Reel Talk: Twitter Space 3/20/22

Transcript

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I got to spend a good long time with Jr Wilson. And while we’re talking about, uh, Apprenticeship programs and internships or whatever. He’s got a really good thing going on there. And he had to work it out with his local high school in his area, but he has a kid that comes to his shop. I think it was a Tuesday and Thursday morning and works like half a day in the shot with him. And it’s been really, really good. And before that, he, uh, he had his, uh, nephew working with him when he was in high school too. And his nephew worked with him for like three or four years. And now he’s down at, uh, no golf links of America, which is an awesome facility. By the time you got here, Mike, glad you could join us. we know he is not just not gonna be a listener. No, no. We all know Mike, the, the introvert Mike is not just gonna listen. That’s what he likes to tell everybody stuff. So anybody that, uh, is getting thing to add to this, bring it. I don’t know. He’s he’s waving or something. I got a waving emoji popping up here. I must. Yeah. Um, and then I gotta send out some emails to some of y’all this wanting to, uh, want to be on the podcast. All right. I invited him to speak. So maybe that’s why he was raising his hand. I don’t know. But I definitely think it’s something we can, uh, all work on. And I think it’s gonna start at the grassroots level and it’s probably gonna be calling high schools or yeah. Community college or trade school or something like that. I mean, I wish I like in my place, if I didn’t have so much red tape, it would be like, nice to have someone come in and I’ve talked about it. Cause we do hire summer help from like high schools and stuff. It’s just very political. Yeah’s the easiest way to say it. It’s just not easy to it happen, but I just gotta kind of push them a little more maybe and see what they wanna, what they want to do. Cause it’s, I don’t know if it’ll be okay with having somebody in a shop, like where I’m at. You know, doing that. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. But like down the road, I definitely, if I go somewhere else, definitely something I would like to venture down that to have like either, you know, apprenticeship or internship. Right, right. I sent an email to my local high school, little cuz asking if they had, uh, whatever a job fair day or something like that. And, um, mm-hmm, hadn’t heard anything crickets. It was like two months ago. so I don’t know if I need to show up there or what the best way to get people to call you back is sorry guys. I was catching up on, uh, 1883. Uh that’s on demand. Mike, you can watch that anytime. No, those those episodes. I can’t, I can’t not finish it, boys. I gotta finish the episode. That’s that stuff is addicting. It is. And I like it better than Yellowstone. This is a great show. I do. I do too. It’s so, so well written so well made, uh, really, really good, good writing. Yeah, that’s awesome. I, uh, I spoke to Tommy Hewitt, uh, earlier this week about this east lake deal and, uh, was like, Hey man, just, you know, cuz he and Charlie obviously have each other phone numbers and I was trying to help Charlie out and you know, reach out and stuff like that. And uh, Tommy said the same thing. He’s like, yeah man, you’re gonna have to, he’s like I could try and get a bunch of as up here, uh, in this county, but they’re not gonna want to go down there. Uh, they’re gonna have to go local. I said ten four. Um, basically what you just said too, Trent, like what Jr’s doing and I still have a reminder. It’s at the, literally the top of my reminders right now on my phone is to talk to Jr. Just been really busy, running around. It was easier to text the WhatsApp group real fast was in a wedding yesterday and stuff. But, um, that’s, I think the route east Lake’s gonna have to go. Um, I don’t know if you guys all in here agree. Um, I just, I think it’s a lot easier, quote, unquote easier. It’s not gonna be easier, but it’s gonna be easier, um, to get somebody local, to, to jump in your shop and, um, versus, you know, flying somebody in, I mean, you might get lucky and find somebody who does wanna fly in and things like that. But, um, it’s a pretty, pretty sweet gig, I think in my personal opinion, um, that Charlie and Ralph are willing to, to put ’em up in the intern, the a I T um, apartment and stuff like that, which they’re moving ’em into a brand new apartment. And, um, hopefully it works out and they can find somebody local, but yeah, Tommy het said something about a continuing education. He called it like a CAE. So I told Charlie to dig into it. I kind of researched it a little bit, but it got, you know, bananas thrown at me and add D kicked in. But, um, I think if we could find some kids locally at like a high school and local tech schools and things like that, I think it’s a good starting point. Well, I don’t at east lake, they have the charter school there. I don’t know if any of these kids would be interested in it or not. And the, I don’t remember Tommy works with ’em a lot. It’s like south for south high school school has a turf program. And I don’t, I mean, it probably isn’t those kids dream job, but you might find one kid out of that class. And especially since they’re putting you up down there, but it’s not the most desirable neighborhood to be in. Yeah, exactly. And that sounds like Charlie, I said, is there a Publix nearby? He’s like, yeah. And he started laughing. I said, well, good. The Publix, I think will be a deal breaker for guys who know what pubs is. So, uh, at least they got that going for him there. But, um, Charlie said something you did to Trent, where he was like, Yeah. I called the local tech school and emailed the local tech school. And same thing. You said cricket? Nothing. Yeah. It’s pretty sad. Oh, I just don’t, I don’t think the tech schools really know what we do. No, they have no idea. Cause I mean, like when I was coming through automotive, like yeah, it’s dumb that I never thought of golf courses, but like it wasn’t, you know, like, oh, I’m working on cars, I’m gonna work, you know, a Chevy dealer, a Cadillac dealer, you know, something like that. Not like, come do this. And like, like I said, I mean eight years ago, nine years ago now. And like I found a new passion, but like, I mean, I worked on lawn hours when I was 16, but I was like, those guys were, interesting to say the least, but yeah. I mean, it definitely opened my eyes to like working on like, you know, being a mechanic for a career. But like working in like a lawn moer shop, I was like, oh, this is kind of crazy, but like to come to a golf course and just get, I don’t know if it’s even just have a field trip day for like VO tech kids or something, you know, to at least get them to understand, like, this is a career path and it’s a very good career to have. Yeah. That’s the cool, they about the first green that they’re doing. Um, Rob Yar down in south Florida just did it. I don’t know if you guys saw it. I was making jokes about the stent meter and hot wheels, but, uh, they just had a ton of kids, like elementary age kids, um, out to his course and ran ’em through like the basics. And I think I’ve mentioned it in here, at least maybe in the podcast with Trent, uh, Clint, McKee’s doing that out at the big Cedar. Um, when Todd bone was director of agronomy, um, I think they still do it every once in a while the local school and tech school come out and they give him tours of the shop and tours of the agronomy program and things like that. And so like, they’re a lot of you guys out there doing it, but, um, I’m still personally hooked on the. How do we get it advertised outside of the industry and do it kind of quickly, um, on a big scale. So it’s still something I’m kind of personally thinking about and tinkering with and trying to find how’s. Uh, very good question. Go ahead, Chris. Hi guys. And Kayla, uh, sorry. I’m a little late to head to go pick up my kid from a ski hill. So yeah. Uh, I have been looking into this on my end up here, and unfortunately I’m getting stonewalled again because we had a small engine program, uh, that was done through the Alberta apprenticeship program. But apparently it has died off nobody even they went down to one, uh, community college and then it disappeared completely. So now I think everybody’s looking at the older automotive technician or the heavy duty tech, and they’re trying to say, okay, maybe we can start using this as a resource to bring. A lot of skilled labor coming in, because if I can remember correctly from when I was an apprentice, there was a lot of background materials between just looking at the grade of bolt of the type of metal that was used, the type of oils that were used and looking at different, different technical background, be able to fill these people with a lot of information. So they actually could hit the floor running and stuff like that. And I would love to see apprenticeships still continue, but. How do you E convince younger kids to do that? And I, I think the only thing is, is sort of similar to the first, the first tee program and then getting a bit more technical into it because I’m not sure who it was, but somebody asked for simple electric circuit. I just, before San Diego happened, someone was talking to me about, yeah, can we do something quick, simple, and show something that would be technical and engineering. And could they be done on a relative inexpensive things just to sort of get these young kids minds going? And I’m not sure what happened with it, but I really hope that it’s still going on because it would be cool to see some of these, try to figure out stuff and learn and even maybe say, Hmm, yeah, there could be a way to do this. So this is this topic actually for me hit pretty hard to hone. Cause that’s actually how I got into the industry was, um, I was at a tech school, um, a community college going through automotive and I had the, uh, um, excuse me, the, uh, local to your distributor, um, while not local, but for the state of Michigan, they couldn’t find anybody. So they reached out and by fate, they reached out. Didn’t really know they posted the job and all that. And then by chance I got it and that’s how I did it. I got into the industry. So. I have actually spent since I, so I started there and then when I got to the golf course and started to get involved in my local chapter, I’ve been reaching out every year to vocational schools, um, college community colleges and getting stonewalled, except for, I just got finally got talked to and it’s, I think one of your, you need to find out it’s the right person to talk to. So I was reaching out to a lot of the old guy, older people that are the instructors and people that I knew from like my old school. And then I would reach out to the diesel instructors. Well, I think a lot of times those guys are, you know, they just don’t want to get involved and they don’t want the, well by chance the one, I just reached out to the vocational school by my golf course and got ahold of the career path director. Um, so I’m actually gonna be going to him touring the school. Kind of give them my pitch and then we’re gonna try to set up a day that I’m going to, um, you know, give a pitch and kind of bring, maybe bring some equipment in and kind of like a career day. So it’s out there. It’s and then also kind of, it kind of everything’s flown into place a little bit is I’m on, uh, involved with my local chapter pretty, uh, in indefinite. And, uh, they just recently reached out about the Michigan golf course owners association. They’re trying to start a, a superintendent apprenticeship because they’re having a really hard time finding quality five people. And a being affordable. So it’s all these, the smaller mom and pops that can’t quite pay enough for somebody who’s got a degree, but you know, they don’t wanna take a risk on somebody that doesn’t have any formal training. So what they’re doing is they’re starting an apprenticeship program. So I piggy pack off for that and said, Hey, what do I need to do, be involved with this? Because what it is is that all the cost of the club. So let’s say if you hire this, you have the apprentice come in, you have a curriculum and everything, and all your investment as a club, you pay, you know, it’s on the job training. So you’re paying them. It comes back from you from the departmental labor. So you’re SIM