Good morning, imaginary readers. Sorry it's been a while.
It's been a busy week week again. A mysterious bug has worked its way through the Naylor family so none of us has been at peak performance.
So there is a great deal to tell you about...
the daffodil bulbs are now all harvested and dry. What a salvation all the new drying equipment turned out to be. We appear to have burnt around £8000 worth of lpg so far which I am hardly proud to shout about.
Newsflash. We have parted company with one of workers. He has been absent for five days out of the last ten. He failed to show up yesterday because of a hangover and that was the clincher. He can be very capable but he has become extremely unreliable in the last few months. Dad and I have tried every approach. I tried explaining why it was important that he was here when he was supposed to be. We tried nice cop/nasty cop where I went into his office and bawled at him for four minutes and Dad went in later to see if he had any problems. We tried nasty cop/nasty cop where I bawled for four minutes and Dad bawled for four minutes. We even tried nasty cop/nasty cop/nasty cops where I bawled for four minutes, Dad bawled for four minutes and everyone else scowled at him all day. I gave up a couple of weeks ago - I can't help him to understand what we are trying to achieve or the impact of his actions on everyone else.
Since Richard left us last year, we haven't really had enough staff capacity. We all have to work quite long hours anyway so it creates a bit of pain if we get a dosser in the mix. Yesterday I got virtually nothing done because I had to spend the whole day doing his job. It was like a bad day in hell, we had more breakdowns yesterday than in the last 6 months combined. The gearbox on the barrel washer broke, three sponges came off the roller dryer, a bearing went in the precleaner. The orders were 1 hour late and when they came were for 7 different varieties, our potato delivery was 3 hours late and we had stock complications because the new computerised stock system is installed on Monday. We got through it but to say that I walked around with a smile on my face would be a lie. Doors were slammed and our absent friend was called everything from a pig to a dog.
I really hate days like this. It makes me sound like a boss when I write stuff like this and I hate being a boss. I didn't come into farming for power, I just want a profitable, happy, well-organised and sustainable business with happy customers and colleagues. Not ticking many of those boxes today.
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