with another company so I went to the owner and told him about it. He said he was going to do whatever he could to keep me. I was really happy about that because it was a great place to work and I built up a lot of contacts. My wife and I were about to have our first child. About a week after out talk he came to me and offered me 60k to stay. I accepted that and stayed. After about 2 months I was asked to take a walk into the shop with the owner. He explained that things were tough and that I would be getting laid off. This was hard to take. My wife had my daughter 2 weeks later. I was pretty hurt by this because I could have taken the other job.
I worked at another millwork company for a year and it was really disorganized and I couldn’t turn it around. I was offered a job at a new drywall company where I would run the office. So I took that job. It was all going well till I found out that the owner had a really bad drug habit and was stealing money for that. So I had to take a lay off because they couldn’t pay me.
After that the original drywall company contacted me to come back and work for them. At this point I was laid off for 11 months and there weren’t many other options. I accepted the position and started back. I worked a lot of hours and made a lot of connections. I had to learn a new estimating software program at this point with no training. I worked through it. We had a vice president that was really though on me. I worked as much as I could and did everything I could to keep my job. In the past being laid off really got into my head. I was working 12 hour days most of the time. In 2014 the Owners committed suicide and he was a mess. I knew I needed to step up. The VP and a few others took advantage of this and didn’t do much. They also knew that I would pick up whatever wasn’t done. I started doing the project management at that point too. I kept doing what was needed for a year or so. The owner saw this and recognized that I really helped out. I had a few job offers at that time and I just didn’t feel right leaving with the situation the owner was in. In 2017 the VP and the owner got into it and the VP quit. I was given a large raise which I was really happy for because I felt my hard work paid off. The owner then gave his 2 brothers and sister ownership. The one brother was maid VP of commercial. That was pretty much my position. I talked to the owner and asked what that meant. He said the two of us ran that division and we were equal. The owners brother started being hard on me and saying he was my boss. I was under a lot of pressure making sure my work was right and looking over his. I should add that before he was a drywall hanger and didn’t know much about the commercial end of things, so I needed to teach him all of that. At this point my doctor put me on medication and I was struggling. We are now a 10mil commercial division. The longer it went the worse it got. They would be at the bar all afternoon and I was working till 8 at night most nights. I felt like I was trapped because I didn’t think I could make the money anywhere else. When COVID happened, I asked to be set up at home and they said no I was being laid off. After 2 days they couldn’t deal with things, so they brought me back into the office by myself. Everyone else stayed home and hung out. When the lock down ended, they were on me every day about getting more work and any mistake on the projects was my fault.
Now here is the bright side. I was not looking for a job at all because like I said I felt trapped. A good friend called me and said he knew of a small drywall company that needed someone like me. I contacted the owner, and we had 3 interviews. They were not in great shape, but they are good people and have a great work ethic. I thought about it for a few days and realized I could be making a mistake, but I felt I needed to try it. They offered me more money than I was making so I made the move. I have been here for a little over 2 years and it has been amazing. Verry little stress and they accepted me like family. We do around 3.5mil a year in total sales and they are so happy with that.
I just wanted to tell my story and let people know that hard work does pay off and you make a reputation throughout your career. People talk to each other whether it’s within or outside of the company. Always keep pushing and keep smiling. It will pay off. Maybe not in a week or even a year but it will.