helped him stimulate the economy. And so I’m reached out where I’m with that. They’re, we’re, they’re gonna, she wants to focus on that. And then once that we’re gonna try and roll it and see if we can adapt it and change it to EMS. And then if we can do that as a chapter, and then actually I’ve reached out to our regional, um, our regional guy, Shane Conroy with GCSA and I’m like, Hey, there’s no reason why, why, why we, if we can do this as a local chapter, do it as a, you know, as a, as a national chapter. So, um, I, I it’s, it’s out there. It’s just, it’s persistency. Um, you know, just constantly doing it and not giving up. It’s just a lot of grind, but that’s kind of what, what I’ve found. That’s awesome. Ben, and thank you for doing that. That’s incredible. And I really think it’s on G C S a a to get with the, the program and they should know who to talk to. And the first green program won’t get on a soapbox for a minute is great. And there’s nothing wrong with that, but that’s not enough because if you’re teaching kids in elementary school about this industry, That’s what, 10 years, at least down the road and we need people now. So I definitely think the, the trade schools and high schools are the place to go for sure. And Ben, who did you say you spoke with? What was their title? This, oh my God. I’m. Career path development or I’ll have to, I, I can, I can look back and I’ll post it on the WhatsApp, but it was something with either on the job training or career path development. Um, basically in a nutshell, he was the one where I think he’s or job. I, I can’t remember now, but what it is is I think what he is, he’s not the instructor, but he’s the one that helps place kids into a job. Or so like for instance, he said they have a, they have a career day for their diesel class, that caterpillar comes in and the dealership will come in and they’ll bring in all the equipment and kind of show ’em how to operate it, run it, and what the, you know, bring some to X in with their, the service trucks and things like that. Um, so I told ’em like, wow, I would really, you know, if I could get on board and our Touro distributor up here is, um, The, the service manager, John GARS is, he’s always willing to help and always, you know, wealth of knowledge and willing to help. So, you know, if we could roll something into that or, or even just getting five or six guys and, you know, um, to go there with some cutting units or things like that, or, you know, but yeah, yeah, yeah. I can’t remember exactly what his title is, but that’s what he does. The career path development, I think. Okay. Do you know how the, your local association got their program set up? You got any insight on that? No. You mean the, uh, as far as the, for the superintendent one? Yeah, yeah. For the superintendent one. No. Cause I literally was like, I, as soon as that email thread came through, rather than going through and replying to all, I just, I emailed her directly and I, she she, she was kind of confused as she’s like, wait. You wanna do a what for who I’m like exactly what you’re doing, but rather than superintendents for the mechanic, he’s like at your golf course, you want no, I’m like, no, I, for the, for my local, who you just emailed to tell us to look it over that chapter to start and do the whole thing. Well, I’m confused. I’ll so she, anyways, we’re gonna, her and I are gonna get in contact. And then she’s in con also contact with Shane Conroy, my DCS, a regional guy. So I collaborate with him as well. So we’re gonna try and get it cause it to be quite honest with you, the way it looked, it didn’t seem like there was a ton of, uh, it wasn’t too crazy as far as getting it started. It really just seems like you gotta fill out some forms and it gets by department of labor. That’s awesome. Yeah, definitely. Uh, keep us posted on that, cuz I mean, I think we’re all gonna have to do it and yeah, it would be nice for something to happen on a bigger scale, but I think it’s kind of up to us for right now anyway. To keep them all rolling. Ben, I got a question of how long has this process been taken you? Um, to even just to get contacts into schools, because we’ve got a, a few vocational schools, but they usually head out to our technical centers or to our community colleges where they’re, where heading to, and they’re, they’re looking at automotive and heavy duty. Uh that’s just because where all the big money is around here. Yeah. I mean, it’s been a, I, I like, I, every, every year I reach out to, um, a couple of either C communities, community colleges. Um, and then I think that’s where the disconnect it probably was, is. So I start then this was like, it is like a high school, um, tech center. So they’s where they do it. Then they decide to go over to go to college for it. Um, and I got more traction there than going to the cause. If I, you know, I text five or six automotive, um, Uh, instructors and nothing. Or I reached out to the old director of the automotive program. And again, cricket it’s, uh, sometimes I think they just, it’s just either there’s a loss and disconnect, but I’ve been doing it ever since. Um, I mean, I mean, I’ve been probably five years that I’ve been email and whatnot, and this is the first time that I’ve got traction with anything. Oh, I gotta give you a big thumb up on that one at it for so long cause that’s that’s dedication round of applause. Uh, it’s crazy. I, I think like, like I said, it’s, it’s, it’s hard because a lot of people don’t know what we do. You say equip manager, a turf mechanic. They’re like, okay, you fix lawn mowers? No, no we don’t. We do, but we don’t, you know? Yeah. I think even if we put together, uh, you know, a PowerPoint presentation or something that just kind of shows what we get to work on and it could basically just be like a slideshow of all the different things we work on and talk about, you know, whatever we’re working on. Yeah. Where we’re doing. Yeah. And not just working on lawnmowers. Yeah. Pump stations and all the other fun stuff that we get into the random stuff. It shows up like, Hey, this doesn’t work. Okay. What is it? Uhhuh? Well, that’s one of the reasons why people basically say, yeah, I just work on lawn mowers. I just let ’em think that, because then there’ll be a day there that comes when they need help with their chainsaw or something. And it’s like, sorry, I only do lawn wars. yeah. It’s it, it, it’s fun to sort of spin it back onto the person who is very, I don’t know, narrow mind or who doesn’t pay attention to it because when they see the big fairway was rolling around and stuff like that, it’s like, yeah. Yeah. I work on that too. Cause it’s a lot more well, I gotta tell, I gotta tell a quick story. So our beverage cart lady, I service her cart every whatever few months. Okay. And I’m at the clubhouse one day going to get parts or something. And I, I run into her and she asked me if I knew anyone that works on golf carts and her name’s Liz I said, I’m sorry, Liz. I don’t know anyone that works on golf carts. She’s like, well, my boyfriend, he, he got, he got a golf cart and I’m sorry, Liz can’t help you. I mean, if you if you hadn’t figured it out already that yes, I work on golf carts. I probably don’t wanna be working on your golf cart. Uh, so like we, uh, contract out all of our road equipment, uh, like trucks and stuff like that to a company that does it in a central location. And it was few years ago now. And they had sent them down for winter maintenance, which means they’re checking the hydraulic, uh, like the plows, the salt spreaders and the one truck, like hydraulic fittings were just frozen up because of salt. That does wonderful things. So it went down, it came back and you could clearly tell they never plugged them in. So I put parts request in at the time they used, we used us to get all parts through them. For two hydraulic things they like, and I put the truck number like, well, what are you doing? I’m like, well, I’m fixing this truck cuz it needs fixed. Like, oh we do the big stuff. You do the small stuff. I was like, oh the small stuff. So like these 110 horsepower tractors, you won’t work on them. They’re like, no, no, no, no. That’s your stuff. I’m like, well it’s not small. Right. But they’re like, you do the small stuff. Like I don’t just fix ERs boys. Yeah. It’s crazy what people think we do, but there’s a lot of room for improvement. We just gotta keep working on it. So I thank you, Ben, for everything you’re doing. And it’s great to hear what Charlie and Ralph are gonna do at east lake. And I know Jr is probably chomping at the bit to get in here. He asked to speak a little while ago. You wanna, I’ve got a question. Um, staying, staying back on the, the equipment managers world and stuff like that. Do you guys have a state recognized? Um, Designation of, of trade. Like, because up here in Canada, I am classified as a red seal automotive service technician. So is, is there anything down in the states because I know that there was the ASE, which is, um, American society of engineers and they will give different classifications for automotive technicians. But is there anything for small engine equipment down in the state side? Not that I’m aware of E TC, you know, they’re doing their thing with some certificates and the GCs a and their certificate program. And as far as I know, that’s all I know about anybody else wanna speak to that? That’s about all I know about. I mean, like obviously I carry ASE master status. From being in the automotive industry and then like EMCP, but, uh, I don’t know of anything, like even down to the state level or anything like that. Cuz like I said, I, I didn’t know about tariff equipment until like eight years ago. Well, I’m glad I found it because I loved this position and I consider it my semi retired job it lets me really do a lot of things, um, with my family. So my work life balance is incredible and I’m totally glad that I found this industry. Why don’t something, something you said? I thought that was pretty interesting. Chris is instead outta just looking for young people, maybe we should look at, you know, the automotive industry or the motorcycle industry. And try to get some of those people that already have a skillset and to teach somebody that, I mean, you pick whoever it is, but somebody that’s been working on motorcycles for 10 or 15 years or automobiles, it’s gonna be a pretty trip, easy transition to teach ’em cutting units. That’s my opinion in the only thing with that is like every superintendent. I’ve a lot of guys that I’ve talked to is they don’t want older guys, you know, they want some, they don’t want somebody that’s cause that’s what they’ve dealt with is they’ve dealt with not dealt with, but that’s what it’s like. Then they get five, 10 years, you know, they want, they wanna hire somebody that they don’t have to worry about for the rest of their career is kind of what that’s a consensus. Like. I mean, I had a hard time. I was looking for an assistant, um, and I had guys. That were better qualified than I were. And they were just, yeah. And my super was like, Nope, I want somebody young that way. Cuz we kind of knew at that point they knew that I, we knew that I was gonna leave, um, with the next couple of years and move on. So he’s like, no, I want somebody that I don’t wanna have to go through this again. I want you to train and have somebody that’s young that way. They’re ready to kinda mold it. So that’s what the or resistance that I’ve got about hiring somebody that’s already been in the industry? Well, I guess I get that point, but if you’re hiring somebody that’s in their forties, they still got quite a few active years. And if you know, if you have that mindset, I don’t know. I don’t don’t necessarily agree with, with that mindset. Obviously. Maybe you don’t want to hire somebody that’s 75. But, you know, if you’re hiring somebody in their forties or even fifties, you know, you got 10 years out of some, 10 or 15 out of somebody that’s 50 and that’s long enough and more likely that person’s gonna move on eventually anyway. Yeah, because when, uh, In the automotive industry, the big joke was tool boxes have wheels for a reason. And a lot of guys, they get burnt out in a shop and they just, they go out and they have to wait for a job to come in. They get a vehicle they do as, as many quick diagnosis as possible. And then yeah, you get sold on the job and then all of a sudden you have all this work and