As a place to come to every day to make the dollars that fly out of my hands and into the hands of others I could have picked many worse places. Just like my customers have chosen me and they could have chosen worse. Conversely, they could have chosen better......not sure why they didn't but heck......it might be one of the things that was never meant to be understood. Perhaps things like this can only be misunderstood to make for balance in the forces of the custom bike universe. Maybe some folks shop by price, some by reputation-some just like what they see on the internet and go by that. Whatever way it works for the consumer is alright with me. I know that there are a lot of forums online where the plusses and minuses of builders are discussed-it is better if I never see any of these. The praise would make me uncomfortable and the ridicule would make me lose sleep. I guess it is better if I remain ignorant.
Now I get to the kernel of what this is all about : Your frame if it is built by me.....it will be the very best frame I can build at that particular time. That said, not all days are the same and some days may totally suck. This does not mean that the frame I build on that day will suck but it does mean that on another day I might have done better. This is what a sole proprietorship has to weather-the ebb and flow of suckitutde. Yes.....that isn't a real word , but here in the 6th largest economy on the planet I feel that we have license to create language that speaks to the moment. I might tell a customer that on a given day I was 'in the groove' with the welder or some other aspect of the build process. I generally don't tell folks when things were defeating and futile-we all have days like that but when you are building something that someone has been waiting for and has a lot of anticipation associated with the product , a bad day in the shop really can make one feel rotten on many levels. I, like other builders battle this on a daily basis.
This week started out pretty bad-I had several frame projects that needed attention......some needed a lot of attention . These issues will indeed be addressed by me and I will see that I make up for whatever problems the end user had with what I built. -Yes, I will admit it.....sometimes you don't nail it on the first try. It always amazes me how much I nailed it on the first try in years past but now I am 61 years old and there isn't the same level of energy there as before. I am still doing the same work load that I did in my 40's....actually more. It is unrealistic to think that when one is only a few years away from getting medicare that the ability to bust out 9-10 solid hours of cutting and welding metal a day will be the same as twenty years before.
I am just about an hours work from finishing frame number 90 for the year. I might hit 100 before the new year-this would be four more frames than last year. Do I need to make this many in a year ? Are my customers pressuring me ? Am I going to go broke if I don't ? -The answer to all these questions is no. There is no outside pressure for the most part-it is all internal and it does not serve the customer of myself to yield to it constantly. It is for this reason that I have made the decision ( If I can actually hold myself back ) to bring the annual frame total down a bit. I feel that it is of utmost importance that the work I do in the shop be on an upward trajectory quality wise, not necessarily number wise. I do have a fairly long list of builds but it is well under a year so I'm not in danger of customers dying from old age before they get their frame .
So, why the hurry ? Why the 100 frame goal ? What is up with that, anyway ? -If I knew the answer I would know the solution. I can only guess that the solution is to slow down a bit and try not to make mistakes from going too fast. -Yes, I said it......I have made mistakes. I fix them , of course...but still, it takes time and it can put a strain on the relationship between myself and the people who put their trust in me to build them something worth waiting for. If it is worth waiting for then waiting a bit longer won't be much of a problem. It is most likely more a problem for me-the restraint to work at a pace that yields the best possible result all the time. Trust me, I am working on it...........it is a life's work.
