Taking a 6 week medical leave as a one man shop

[occsean]

I have run a one man shop out of my garage for nearly 8 years. The business is doing ok. I am not getting rich, but my mortgage gets paid and my kids have clothes and food. I just found out yesterday that I need to have surgery that will basically incapacitate me for between 4 and 6 weeks. Obviously, my health is my number one concern. However, I am trying to figure out how my business will survive during this time. I have a few advantages in that my wife is also home based and self-employed and is wonderful with taking phone calls, greeting customers, checking in and out so on and so forth. She is so good at it that I seriously doubt I could hire anyone who could do it as well. So I think that taking care of customers from an admin standpoint is well taken care of. I just don't know how the actual tech work will get done. So far I have considered approaching local competitors and asking if they would be willing to come pick machines up every few days and returning them to me when they are done. I have also considered looking on Craigslist for a tech, but seeing how I am homebased I would want to do a full background and criminal check on anyone who is working out my house.

Anyone have any ideas or been through this situation?

Thanks in advance for your input

 

[BrentfromZulu]

That is unfortunate to hear. I would hope that one of your competitors would simply do the work and give you a commission or something similar. If you were a local competitor to me, I would do the work that you got and do a 80/20 split or something similar. I hope that there is someone near where you live that would do something like that. A competitor that you partner with is a great thing, you can take a week vacation and he can handle the extra workload, and likewise you can cover for his vacation.

That being said, I hope that you do get your health problems taken care of and I am hoping for the best.

 

[Kitten Kong]

Sorry to hear of your health issues.

One thing you could possibly do, is to team up with Chris @ RSTEch team.

There are plenty of threads on the subject here, with Chris offering his services.

 

[TAPtech]

Let your existing clients know! Send them a well worded email that explains the situation. If you have done good work for them in the past they will be very understanding.

 

[cypress]

Let your existing clients know! Send them a well worded email that explains the situation. If you have done good work for them in the past they will be very understanding.

Very well said.

Sorry to hear about your health, hope you have a speedy recovery after surgery!

 

[seedubya]

As everyone has said, first thing is to let your clients know that this will happen. How incapacitated will you be, for how long? Would you be able to do remote work? Minor bench stuff? Even after 2 or 4 weeks? RS Techteam would be an awesome idea if you can coach your wife in getting bench jobs to the point where they're accessible remotely. Maybe a semi-retired tech might be available somewhere locally or a shop that's NOT in your direct local area but maybe half an our or 40 min away that your wife could drive the stuff to once a day and pick up yesterday's work from them?

 

[lan101]

This situation is something that also worries me a lot down the road. A health issue can hit anyone really quickly regardless of age. I think it's pretty much been covered what you can do.

That's good that your wife can at least take in calls etc. Hopefully you could still do some remote work in some capacity. That's what I would hope for if I were in that situation. I think you should be fine. 6 weeks isn't too bad I don't think. Hopefully all goes well.

 

[Tech in SC]

Do you have a nearby college or tech school that you may be able to get an intern from?

Depending on the technical level of work, maybe even a high school kid could help out.

Would you be able to provide any level of assistance to the tech... by phone... remote?

If the work can be done remotely, you have several options:
outsourcing
TN friends
etc.

Maybe using a "competitor" that isn't too local would be an option... so that you don't worry about them taking your customers (if that's a worry).

 

[seedubya]

As far as TN goes, I'd be happy to give some time for remote work if you need it as, I'm sure, would many others.

 

[dombooth]

As far as TN goes, I'd be happy to give some time for remote work if you need it as, I'm sure, would many others.

Of course, just shout if you need any help.

Dom

 

[Markverhyden]

As the others have said hope everything works out.

What you need to do is make an honest assessment of your work flow and your post op environment. Are you going to be at home post op? I know there is no typical day but you should be able to get an idea of the general needs. And you need to figure what kind of budget you can work with.

I have personally never used interns from a local vocational technical high school or community college. But when I was at CompUSA they brought in a few from a local votech highschool. Needed constant supervision. And if they are minors you have additional concerns like if someone's machine is loaded with pr0n. There are programs at many community colleges. Either way you need to make sure and get some real world references. And if you have business insurance policies talk to them as well. Many times policies may have business continuity provisions in them that may help with outside labor.

Personally I would never touch a tech from Craig's List. However there are several web based portals that do maintain relatively strict standards for listed techs. Onforce and Field Nation are two that I have done work on as well as having used techs from. Like anything else do your home work. But the good techs on those sites are not your $15/hour variety. But they might work out for onsite work depending on your rates.

As far as remote stuff. As mentioned, look at RS Techteam. Of course you can always post requests for one off stuff here.