then you have to keep going for your 15 hour day. And then yeah, you’re making great money, but you get burnt out. And it’s one of these things where a lot of guys are just going, yeah, I’m getting tired of this and having to sit around to wait and then having to hustle, like crazy trying to do it. So I think that might be an option because I golf with a lot of buddies who are mechanics and they hear about me and it’s just like, oh, you got a mate. It’s like, yeah, but I don’t get out to golf enough anymore. mm-hmm, funny how that works out. I think the other thing, um, if I’m being brutally honest and Taylor was kind of touching on it a little bit is, and again, I’m gonna sound like I’m generalizing, which I kind of am. There are courses out there that will pay, but if I’m being honest, my takeaway so far in the two years I’ve been in the industry is clubs don’t want to pay the older 40 or 50 year old mechanic who is qualifi, um, to come in and they don’t wanna pay him what he’s honestly what he’s worth. Um, that’s something that I’ve experienced that I’ve heard a lot of you guys talk about. Um, if I’m being honest, I think that’s another big hurdle. Uh, I think Tyler bloom, Trent, you guys correct me if I’m wrong. I think he’s spoken on that a few times. I’ve seen it a bunch on Twitter, uh, um, that, you know, courses for the most part. I know I’m, I’m not trying to generalize all of them cuz some of them do pay you guys what you are 100. Most of them don’t um, and I think that’s the problem. And I think that’s why they’re trying to go the high school college route, where you’ve got a kid who doesn’t have the background, um, and isn’t gonna demand, you know, something that’s higher than what the course is willing to pay. I mean, I’m watching it down in south Florida, Florida now with multiple courses, I’ll keep ’em unnamed right now, but, um, they’re owned by bigger companies and you know, those bigger companies and members, boards, and things like that. Don’t want to pay for an equipment manager who they need. They want to pay for one who they think, uh, they can kind of afford, uh, even though they can afford to pay them more. Um, and then I think they’re in for a rude awakening in a few years when their course is kind of dry up and off mechanic or the equipment’s dropping off because they didn’t want to pay that person up front. It’s, it’s a simple ROI. Analysis that most courses, they see the immediate pricing, uh, and cost of a, of a valuable equipment manager front. They don’t want to pay it, but then they really actually pay it in the long run. Um, and I, I think that’s something that they need to kind of start to realize as well, which is easier said than done. And it’s easy for me to sit here on a Twitter space data, but I think that’s been my personal experience so far. Yeah. I, I agree with you, Mike, but I still think, and I’m just thinking about everybody I know in the industry, and there’s only a handful of us that actually started working at a golf course and ended up being a mechanic. There’s a, I, I mean, I’d like a, a number, but there’s a large percent that came over from another trade, whether it be automotive or motorcycle or something like that. So I, I think there’s, you know, still. An option there. I think it’s still relevant to maybe go down that road and yeah, pays, pays, gotta get there. And it’s coming. Um, every year’s a little bit better, but it, it is gotta get there to get talent in anyway. Yeah. I, 100% agree that that’s I, I agree with you. That’s what I’m saying is like the, we should be going all over the map and trying to find guys from any trade, because like I’ve said before, and like you just said, all of you guys pretty much sitting in here listening right now and who have done the podcast have said you came from somewhere other than golf. Um, and that’s what we should be doing. What my point was is the clubs. Don’t quite simply the clubs. Most of them don’t want to pay what you guys are worth coming from any trade doesn’t matter what it is. Um, and I think that’s been kind of a negative draw as while Taylor had a great point in the WhatsApp yesterday. When I, when I brought up the east lake, uh, program and stuff. And, um, you know, when you tell them you’re gonna warp these hours, you’re not gonna have weekends, yada, yada, yada, that. Especially the next generation coming in too. But even, you know, the older generations too, they’re gonna look at the number. And again, one of those clubs did it down in south Florida. They told a guy, I watched it happen. They told him the salary and he asked how many hours and when they said the hours, he was like, okay, thanks. But no thing, you know? And so I think that’s something we’re battling as well. Well, I think that’s something we really gotta work on too, is a whole work life balance thing. And especially clubs like east lake, where they want you to work 12 hours a day and want you to work, you know, seven days a week in the summertime. And most people are not willing to do that. And I think it’s even a harder sale to the younger generation do that. I mean, that’s kind of the way I come up. You work all the time, no matter what but yeah. You know, a lot of people didn’t come up that way, but there’s also the, the point where you can. Get your foot in the door and then show them the value that you have. And they will also compensate you as well. Because if, if you’re only doing a half hearted job, yeah. You’re only gonna get a half hearted pay. But if you can go in there, be creative, show them that you have a set of skills that is far beyond anyone that they’ve ever had, then yes, they will compensate you. And hopefully they will realize that. Yeah, let’s hang onto this guy because I’m pretty sure there’s a golf club just right around the corner, who would love to have my set of skills. So I think there needs to be an opening of eyes on many different levels of this industry, as well. Always think about this. I saw, I don’t remember where I saw it at, but a welder is applying for a job and he’s doing a welding test and the weld looks like the gas was turned off on a big welder, ugliest weld. You ever said. And the guy or whoever says, uh, I, I thought you said you had a lot of welding experience and he says, oh, I do this job’s for $25 an hour. And this is a $25 an hour weld. And then, you know, and then he lays out, you know, uh, a perfect bead and says, this is what you get for 35 an hour. which one do you want? That’s so awesome. Yeah. That’s a prime example of what I was just ex describing and what I’ve seen it. It’s it’s, uh, I wish you guys more of you guys did that cause that’s a really good story. Yeah. I mean, maybe we should start doing in that with the cutting units. This is what you’re paying for. I’m gonna check ’em once a week. No, no, no, no. Don’t do that. Don’t do that. No, no, no. so Dwayne, Dwayne cutting unit action. Yes. Yes, that’s right. They wanna pay Dwayne prices, but they wanna expect Superman results. They better start rethinking it. I mean, I have a recent, recent, recent experience to where, uh, they’re looking for, you know, mechanic head, head mechanic is what they said it was. And they’re they’re they had like, you know, XXX a year plus plus plus plus depending on experience. So I, you know, okay. Low number is within my realm of where I’d want to be, you know, for a low end So I go interview, you know, I was there a couple hours and he sit down in the office and he throws a low number out and I’m just like, Yeah, you’re, you’re in the range for what, what you want. You’re in the range, but where you’re at right now, I don’t know how long your guy hasn’t been here. And obviously you two didn’t get along because, you know, I asked the, just bluntly, asked the question, what happened to the last guy? It’s like, oh, well, he didn’t communicate. You know, he found something else, but like, it was probably like January and not one of their cutting units had been touched, not one, like nothing has been done since he left. I’m like, I know the hours I have to put in, this is the salary you wanna pay. I’m like, we are so far off I and numbers for what you need right now here. And then just give him the $20, uh, weld then. Well, I, I told him like, you know, like I, I told him, you know, best of luck. If you have any questions, you need anything in the future. Give me a call. Like this is where I’m at. This is where you’re at. And he didn’t even like, didn’t even like try to negotiate back. His jaw kind of dropped. And I didn’t think the number was super high, but for him, I guess it was. But like we know I walked in there like nice person wants to do a lot. He’s a, a newer superintendent younger. And, uh, I don’t know if his, his management style is good for what he’s looking for, because just how he, he is. But like, he’s trying to do a lot with the course, but he, I don’t know how to say it. He just, he doesn’t, he didn’t know what he needed really to get him to that point. And like, it kind of like, it, it. Kinda eye opening to me that he, he wants, like I said, he wants the, the prime rib wants to pay, you know, low end meat prices. It’s just like, it’s not gonna happen. Yes. My dad always said, it’s it’s champagne taste and beer money. And that’s the problem that I’ve, I’d say probably 75% of the clubs are I’ve been to, like, I was just saying about the south Florida clubs. That’s exactly what they do is they go out, they post the number or at least they, they interview, they tell you the number and if you don’t wanna work for that number, okay. See you later, dude. Uh, we’ll find the guy who does, and then they, you know, find out the hard way. Three, four years later, I’ve already seen it happen just in the two years I’ve been doing it already, a bunch, they get upset and then the membership’s really upset and somebody loses their job over. And then that’s when they find you guys, the, the, the really, you know, the, the guys that they interviewed in the first place, um, that they didn’t wanna pay. Uh, so it’s either, you know, the big question is, is how do we help them understand that. Without having to learn it the hard way, or do we just sit here and let ’em learn it the hard way, but it feels like we’ve been doing that for a long time already. And it really hasn’t. I mean, like trans said, we are, we are, you guys are getting paid more each year. The wages are growing up. Salaries are growing up, things like that. Um, but I think there’s still a big gap, um, a big, you know, uh, problem that we need to solve. So, um, um, just thinking it through right now. Yeah. I mean, it’s something that’s gonna be a going ongoing battle and we’re just gonna have to keep working on it and working on it. I had a friend of mine, he went and he was applying at this club and the club said, um, you know, well, they were gonna pay him. And he said, you’re gonna have to add a, a few more dollars to that hourly wage. And they said, well, we were paying our last guy, this. He said, yeah, your last guy’s not here anymore. He quit. Yeah, he left. Yeah. We just, we just did it with assemblers. We were hiring assemblers. We offered this, you know, certain wage per hour. And I said, you know, it’s not 2004. We’re not gonna be able to do this. We did some interviews. Of course, nobody, nobody, you know, swung at it, nobody. And so we raised our wages and wallah. We’ve got, you know, good assemblers starting for so same exact scenario where it’s like, just, it’s not the same. It’s not even five years ago. Right. I mean, it’s, it’s totally different from five years ago. Right. Would you guys agree with that too? Oh, a hundred percent. And it ain’t just us. It’s the crew too, because I wanna say four years ago we were starting $10 an hour and now we’re starting 15. on the crew. So I mean, it is coming up quick and the two assistants I have working on in the shop, we just gave them a $2 race each just in that’s that’s just because, you know, everything’s. Because you can get a job at target for 18 bucks an hour stock and shelves or whatever. Yeah. That was the example I used with mark was, uh, you can literally, I can go to McDonald’s I’ve driven through 6 million McDonald’s so far, and I’ve seen the sign on times, right? Like where it’s like, we’re hiring a line cook for $16 and 75 cents an hour, you know, like here’s the crazy part about that is they’re having a hard time finding people at that wage for those jobs. Right. That that’s what’s