4. Procedure

a. Understand the Time Allocation
Every job has a target duration. It’s not just an estimate — it’s the time frame required for the company to be profitable.

Example for a 1-hour job:

• 5 mins – Greeting & discussion

• 5 mins – Unloading tools

• 35 mins – Actual work

• 5 mins – Handover to customer

• 5 mins – Paperwork & departure

A 10-day job should be proportioned similarly, allowing for curing times, painting, customer instruction, and handover.

b. Proportional Task Planning

• Avoid spending 20 minutes discussing a job that only needs 30 minutes of actual work.

• Don’t spend a whole day on an unexpected problem (e.g., digging huge post foundations) without flagging it to the office immediately.

• Report early signs of overrun on Day 1 or 2 — don’t ignore them.

c. Communicate Delays Immediately
If a job is running late:

• Let the office know.

• Let the customer know.

• Don’t leave customers waiting or taking unnecessary time off work.

• Remember that one delayed job can disrupt the schedule for several customers.

d. Plan Your Time-Sensitive Tasks First

• Start with tasks that have drying, curing, or setting times.

• Ensure mission critical tasks are actually acheivable, don't wait until the end to find out you can't actually do the job.

• Plan chem-fix, concrete, or painting early in the job.

• Avoid downtime by overlapping tasks sensibly.

• Check the weather, it may be prudent to paint when it's dry, or there may be some aspect of the job you can do in the workshop.

e. Stock & Tools — Be Prepared

• Think the job through before leaving the yard.

• Make a written or digital load list. I like to use a standard list with everything on it and cross things off I don't need, leaving the things I do need to load up.

• Keep the van organised — every misplaced tool costs minutes, this adds up to days or weeks over a year.

• Avoid returning to the yard to get forgotten items. If you do forget something try to work around it, use an alternative, get the item the next day, or buy one more locally.

f. Customer Add-Ons (“Can You Just…”)

• Sometimes customers ask for extras, and this is fine but customers often expect them for free and don't realise how much things cost. Doing extras can take a job over the threashold time allowed. In other words an extra may result in having to return the next day. If there's two of you on a job this can end up actually costing the company 2 man/days. The job itself may only be 2-3 hours of work.  On the other hand, if you are looking like finishing early and you do have time, and it's a minor task, then yes, it is likely that the office will agree.

• Be polite but realistic — “If I can fit it in and you cover materials cost, no problem, but the main job comes first.” 

• Always get written authorisation for extras.

g. Route Efficiency & Travel Time

• Stick to office-planned routes. Your route, the order of your jobs, will be generally planned out considering customer requests and shortest or most efficient routes.

• Use navigation apps to avoid traffic. Google maps, Apple maps, Waze etc... they all have built in traffic avoidance software. 

• Avoid unnecessary extra trips. Be careful about messing with the order of jobs, the office staff have more information than you and will have been planning these jobs for days. 

h. Confirm Appointments in Advance

• Call customers before leaving:

  • “Hi, it’s [Your Name] from Fort Knox. I’m due to visit and just wanted to confirm.”

• If no answer: leave a message and clarify whether you will still attend.

• Call the office if in doubt, they may have extra info.

i. Monitor for “Can of Worms” Situations

• If the job scope changes unexpectedly, stop and assess.

• Ask yourself: Has the job become something different to the quote?

• Re-quote before proceeding if necessary.

• EG if you start to change a groundbox and notice that a post is badly rotten. the customer may be better off scrapping todays work and putting a new post, or two posts in. Don't leave them in a situation that was worse than when you got there, that would put huge pressure on everyone and create problems that are costly to repair. Instead keep an overview of the situation, think.

• If the job differs from the spec then call the office

j. Do something useful

• The worste waste of time is leaving a job with no result, avoid this.

• Ideally do something we can charge for, even a small thing to cover our costs.

• At least is get a firm plan of action eg a sure diagnosis, parts and time required, photos, a safety report.

• It is very rare that the only option is 'no result'. You can always use the time to tell people what we can do in the future, what services we offer, what their system may benefit from, let them know we are there to help, that they can contact us when they are ready.