 

[callthatgirl]

I can help out too, just PM me for my info. Glad to help

 

[occsean]

A big hearty thank you everyone for all your replies and well wishes. To elaborate on some questions that have been asked. I am scheduled to have open heart surgery to get my pulmonary valve replaced in the next few months. The 6 weeks is a rough estimate. No one really knows what the recovery time will be as it varies from patient to patient. Since I am reasonably healthy and also relatively young (45) my cardiologist believes I will be on the quicker side of the healing spectrum. I know that I will be hospitalized for at least the first week and assume that the next 2-3 weeks will be pretty rough. As to the business side of things. I do have a sub contractor who does DC Jack repairs and other laptop tear downs for me that I spoke with today. He is willing to help where he can. You guys have provided a TON of great ideas and I think between the input I have received here and the support of my wife and family we will get through this.

For the nuts and bolts of things, I think I would be capable of hobbling out to the shop and getting a TV or SC client on any machine so that someone could remotely access it. I would actually feel more comfortable having a regular from TN working on the machine while it was on my bench than trying to arrange for a local competitor, whose standards or workflow I am unsure of, taking the machine away and then bringing it back.

When the time comes I will ping a few of you guys and look for some help. From a business standpoint I am thinking of a 75/25 split of revenue with the 75 going to whomever does the remote work. At the end of the day I just don't want my business flow to be interrupted and for my customers to have to go somewhere else and I am willing to let the lions share of the profits go to the people who can competently do the work.

 

[danrmcr]

I just got back to work after a 2ish month leave from open heart surgery, I had an enlarged Aorta, and Pectus Excavatum. The surgery was planned and everything went great. Heart surgery is very common these days, and the surgeons are amazing, if you have any questions regarding the days leading up to it feel free to PM me. I am 26 and had two months to plan my leave.

I own a 2 person store in Calgary Alberta, and if it wasn't for my one employee who rose above I wasn't sure what I would have done. Use your friends and family. Also one of the best things I did was wrote 10 letters and signed them personally, I left these letters with my employee in case something wild happened or worst case scenario. These letters explained the situation and promised I would be back and work with the customer to fix what was broken.

None of the letters were used, and my cell number was given out lots, I was taking phone calls on my cell, and remoting onto clients computers whenever I could by the third week of recovery.

Also, if you are having trouble sleeping at night from pain as your sternum is healing, buy a foam wedge medical pillow. I had almost solid night sleeps the entire time and it was easier to get out of bed in the morning. I still use it today!

 

[stevenamills]

I had an unplanned bypass last November and missed several weeks. I must say that my business suffered badly and still hasn't recovered. It may well have been the beginning of the end for me. I hope not, but that has been the reality of it. I truly wish you better.

 

[carrcomp]

Here's hoping for a speedy recovery. I'm sure your family, as well as your customers, will look forward to you coming back with a full recovery.

If you need some help, we'd be happy to help you with a short term contract.

Please, give me a call at 866-568-2813 and I can go over some options with you.

You can also take a peek on our website. Since you're in the US, you can also take a peek here :

| Remote Support Tech Team (866) 568-2813

 

[occsean]

Update on my original post

Hi everyone...Just wanted to post an update on what is being done in preparation for my medical leave. First off a huge thank you to everyone who responded on the thread and PM'd me. It means the world, especially from folks I have never met and the only bond we have is being computer repair business owners.

I spoke with my subcontractor and another buddy of mine who works as a tech and they have agreed to handle all machines that come in during my absence. Also my wife will be in charge of communicating with customers until the time comes when I can at least talk on the phone. We have decided to just be up front with everyone, let them know that my turn-around times have slowed down a bit and that we appreciate their continuing support of the company. I also will not hesitate to reach out to all of you who generously offered your help.

All in all, I feel 10X better about this situation than I did just a few weeks ago and actually have faith that everything will turn out just fine for everyone, myself included.

 

[carrcomp]

Awesome!

Very glad to hear you've got it all figured out.

Best of luck, and a speedy recovery

 

[onetech4all]

@occsean - I wish you full and speedy recovery.

On a side note, I am taking a 3 weeks vacation right now. I will be in Europe to visit my parents. My customers know it, I told them I can do remote work and I have a backup tech for emergencies. This is my second job, but it has been my "baby" for 6 years. Hope things go well; I barely want to step away from it, but I need a vacation from my first job. I work corporate also. Hope things go well

 

[Micah Lahren]

I hope all goes well with the surgery, as was said, training someone you know, a knowledgeable friend or as was mentioned, your wife. However, if push comes to shove, there's a few of us on here who will volunteer to do whatever remote work we can do to help out. Let me know if there's anything I can do.