insane. So they have bigger issues at play too. Yeah, well, yeah, but it’s like, I don’t know. I don’t know where like it’s the thing is like, cuz like minimum wage pretty much at this point is like 14, $15 an hour. I mean it’s people aren’t coming to a job for seven a quarter or whatever it is. It’s not gonna happen. Yeah. It’s like the, the market is driven the minimum wage up, but like. It’s like, it doesn’t change what we make, even though like minimum wage technically goes up, you know what I mean? Like, it’s, it is a lot different obviously, but they don’t like, they don’t look at that part of like cost go up for everybody. It’s not just the club. It’s not just, you know, your individual gas prices. It’s not the food price. It goes up for everybody and to not have compensation, you know, when that happens, like, yes, I know we’re going through like probably the biggest inflation and well, probably close to like 40 years. But like it matters. It costs like, I mean, just to go to go to work. Now it costs money morning did six months ago. So here’s a question for all of you guys in here. Um, I just had about an hour long conversation with an equipment manager about this last week in south Florida. Uh, would you guys rather. Have a whole new fleet of equipment or would you rather have the ownership or whomever give you the, the right amount of money to have extra hands in the shop? I’ll go with extra hands. I’ll definitely go with extra, extra help for my shop. extra hands for me. Extra hands here. I’ll go. Both. Is that an option? Is that an option? Is that’s if that’s case I’ll both all day don’t. I think that’s a good question, Mike, but yeah, I Don, I mean, I think it depends on, you know, the operation and the club and, and all that stuff. And if you’re going to use the club’s money. I really think you should buy equipment. And I think you should have more hands in the shop is the wisest use of the club’s money. And here’s the next question then? Uh, would you guys rather pull a Tom Brady and keep your salary where it is to be able to hire extra hands or would you rather just make more and keep working at the same, uh, breakneck pace? So that’s for me, I, uh, a year and a half ago told my super, I was willing to cut my pay, uh, to 20 grand, if they would be willing to meet me halfway to get decent, uh, assistant. And they said, okay. And I didn’t talk about it earlier when you guys were saying it, but, uh, Literally could not find anybody to come out to talks away to, uh, to come work. I posted it on every, uh, college from South Carolina to, oh, you know, my, around my area in South Carolina and in North Carolina and nothing, nobody and no vote tech or anything was, was helping me out and couldn’t find anything. And still Joe. Yep. We wanted to see if we could start ’em off at 40 K. See, now here’s another, that that creates a succession plan for you. If you do leave there’s somebody there who knows it, do you think, and they can work with it. Yeah, I that’s exactly correct. And I’ve told them too before, like I’ve said, you know, what are you guys gonna do when. You know, the, the next one up for me would be like mountaintop or a Wade Hampton or, or something like that. If I stay in the mountains, like, what are you guys gonna do when I leave there? There’s everyone else up here in the mountains. It’s, it’s, you know, close to retirement age. And I mean, it’s gonna be really slim to, to find, but a young enough to come in and take over this. So, but they, they don’t find, they don’t see it that way. It’s it’s strange. I dunno. I just think that they just wanna throw another wrench into the superintendent’s role and try to find someone to replace us because. When I met with my super, he was at a position where yeah, he was letting the old technician go because of whatever reason. And he was actually allowing them to finish up the season and they brought me in, in the winter and they said, okay, this is what we have. This is what you, this is your skillset knew. And yeah, there was a lot of deficiencies, but I don’t wanna bash anyone or do anything. But yet there was a lot of things that were being skipped. And when you have somebody with experience, they’ll see it and they will help the superintendent. So here’s another one, make them watch the day makeup watch Mike’s video totally helps every in every position to be able to do that because you need support to be able to run anything. You need somebody who has to be accountable, but yet when you make the job easier, many hands make light work. Yeah, I think it boils down to what the club wants to do. You know, if, if, if they want to run it that way, you know, that’s up, that’s up to them running it without an em, every club, they have to have an em, and there’s a lot of successful clubs that don’t have EMS, but the better clubs that want an em, they’re gonna have to pay for one. Right. And that’s the cool thing that, uh, Charlie’s doing at east lake is he was mentioning, he, I don’t know if he did it or not, but he was gonna have to remove, um, another one of his intern spots and they love their interns, their agronomy, interns, and he was willing to remove one so that he could make one for an M apprentice. So, um, that’s why I was so stoked about what Charlie’s doing with Ralph. And we were going back and forth with a ton of phone calls about it and throw, you know, spitballing ideas. About, you know, how they can make that, uh, a really important change that other courses, that’s the kicker that other courses and clubs and high end properties that have the money and are willing to pay, can see, and then, you know, hopefully make some change and do something similar and just kind of be a trends setter. So, um, hopefully it works out and I hope Charlie can find somebody and, uh, we can blast this thing out on Twitter and, and really make a big push and hopefully motivate other clubs. So it’s, it’s kind of that competition, right? It’s like, it’s like, uh, like small business or whatever you wanna call it and I’m not getting political, but it’s about being competitive, uh, as clubs, not in a negative way where people are stealing people and jobs and things like that, but see east lake doing this and they see east lake making this apprenticeship, uh, program. Maybe you get another high end place. That’s like, Hey, maybe we should do that too. Or we can do that too. And we can do it better than east lake sweet. Bring it on, like, bring on the competition, get more people, more clubs. Out there wanting to do it. And I think that’s hopefully what can happen here with this situation. I got something to say about this whole thing. Um, you know, being in the business for 24 years, we gotta remember, we started out with, uh, one spray rig, probably for 18 holes. Now, most golf courses, higher end, whatever I have four or five spray rigs. So things that you gotta think about is like the equipment has tripled and that’s why you need the extra hands. Cause one person can’t do the job of all the equipment that’s there now. Yeah. I think that’s a very valid point. And I, I mean, I remember when, so I’m at the aim club that I started at in 95 and in 95 we had two fairway units and now we have four. And same thing with the sprayers. We had one sprayer. Now we have two, you know, and it just keeps getting more and more and more. I mean, you gotta think about it who, I mean, 10, 15 years ago, not, not, not many courses had skid steers. Now you don’t talk to a person who doesn’t have a skid steer on a golf course or a minis or things like that, that these are things that they’re not understanding that the equipment and the things that are going on moving the, they want more, that they don’t wanna give. So that’s why, you know, you gotta kind of push and you gotta say, Hey, listen, you know, you guys, we need extra hands. There’s so much more stuff here now. I mean that, that’s just the way to look at it in my opinion. Well, I agree. And I think the other thing that happened is so in 95, when I was working at sat and down, I think we had 12 people full time on the crew in the summertime. And now with managers and everybody we’re at 35. So you got a lot more people using and abusing equipment too. Yeah. When I started, uh, 18 years ago at NOAC, we had eight guys and now we have 11 guys during the winter and we have 35 through the season. So it’s a big difference in the way it’s come up. You know what I mean? So it’s just the way the thing is growing and everything’s growing and the way that the members wanna get out quicker to play too. You gotta remember now they wanna tee off at sunrise cause they got stuff to do, especially the younger members. So there’s a lot of golf being played so that we have to of clear the area means we need all this equipment to be able that, to be able to get out their way. So that’s just something to think about. Hey, David Curry. I’m not pressuring you to, to request to speak, but I just know you’re up there. You’re with Kevin. I don’t see Taylor or Kevin here, but I think Kevin’s mentioned it. Kevin Heninger has mentioned it before where, um, just to get an inexperienced kid in the door, um, up there in Canada, in Ontario, he’s offering a think like it’s 60 Canadians, which is like 47 or 48 grand American us dollars. And he’s having a tough time finding them. I can confirm that. Yeah. I mean, I don’t know if y’all talked about this earlier. I kind of just hopped in a little bit ago, but I mean, if we’re talking, we’re talking what the wage gap is gonna be. I believe in the next five to 10 years of what we do. I don’t know if anybody’s touched on this yet, but we gotta look at the advancement of what this equipment is turning into. Um, you know, you, look, you look at our job description now and. We need to be proficient in, uh, two stroke fours, stroke, gas, diesel, fabricating, welding, uh, cutting units, grinding, cutting units, whatever quality of cut management, um, along with asset management. And then if you have guys like myself and Trent that have also technicians in the shop. So now we’re talking about employee management. I take care of most of the facilities management at the shop, not all of it, but most of it, uh, sprayer systems, hydraulics, electrical, well, then we’re gonna throw in GPS. We’re gonna throw in, uh, uh, autonomous mowers because is, you know, it, I think there’s a lot of guys that don’t think that this is coming or maybe are blind to the fact that this is coming, but boys it’s coming, um, and bridge, bro, I don’t, I don’t, I don’t know. It’s again, it’s not gonna be for every golf course, but I, I feel like I feel like that’s wrong. I feel that the people that are saying well, public, you know, 18 hole golf courses that are fairly low end budget are not gonna spend. $120,000 on an autonomous fairway mower. Well, when they get pitched from their salesman that, Hey, you’re gonna be able to cut out three to possibly two, to possibly four crew members that you don’t no longer need anymore. You just need a, basically a warm body that can watch the mower as it’s mowing and they can rake fairway and Greenside bunkers those, you know, the cities are gonna, they’re gonna buy those mowers just on that sales pitch alone. So do I think that just the private facilities we’re gonna have those? No, I, I think, and, and I’m gonna be, you know, young enough, I’m in my early thirties where I’m gonna see that and be in the thick of it. And if you look at what, I don’t know, a even just like a mobile Tesla mechanic makes, but the amount of electrical and diagnostic equipment that they need to have just to take care of all the autopilot and stuff inside of a Tesla, it’s gonna be ridiculous on golf course equipment. Yeah, man, preach, dude. Uh, I’m just piggybacking on what you said, cuz that’s exactly what JP talked about in his video that I did. Um, and that’s what I’ve been trying to get at when I talk to superintendents and agronomists when I’m out in the field and just trying to plant the seeds one by one. Um, you guys, uh, obviously this is my personal opinion and uh, and it’s a pipe dream, but um, I think it’s a good goal to start with, but for the amount of stuff that you guys need to know, I’d be starting at no less than 80 us, probably six figures. Uh, because of the amount you guys have to know. Um, I mean, when you talk about down here in Florida, you have agronomous directors of agronomy making $400,000 a year. Um, and they’re showing up at 9:00 AM and leaving at 3:00 PM. Mm-hmm 4:00 PM. Mm-hmm um, that’s, that’s something that’s gotta change and I we’re making positive progress, you know, uh, from everything I’ve seen like tr Kip saying I’m not trying to be a Debbie downer, but. Um, there’s still a massive, massive gap, um, that we gotta keep, keep, uh, getting after. Oh, no, there’s no doubt. I mean, if you look in, if you look in the Northeast on GuideStar and look at the top directors of agronomy at, and again, those are, uh, Shinnecock great golf course, national golf links of America, fantastic golf courses. There’s no doubt about it, but when they’re a direct of agronomy is making north of half a million dollars a year. And I believe I saw one of those jobs posting their equipment manager at just barely six figures. I wanna say, uh, it’s kind of a slap in the face if you’re not going in there and you’re not asking for a quarter of a million dollars a year, then you’re selling yourself short and I’m sorry, but you are. Yeah, I agree. Okay. I think technology is definitely advanced in our world extremely fast in the last five years even. And it’s just gonna go faster and if you’re not, if you’re not on the ball, I mean, it’s, it’s. Far away from you need power ground to start a diesel now. Oh no, absolutely. It’s insane. I, I go, sorry. No, you’re good. I was gonna say I’m, I’m, I’m, I’m kind of at a crossroads currently, uh, with my, with, uh, I guess a, a problem that I wanna solve, but I’m not quite sure if it’s worth the club’s money is in Trent. I believe I got this link from Trent or I saw it on Twitter, uh, to where John Deere is allowing customers to buy a customer version of service advisor for you guys that are not Deere customers. Um, you know, service advisor is, is the end all be all to the, to, to a Deere tech mission and every bit of golf course maintenance equipment, probably from 2013 or 14 on require service advisor to, if you wanna change a fuel injector on a fairway mower, you need to put that serial number for that fuel injector in the service advisor for that machine to take that. Fuel injector. You can’t do it any other way. If you were to put the fuel injector in, you need to call Deere to have them plug into it and put the serial number for that, for that fuel injector in. So I, I haven’t gotten a firm quote yet, but from what it sounds like it’s a fairly drastic amount of money for me to have service advisor, just to take care of my equipped about $6,000 ish. I think it’s, I think it’s like, so you need a laptop and I believe, I believe he said it was probably four or five grand, and then I think you have to pay an annual subscription of probably a thousand bucks. Yeah. So which coming from the automotive industry that’s oh, no, I, I don’t, I don’t disagree. I, but, but the automotive industry you’re you are making a profit, we don’t turn a profit. We spend money so exactly. Here’s here’s my question on that is since they’re running Yamo is, are, are they, what I haven’t been able to figure out yet is I’ve I’ve been diving into this. Trying cuz coming from the automotive background, I’ve been tuning cars and all the fun stuff. Mm-hmm mm-hmm is if they’re using the Yamar engines. So the Yamar controller is gonna be your engine controller. Obviously you won’t be able to touch stuff on the, the chassis side because it’s the only right. I’m wondering if they put to gateway in there to block out you messing with the Yamar controller. Well, they do cause well, from what I understand, because the, the, the whole, the whole machine, including the Yamar runs off of Deere’s VCU. Yeah. But there should be, you should have an access block directly to, for the Yamar side of that controller. Yeah. You would think, I, I don’t know. I mean, I’m just gonna say Touro does. Right. Um, I don’t know. Like I said, I don’t, I don’t have enough newer deer. Like my, my deer were like 12 years old at my course. Right. So I haven’t be able to look at a tier four, um, because. I know, um, what Matthew Kane, I think he’s in here. Is he still in here? Yep. He’s in here. Yeah, he’s in here. Uh, he has a te unit and like, I want my hand, I wanna get my hands on a te unit because it’s, I wanna say last time I looked at it, it’s probably like seven or $8,000. We, you can do ag. Um, I don’t know. The thing I don’t know is if we can do the tier four engine side of our stuff. Right. Um, I know you can do all the ag stuff, John Deere, everything, uh, cat, uh, whoever you can think of Bobcat, you have all those with that. I just don’t know if we can, because I mean, he’s, he’s over there programming, injectors and everything with the TEXA unit right. On his Bobcat. But I don’t know if like on a John Deere, Y more engine, if you could do it. I imagine you could though, unless they put something in there. to, you know, block you from doing it, which I wouldn’t put past John Deere, nothing against John Deere, but I could see them doing that because of how, how they are with their electronics. Absolutely. And like, I, I, I understand you want to, you don’t want anyone messing with the stuff, but we are here to fix equipment mm-hmm I can’t, I can’t afford to be sending my equipment to a, to a distributor or having them come out to like once, like I had a, uh, 59, 10 that they, they kept on ignoring the region mm-hmm and I couldn’t even put in a manual region. Yeah. Yeah. They had to, had to come out. They had to come out, had to pay the 120 fee. Right. Luckily, um, I have a good relationship with our, our tour distributor. He was out there for six hours. Mm-hmm because it had, was, it was that bad. He had to burn it off, right. For like four hours. Oh, I just approved, uh, Matthew to speak. Let’s hear what he’s gotta say. Yep. Hey guys. So can you hear me? Yes, we can hear you. Yep. We hear you. All right. Sweet. Yeah. So, um, the test tool does allow you to do tier for, um, diagnostics to anything. For example, I have some tower 45 hundreds. They’re not tier for the tier for interim, um, but I can still connect to them and do troubleshooting on the engine set of things. Why can’t do is I can’t trouble, the actual Toro, um, software. I can’t connect to the, um, the info center or anything of the sort, but with regards the engine troubleshooting, I can do everything program injectors, um, calibrate, pumps, whatever the case may. So it doesn’t matter what the piece of equipment is. Um, so long I, so as, as the engine is tier four, tier four, interim tier four final, whatever the case may be used should be able to connect to the test a tool and do your diagnostics. Um, obviously different manufacturers will have, um, different restrictions for the operations of the equipment, like, as I said, but, um, with the engine side of things is concerned, you could connect to anything and everything and do all the programming, all the inject quoing, um, everything, um, wants tier your four final or interim. Well, that answers your question. Yeah, definitely. Thank you very, for very much for that, I was wondering it because in my mind, like dealing with, like I said, tuning cars and diesel trucks, as long as they know what that engine controller computer is running on, they’re able to code to it or change it. And that’s where, like, where we use we’re using packaged engine. So like, you know, obviously Toro’s kind of gone Yamar, Deere’s been Yamar and I kind of had a feeling that’s how it would work, but without having one of my hands, it was kind of hard to, you know, prove that theory hold I was talking to a Toro tech the other day, and I don’t remember what he was working on, but it was a Yamar engine and fairway mower or something, whatever. But while he’s troubleshooting it on his laptop, somebody from Yamar sent him a message and said, replace this. So they, they were watching, you know, what he was doing while he was in there and gave him a message. And that solved his issue. Yeah. That’s I actually was talking to art for it was, they Yamar is. Like when they send programming, they do that. They’ll send it, you, you call in, you get the program, whatever, when you’re pre-programming or controller any of that. And then they can see if you’ve uploaded it. And then as soon as it’s uploaded, they really your access from it. So they, I, they are watching like a haw. Tony. When was, when did you get that John Deere price? And the reason I asked is this has probably been last fall. The price they gave me was 1500 bucks for the software slash cable. And it was $1,500 a year. So I did not get a firm price yet. Uh, what I, when I was speaking to the service manager at my dealer that we use here, he was under the impression. He’s heard some rumors that that’s what that would be, but that was just from buddies of him. He hasn’t heard back from Deere yet. And I, I guess I was the first person to request information on it. So he he’s, he was still fairly new to the idea. Um, and that’s why he was waiting on like AAC case back from Deere to figure out what was going on. Um, I think, I think what he meant to say when it was the four to $5,000 up front was the cable, the software, and then me had having to purchase a laptop. Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I got you. Um, I was just one thing that we thought about, or I think me and John Patterson actually talked about it is, you know, could we get the association or could we get a group of clubs, you know, in a small area to go in together and get it and we could trade it back and forth. Sorry, Michael, go ahead. I was just talking to my John Deere Rotech guy just the other day. I got a problem going on with my 2020, and I was asking him about the service advisor and all that. So. It’s $1,800 for the cable and it’s $1,800 upfront cost to download the program. And then it’s an extra $1,800 a year to keep it, but you have to have a brand new computer or one that can constantly update it and hold that kind of memory and run it. So, yeah, I mean, it’s what 1800 times two. I mean that, that’s a pretty good chunk, but once you, once you get that program then yeah. Any, any, anything John Deere, it’s got like four or five different connections on it. You can basically just service anything and everything. Yeah. That that’s, and that’s what I’m trying to figure out is what’s the point where’s, where’s the ROI, you know, what, where’s that number where it’s justifiable to buy it? Um, I mean, we, we. Lease most of our mowing equipment, which is obviously where that would shine the most. Like, listen, I’m really not gonna need to plug into a TX turf Gator. Um, but uh, you, you plug into a fairway mower. That’s a different story. But when we roll him every five years, it’s like, uh, is that really worth our investment at our club? I don’t know. I don’t know if it is or not. Well, that’s what I was talking to him about. It’s like, well, hell I could get that. You know, like that would be worth it. But then like my Rotech he’s I’m in just outside of Columbia, South Carolina, and he’s in Greenville, South Carolina. So I mean, it’s like, he’s two hours away. So it’s like, I don’t need to spend that money because hell I’ll just give my, you know, I’ll give holler. And he, he could come down the next day and he plays into it and he tells me, you know, I mean, if it’s a course that kind of really don’t do your Rotech a lot. Maybe that is a cost effective way, because then we could do stuff like that faster than having that guy come out. What every three weeks a month. I mean, if it takes him a month to get there, then yeah. I mean, that cost would be just viable. Then the other thing working with service advisor is, you know, they instead the yearly subscription and whatnot, but the other side is you have to update service. Cause I, you know, obviously I work for Deere dealership and Pfizer, you have to update that. I mean, I update once a month, sometimes it would be three weeks, but at least once a month you’d they Deere would send us and, and probably send that like in 2013, um, they would send us CDs in the mail and it would be, and we had, I don’t know how many locations and they would send us a set of CDs and they said, all right, everybody here upload it. It would take like an hour to pay the, but I’m sure it’s changed now, but it updates more than what you think. I think something that you, everybody should think about too. Especially if you lease an equipment, you can put it into the lease price and break it down. So if you’re getting this package and you look at it and as you do it, you lease it with that package and you break it in. That’s what we kind of do it. The golf course is I lease it in with my stuff. So any of that kind of stuff we put in there, so the got and think can service it or if, uh, something else. So just the way to think of things. Yeah. I agree with that. I do the same thing. When we normally roll all of our equipment, I’ll do the same thing and put all of, like, since we keep extra green heads or extra fairway heads, I just have them roll in, uh, you know, new, real stock, bearings races, all that, just to rebuild it. But it’s to see it gets stuck in, in the lease package. It’s easier to push it through that way. Jr. I wanna say I heard I bringing that up. I say that. A Deere package got her advised with that. I dunno, who was quite honestly, if I had told right now, I would’ve said me, but, um, uh, but I, I thought I heard they, that was part of their lease package was they were the Deere, their dealer gave them another license to, you know, cause that’s what it is, license. Cause I ran into around try to get it, but it’s just, you know, you get another license down on computer and then the, um, I wanna say somebody’s done that. And, and guys remember one thing in the motor vehicle, motor vehicle industry. They just passed the law. Cause there was a huge lawsuit with Dodge and snap on and um, another computer company and Dodge and all them lost. So they have to give the right to the consumer. So yeah, John Deere was also in that, in that lawsuit, there was a gateways, they have to outta the gateways. They have to give it to us. So I think if, if we all go in as a team and push on it, I think you’re gonna see it come quicker. But I think you gotta go in as a team. And even if we got somebody as a group, if we got a bunch of people, like tr was saying, and we got everybody to push on them, the dealers are gonna have to, you know, or the factories are gonna have to sooner or later, it’s gonna be to the point that nobody’s gonna be able to work on anything without having it. Mm-hmm well, and that’s uh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to get us on this tangent of, uh, of all that, but I, I, you know, uh, speaking about pay, I just think that our, our career is gonna be moving into a very, very technical computer technical. Uh, path in, in the near future, like where, I mean, you’re gonna need advanced computer knowledge, possibly even some coding to be able to to, to work on, on equipment. I think it’s just the way, the way it’s going. Well, the way supply chain is right now, we might be doing component repair on circuit boards sooner than we want to. That’s a good point, unfortunately. Uh, and that was another question. I don’t know if anybody here has ordered or, or tried to place an order for equipment, but, uh, is okay. So what, so what is, what’s each manufacturer telling y’all currently? Uh, well right now I have an order in for over million and I’m not getting anything till at least, um, I ordered it in Mo in October of last year, and I’m not getting anything until at least August what brand did that and that’s Toro. And then when I ordered it. After I ordered it, they told me, okay, we’re done taking 2022 orders. Now we’re taking 2023 orders. So are, are, you know, are you locked into any pricing with that order or no? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Everything’s locked in. They can into pricing on us. Okay. Can’t yeah, we locked in and everything’s locked in, but it’s more about waiting. Yeah. Right. Instead I have fairway mowers. So what happened was, is it kind of felt that this was coming. So I bought, we had brand, we had older fairway mowers and I needed to renew ’em. So I made the company pay for the reels. So I didn’t pay for any reels to reel my machines. I did the labor. Right. We didn’t, we, they paid for all the parts. Right. Because I, we weren’t gonna have, it was either that, or it was, you know, was crazy. So, because they’re saying our tri we’re changing over to triplexes and, uh, we’re getting six of them, but they’re not coming until at least August. Right. Yeah, cause we’re, uh, so we’re flipping our lease flips, um, October of 23 and we’re putting we’re, we’re demoing some, some red fairway mowers and we’re we have to give, you know, we basically have to put our order in for both colors by June, this June to see anything by November of 23. Yeah. Uh, so last I heard for my Touro distributor, obviously they stopped taking orders for this year for equipment to show up. Um, our fairway units technically were on a list for them, um, because they knew they weren’t coming this year. So we, the money’s budgeted for them for next year, but they, we don’t even know what time next year that may be. Um, we, we ordered. Between both golf courses, close to like I think 800,000 worth of equipment this year. Uh, they can’t tell us anything that may show up this year. They said don’t expect anything. And that’s a problem with the leases too, in a way, because now we’re not paying for anything. But the problem is, is that for the it’s their problem? Not all. Cause the way we, the way we wrote the lease, the last piece of equipment, that’s when we start the first lease payment. So that has, we have to receive the last piece of equipment before they start. Even we even give them 1 cent, so we could get a piece of equipment in the next three, two months, and then we could get one next year. We haven’t paid them anything until that last piece comes. What about your equipment that you have, like when, uh, can you keep your, your equip? They’re not taking anything back until that you get all your new stuff, correct? Correct. But again, we had to release some of that stuff because some of it we had to just. Add on to it. So we’re paying for some of it still because it’s there, you know what I mean? Cause it’s a lease. It’s just like you went to a, a car dealership, you know, they wanna take it back because they wanna resell it. So they’re like, well, no. Now we had to lock in for another six months. So we had to pay another six months on that equipment. So on top of it, we’re paying for the and equipment, but it’s a lower number of course, because it’s the ratio of the equipment has gone down in price, but it’s a thing. And the other thing we do too, is that we pick from our equipment. So anything that we really like, like work bins and stuff like that, we hand pick them out and we’ll buy them out. Right. And then we’ll keep those because it doesn’t make sense to rebuy because the guys are just gonna destroy ’em anyway. So we take, when we put brand new chassis under our spray rigs and those chassis that are under the spray rigs, we take and put into the fleet and it’s just a cheaper way to do it. So we’re not hammering everything, which that’s how we, that’s how we do it. We ended up buying out all of our lease equipment this year because we knew nothing was common. So we bought everything out. We were actually changing up our purchasing because when we put in our orders, we got the wonderful news that we were getting anything. We shopping around to try to find equipment that was available. And I got a new skid steer just because it’s on lot. And my fairway unit is getting postponed for another couple years. It’s ridiculous. What’s going on up here? It’s definitely not just up there. it’s all, it’s everybody everywhere. Yeah. But now we have a train strike too. So nothing’s moving across country. That is true. Just to touch back on that whole internship thing quickly. Uh, you guys don’t mind. Um, I, a couple things. I mean, I know everybody talks about, um, going to try to find younger people and stuff like that. Looking in different areas. Uh, like I went to the guidance counselor at the school and that that’s where I started. And then, um, it did take me about four or five years to get a student finally that I could go from, from BOS that I have right now, dagger my, my, uh, basically my intern. Um, it took me five years to finally get somebody to actually let me get him. So he’d be on the job work program for two days a week. So it, it is a pain in neck, but it it’s in the long run. It worked out. So you just gotta keep pursuing it. So just you guys know. Has has anyone, uh, going back to, trying to find guys has anyone. And I don’t know if Kayla’s still in here. Uh, but the military, like, is there a job? Does the military have like a job offered job placement after you get done with your service? And cause I, I know a, a few mechanics in the golf industry that, that were former military and they were mechanics in the military and they, they essentially retired from the military. Didn’t know what to do next. They liked golf, started working on a golf course. And then next thing you know, they’re in the, in the shop. Um, does anybody know if there’s a job placement for the military? They help out with, I know when, when I got out there was nothing, I just signed my paperwork and got kicked out. But I don’t know if there is now that was eight years ago. I was told to go to the VAs or, or not the VA like, uh, um, the, where, where they have those meet the meetings. I can’t think of the name of it right now. I’m sorry. But they were saying that there’s a lot of, um, across the country. There’s a lot of places that you can look into that. And, um, there’s actually a lot of, um, soldiers that are looking for work. So that is another good area to go. Seth, do you know, do you know the mechanic at, we back Webe Eck? He, uh, um, reached out to Bobby. Yeah. Or I, I don’t know, Bob it’s in the, it’s in the Detroit area somewhere. Yeah. I don’t know, but I, I don’t know if it’s the same guy, but I’ve reached out. So he reached out to me a couple years ago, a year ago, maybe a couple years ago. And he, um, evidently he has started, he has a website in a program that he. Started for getting veterans into golf job. And, um, anyways, I, I talked to him extensively about this and one night and, you know, he called me and had questions, a grinder or something and, and then placed it. And I said, yeah, I actually really like that. And what it was is like for every job, every job that a veteran got, they somebody, they donated dollars to help veterans or anyways, and I lost, he, I tried to reach back out with him and he said that, um, uh, he said that he was applying for he actually applying for job at CCD. And then he also, he said, well, I’m a, I be going to Florida too. So I completely lost touch with the guy. Um, I don’t number anymore, any of that, but I know that’s something. Yeah. So O’Neil crouch, uh, does the same thing. Uh, it’s called operation double Eagle down in Augusta. Um, I’ve been on the phone with him a few times and, um, it’s a smaller program, but it’s a great program. Nonetheless. We were talking about it in the WhatsApp. I don’t know if you guys remember that, but that’s one of ’em as well. If you guys wanted to look into that, uh, he’s on Twitter first. Name’s O’Neil last name crouch, and it’s called the operation. It’s called operation double Eagle and, and you got pretty good cause you got by us. We have like, um, the kids coming outta high school and they do like four, four to five, I guess it’s four years and then they’re coming out. So you’re kind of getting a boy, that’s going turn it into a man that you may be able to get and turn him into a good technician. So just some, that’s a really good way to look at it. And Jay, you said it took you about four years to find somebody finally, or what, what was finally, what, like made it happen for you? Um, I think that I finally, I mean, I pushed and I pushed, I kept talking. I actually started off talking to a small engine Marine technician, um, that the teacher in that class and I kept asking and kept asking and they wouldn’t do it. And then finally Jagger started with me and he is like, I’m gonna go to BOS. So I said, okay. So I grabbed him and I said, listen, I need you to talk to your instructor. And he’s going to automotive side. And his instructor was like totally for it. And he came and checked it all out and he was like, boom. And now he wants to gimme more guys and put place different places. So it’s just like the teacher, because it’s sometimes it’s a little bit extra work for them, but if the student pushes on it, you gotta get the student to push on it more. Or the parents cuz once they do it, they’re getting paid to go to school. So that’s, what’s awesome for the kids, you know, that’s how I’m working it out. So that’s, and then we, uh, actually we’re talking to Jagger and he looks like he was gonna talk to his friend. That’s going to school with him, that he was gonna try to get him into a, we, the west hand club with Ryan. So we’re working on it now to get another kid in. I bet. That’s awesome. Yep. You were doing in like twice a day or twice a week. He was coming in kind of in the mornings or he is working a full day kinda thing. The way I have it set up is that, uh, with OCS, we, the school, um, they have it set up. So we do a, uh, month, Tuesdays and Thursdays, and he comes in his morning class. So they basically, what they do is they go to school at seven o’clock and they go from seven to, I guess, 10 30, 11, and then they go back to their homeschool he’s in south Hampton. So he goes back to his homeschool and finishes rest of his classes. So for those two days, he comes to me instead of going to. His Bo’s class and that’s how we work it at. That’s how we do it. Awesome. Um, I believe white and Aaron wants to say something. Yeah. I’ll uh, you guys hear me? Yep. We got you. What, all right, I’m listening to you guys attack this problem from all these different angles, but I’m not hearing anyone talk about out, um, bringing someone in from the crew. Um, and, and as I’m listening to you guys, I’m realizing that, um, we have, I have three technicians in my shop and all three of us had no professional mechanic experience prior. And all three of us came in from a golf crew, our most senior tech, um, Joey, he was at Isleworth as a crew guy, and there was an opening in the shop and he just went in with no experience other than shade tree mechanic type shit, 15 years later, here he is. And then there’s me. I, I had like actually no mechanical experience. Now I’m kind of like basically running the cutting units and now he got Juan, uh, who, some of you may have seen on Twitter, but a guy from our crew who he just did a little side work in his brother’s diesel shop. And doesn’t really know like all that much, but he’s, he’s killing it. Um, and we also don’t even really have an equipment manager. Of course, Tucker is our Steven Tucker’s our director of, uh, um, grounds, but, and, you know, we have a killer shop and lots of knowledge in there, but, you know, it seems to have worked out pretty well for us. How does that concept, like strike you guys with like your crews and has anyone done that in here? Yeah. So it’s funny you say that because as my, my right hand, man, Oxy, um, he was working when we were building the golf course, he was working for landscapes unlimited and he did, he, he, he laid all the irrigation for the entire golf course and landscapes unlimited was then their next job was in Branson, Missouri to build Ozarks national. Um, so he was set to go there and he came up to me and said, Hey, I don’t, I live in, I live here. I don’t wanna leave. You know, can you teach me whatever? And he’s been with me now for six and a half years. And my other guy, Felix, was on the crew for two years before I brought him in the shop. So absolutely that’s I mean, talk about guys that are invaluable because they’ve done nothing, but run the equipment that they’re gonna work on. They know they know what stuff’s supposed to be. Like. They, they have that, you know, they’re not coming into the golf course, industry green. They know what they’re looking out for. It’s just, and, and also they don’t have any bad. He, I mean, you’re, they’re a blank slate. They’re a blank canvas. You can paint it however you want to with. And it’s been very successful for us. So I agree with you. Why a hundred percent? Well, they’re also, I should say we, because it’s me, we’re also already anyone who works on a golf crew is already sold on the lifestyle. Right. Cause that’s agreed. Agree. I mean, That’s like, you know, I don’t, I’m not a golfer. I don’t care about golf really, but Hey man, that I love the yeah. Um, but I love, you know, I love the schedule. I love being outside, you know? And once you, you know, work on, on a golf crew for a while, it, you know, it’s a cool gig, you know, it’s got a, I don’t know, it’s just right. For some people and the people that are already there, you know, I mean, you guys are talking about trying to go into tech schools and convince some, I mean, you guys think I’m young, but there’s a generation after me. And those are the kids in tech school. You’re trying to convince these gen Z kids that wanna work on Hondas or whatever to, uh, how do I word those? I mean, to go work at a golf course, I mean, you know, you guys see some of the stuff on Twitter that like. Random people comment on golf related posts. It’s pretty, uh, golf, isn’t super popular. And especially among young people and man, it’s a tough sell, but people that are already on the crew with people that already know that this is kind of a cool gig, like, and yeah, they don’t have any, any bad habits. And they know about the equipment, you know, like Tony, you were talking about, um, the automation and you know, that, that stuff. And, you know, I feel pretty lucky to have been a spray tech operating GPS rig for a couple of years, because that gave me a ton of like, uh, like ability to troubleshoot that thing. Right. Yeah. A hundred percent, man. Yeah. I think that’s a very valid point. What, and I can relate because that’s how I’m here. I started on the crew too. And one of the guys that works in the shot with me, he was on a crew at another course, but I know, you know, at, at my place. I’ve pretty much went through all the crew people that have the potential to work in the shop. So where do I go next? Yeah, that was good. I definitely think that should be your first avenue. If you can find somebody that’s already there. Yeah. Bring ’em over. And I’ve tried it with probably three or four people on the crew brought ’em into the shop for a little while and it didn’t work out, you know, whether it was me or them or what we were doing it’s cause they were, and there could be any number of reasons why they didn’t work out. Right, right. Like you said, you know, I will say that kind of, like I said on my podcast, um, I don’t, I mean, like, I don’t know the solution to the problem, but you know, I think it helps that if someone, whether it’s a crew member or some kid comes into a golf maintenance shop that, you know, it helps if it’s, uh, I don’t know how to phrase this exactly. But like, you know, if, if the shop is like tight and right, you know, it’s, it’s clear that this is a, there’s a future in this. Like, this is a real like profession, you know, like I have the advantage of you, Juan is coming to the shop and working for Steven Tucker and, you know, we’re teaching him how to like use a fricking leveling plate and stuff, you know? So, you know, it’s, uh, if they can see the legitimacy of the profession, which I’m, you know, like I’m saying, I don’t think that was a problem at, in your case, you know, there could be any number of reasons why given person didn’t work out, but. I, I, I don’t know. It’s uh, but I, you know, you said it should be your first avenue and if you think there’s some potential, I mean, it seems to have worked out for us. We don’t even have a fricking equipment manager. That’s right. that’s good. Let’s hear, uh, let’s hear what Erin has to say. She’s been waiting for a while. He’s not, I apologize. Nope, you’re fine. Just real quick. Cause I know somebody mentioned they, they took a pay cut to try to get themselves an assistant and they reached out to colleges. If anybody’s willing to learn, you also might wanna try reaching out to vocational schools. I mean, I come from coal country and a lot of people forego those last couple years of high school to do, you know, the Vaca, you know, vocational school, um, the mechanics program. And I don’t think any of them are aware that this is a job. That they could work for their whole lives. They think it’s gonna be a car shop or nothing, or maybe working on farm equipment. They don’t really, you know, realize that this is like, you’d said why a legitimate career that they can be a part of. So we kind of gotta get in there and get them young as well. So we, we might be able to do a little bit better reaching out to places like that and saying, Hey, especially for areas where I’m from, because there’s only so many car shops and all those guys who go through that program, a lot of them find themselves looking for work because there’s not enough jobs to actually support them. So for those willing to move and, and get outta the hometown, there’s a lot of them actually just given the, the current state of that area, uh, that, that are looking to try to find some sort of mechanics job. And it might be a little bit different coming from where they’re. They’re starting because it is a little bit of a specialty trade. You have to learn how not just mechanics works, but how mechanics for golf course works. And that’s certainly different, but we’re, you know, if people are willing to train in, in the shop, then that’s, that’s also probably a good place to start, um, places like that, but not sure how much experience you guys are looking for when you try to get people to come in as assistance or interns or, um, apprentices. So food for thought, I’m looking for somebody with a pulse basically in work. You know what I mean? So moving, breathing in the effort. Yeah. Basically, you know, that, that, and, and, and Boies is a trade school actually connected with the high school mm-hmm So I went to when I was so basically when I grew up in, I was coming to through school, there was a path or whatever, and you could go to honors and do all this stuff, and I was not really worthy. So I decided to go. Small engine Marine class. That was a trade school. then it was basically with our that’s what Bo is, is a trade school. So that’s what I’m trying. I I’ve always tried to push this avenue and finally I got my foot in the door. Like I said, it took me five years to get there though. Yeah. I mean, it’s kinda like the industry as a whole too. I mean, when I started, I, I got my bachelors in horticulture because I didn’t know. You could go to school for golf course management. I didn’t know. That was a thing. I didn’t know. They had a whole major for it. Let alone, um, you know, the idea of an entire career, maybe doing equipment management. So yeah, I think part of, it’s just getting the horde out and saying, Hey, this is a viable option for, for young people to actually look into. Yeah, I agree. And I think, um, I see Joe probably cuz Joe hopped out and I know a lot of you guys have said it in your podcast, but if you guys wanna chime in, um, I know everybody’s, story’s a little bit different. But, you know, like where did you, or how did you hear about the industry? I know most of it’s like a buddy, you know, knew somebody and, you know, like they knew the position was open and, and I just kind of went in and interviewed. But I guess my question then is what’s this is there other than like turf net. Um, is there a website or anything with, uh, like other than the indeed that is strictly mechanical? Um, like just mechanic and a turf, maybe equipment manager related or no, I mean, I, I, I, my story is that my, uh, best friend’s parents were members at the golf course and, uh, I worked on boats and I was kind of tired. My parents wrench, I had no, what I was doing. I used to drop my tools. And I knew basically. So, uh, you know, that’s where I went my avenue and, um, here I am now. So it was definitely a crazy thing. And basically when I know that, or like I said, you, and if you can look at, you can post it, they will post jobs there. But the problem is nobody understands what it is. That’s how you have, you have to kind of push it in to get it so they understand. Yeah. Um, it, I, it kind of cut out there, but yeah, it’s when, uh, I was working at a Honda dealership, um, and my wife, we got pregnant and she was, uh, basically I need, I couldn’t, I couldn’t do it. I was still green. I was still in college, uh, in auto tech school, um, doing flat rate and I couldn’t really. I didn’t know what I was gonna make or not. Um, and, uh, then I just found my first golf course in Pompano beach, but, um, and then the rest is history, but yeah, uh, to what, why it was saying about the, you know, in the crew, uh, actually this year I got really lucky and I found, uh, a kid 19 year old who was driving further from work than I was, he was I’m about 55 minutes from work, uh, down the mountain. And he’s about an hour and five minutes from, from the course, but he would not skip a day or anything. And it was, it was due to an UN, an unfortunate event. I ended up getting um, two bulging discs and I needed help in the shop. So I, it forced my super to let me have this kid, or at first it was just, you know, Hey, I need you to toss that reel up here. Basically. I’m, I’m borrowing his back. Um, so. But after like I kid, you know, after like a week, this kid was just picking it up so easily, he ended up tearing reels apart and putting ’em on, on the grinders and, and like just getting it so easily. So I ended up losing him because he found another golf course. So Coney country club ended up hiring him, uh, as a, just a worker. But now he’s going to, to, uh, tech school to do automotive technology. And he wants me to help him get into the, into the golf course stuff. And he wants to be an em too. So he ended up liking what I was doing and, and he learned real fast. So that’s one positive. Um, but I mean, that was just unicorn in between like so many people that are revolving door comes, you know, that comes through that revolving door. And it’s just so hard to find anyone. And, and also with my course, most of our labor is, uh, H two B labor. So majority of, of the guys who are there, you know, leaving the winter now again in the winter, I’m not that busy, but it would still be great to have an extra hand cuz then you know, our shop it’s embarrassing. I, I never want anybody to to come to my shop just cuz how messed up it looks. And, and I mean, we’re just huge see course or whatever. And, but our shop is terrible. Um, but the shop could be fixed if, you know, if I didn’t have to just fix machines all the time, I, I could be like, oh, let’s paint the floors, let’s get the falling, you know, the falling, uh, uh, uh, insulation, that’s falling on top of the heater, you know, let’s fix that. Uh, but, but you know, nobody, there’s not enough. There’s not just not enough hands there. So like I literally found my job, my wife saw it on Twitter. That’s how I ended up. Working at a golf course. but, uh, the only, other, only places I know that regularly post or GC S a a Pernet, uh, then indeed, if you search enough and then if you go like local, like local associations will have employment. Uh, but you have to know which ones you can look at without how to membership through like the, their local. And then like, you got to know to look on their local site for employment. It’s not like some jobs, some jobs aren’t just posted. I, I like what Trent said too. Uh, I’m sorry. Um, I just wanted to say this, like, I don’t know why G C S a a doesn’t step up their game about it. If they know, you know, I’m I’m, I think we’ve come just, just in the short couple years, I think we’ve come pretty close to like, you know, slapping their faces and waking ’em up about. Hey, you need to like pay more attention about your equipment managers and mechanics, whatever you wanna call us, but you always see that you need us, you know, I, I, I think GC S a a is definitely not doing enough to do that. I think I heard it on Twitter or, or one of these face things, or, or forgot where I heard it from from, but like in these major events and stuff, why is there not like this? Like you like, um, what the, the automotive college, the big one, um, it’s super expensive UTI or I don’t know if that’s that’s the right one, but, uh, I’s like, I think UTI, uh, Y tech, yes, whatever, uh, those things and, and, uh, uh, um, you know, they, they put these commercials in the middle of like NASCAR or, or whatever. Why is GS, G, C S a not posting, you know, something in the masters or, or, you know, putting some kind of commercial out there that you. People, I mean, again, same thing with why says in the youth it’s not a, uh, it’s not a, a very popular sport. I don’t, I don’t think. And, and, uh, and it’s not to me, but it, you know, even if it’s not through the youth, whoever those older mechanics, tech, whatever master equipment manage master, uh, technicians, they could come, they’re a master technician in my eyes is way more qualified than I am. So, you know, all you gotta teach ’em is the reels. And then you start getting, you know, more into depth about it and stuff, but yeah, I’m totally that’s to me, that’s a really true statement. G P S a a is just not pulling it. And even also, uh, at, at the T tech, you know, it’s, uh, it’s not, we’re, we’re not doing enough either. Um, I I’ve talked about it to them and we need to, you know, get into schools and get into like, Whatever career days or, uh, you know, graduation week or whatever at colleges where, you know, all these job people come out or whatever. But unfortunately we don’t do enough either. I’ve been thinking about going to Jiffy loop, my local Jiffy loop and recruiting people from the there or an automotive shop down the road or a motorcycle shop. I mean, you just gotta get them to, uh, see what we do. You know? I mean, it’s like this job isn’t for everybody, but once you are like, once you’re into it, and if you have a passion for it, it’s, it’s great, but you gotta, you wanna do it. You know, I, Hey, tr I did that. I got my oil changed and while my window was down, it says, is anybody looking for a job? I’m a golf course mechanic and I’m hiring, this is what we’re starting at. how’d they work out the manager was a female and she’s like, oh, what’d she say? She’s like, oh, hell yeah, I’m down. So I took her number and, uh, I, I ended up calling her, but she never returned my phone call. Huh. Was probably, I dunno, but yeah, no, I, I trust me. I, when you, when you post a job for 25 an hour and you get three people, you try to do everything you can to get people in your shop. Right. And I mean, I can only imagine that Jiffy lube is not paying 25 an hour, but I don’t know that. No, I think she was making, like, I think she said she made 17 an hour or something as a, as a shift manager. Yeah. Yeah. Which is, I mean, Absurd. Yeah. I, I think there’s a potential to steal some of those people. So speaking off of that too, uh, and, and I’ve, I’ve, I’ve kind of gotten upset cuz I’m like, man, how does this cause eventually comes down to like, man, if it goes any higher, I don’t know what I’m gonna do. But, uh, in he, I know Chick-fil-A started is starting off their, their, uh, Hendersonville, North Carolina, their Chick-fil-A was starting off their guys. They’re, they’re starting off $19 an hour. And uh, Walmart around my area just upped their pay to 1850. Um, to, in my co workers, we just, out of nowhere got like a four, $5 raise and, and all, all Walmart is doing that, I guess now around there. But now that just threw me out, like where now I can’t even pay the, the, you know, the kid or whatever. They come out because Walmart’s paying 1850, the Chick-fil-A is paying 19. And I don’t know if it was true or not, but I saw one post talking about target paying $24 for cashier. So it’s, I, it, we got like everything hitting us at once. Yeah. But you gotta think of it this way. And if you can talk to the person to, as I went through this with my nephew, just the other day, he, um, he’s actually going to work over at Atlantic golf club and he called me up and he is like, I can make more money, but, and I said, yes, you can, but that’s a job. This is a career. So you have to remember, you have to, you gotta start at the bottom sometimes and work your way up. So yes, he’s gonna make days making $18 an hour now, but in five years from now, he could be making a lot more. So you gotta look at it that way you gotta, these kids, you gotta kind of tell ’em that. And, and, and not all of ’em are gonna understand that, but if you can convince them to say, listen, yeah, working at. Um, Chick-fil-A, that’s not really a career. That’s a job. Right? So that’s one of the ways you gotta sell it. True. True, true. Yep. Yeah. That is true. That’s definitely a definitely agree with that, cuz yeah, you can go out and make that $19 an hour for however long, but like we’re it. Where are you gonna go? I mean, you get to be a store manager and go to that career path, but like how many people actually do that at like Walmart or Chick-fil-A McDonald’s it’s possible, but you come in here, we, we need people and like you can go wherever you want. If, if you’re willing to move, there’s a job for you. I think that’s the, the tough philosophical problem at the end of the day is we can say all these things and we talked about it, you know, like Charlie and I for the east lake, you know, apprenticeship program and. You guys all in here would understand it. Trent too. Cuz he’s been there for nine years for tournament support and things like that. And you could run off 200 golf courses that can offer the same thing east lake can. But um, we can all sit here and go, oh yeah, if they take an internship or an apprenticeship at east lake in 18 months, they could literally work anywhere in the world. Making close to six figures. You, you could say two or three years, they could be doing that. Um, in two or three years, they could definitely be running their own shop, um, after what they would be run through at east lake. Um, but the problem at the end of the day is nobody knows that except us in this industry, um, and Wyatt had a great point. I don’t think he’s in here anymore is he knows not, but why had a great point going to the cruise? So yeah, that might be the first pool or, or something I’ll tap into. But after that, like Trent said, where do you go when they’re, when that that resource is tapped. Right? And I think that’s our problem at the end of the day is we don’t have many resources to tap into. um, and that’s what we need to expand. That’s I think the, the big problem at the end of the day, after talking wages and, you know, courses need to do this and they need to, you know, uh, step up to the plate and stuff like that. Well, they can step up to the plate, but Charlie brought up a good point too. There are hundreds of equipment manager positions and available and courses need help, but there’s nobody there to fill the spots. So how do we, um, educate people outside of the industry, uh, and spread word that we exist? I think that’s, that’s the question. We should probably start with an trying to answer. I just, one thing I gotta say is that the GC has done a lot for us though in the last years, for sure. Not, you know, being in the industry we’ve we were nobody. I mean, nobody knew us at all. I mean, Me being on long island. I didn’t know about the show. I didn’t know any of that stuff. And they got us into that. So, I mean, there’s a lot of things they’re working on and yes, it takes time and it takes effort for everybody. And, and that’s the thing that everybody has to understand is that it started out really slow. And we are just starting to get recognized before, because before we were all treated like mushrooms kept in the dark and figure shit, you know? So just keep that all, you know what I mean? We’re coming, we’re getting outta the closet and you know, that’s just the truth. And you know, it’s gonna take little, little bits to get us there. So I’m gonna remember that forever Jr. We’re the mushrooms Jeff in the dark. Oh dude, he set it out in San Diego. I’ve said it probably once I heard him say I was like, Jr. I’ve said it probably 30 times. Yeah, that is awesome. Yeah. Great point, Jr. Well, right on. Kelly Kansas is in the house. Hi Kelly. Everybody say, Hey to Kelly, you can wave, click the little heart with the plus on the bottom and you can do a little wave. See, I just waved. Yeah. She, she probably isn’t even listening anymore, but probably put, yeah, it’s all good. Um, yeah, right. To wrap this up. I am. It’s my it’s my bedtime. Yeah. Cause I could talk, they passed my bedtime. you got it. She figured it out. It was a little hard. Yep. There was the heart. Awesome. Um, thanks everybody for being on here. This is, I don’t know. It’s always fun and I love, that’s love wrapping with y’all and we’ll try to definitely do it again next week. Hopefully I think I’ll be in town, so, oh, sounds good. And look out for the podcast on Wednesday. I’ll be recapping this whole trip and I had a little combo with the Jr. And it’ll be in there too. So fun times. Sounds good. Sounds good, man. Thanks tr see you guys. Yep. See everybody. Thanks everyone. Good night, everybody. Talk to you soon. Bye.