Anybody here that does real-estate investing while on the clock? i.e., while working your regular job? I got an “encouraging” email today from my boss getting upset about all the personal calls I make while at work. Thing is, real real-estate business is done during normal hours of business, so, I gotta make most calls from 8-6 or so. Anybody else trying to do this while on the clock? Let’s hear your stories.
Dean
( P.S. If you spew out Kiyosaki crap about J.O.B., I will hate you and call you an idiot, so just don’t. I don’t wanna hear it. :gored )
I do, staying under the radar in a data center, most of the phones are not tied to a person so no-one knows who I am talking to. Closing and inspections/appraisals I try to do during extended lunches… Sometimes I get my wife to stand in for me on the REI part, she likes it and is well informed about what should/could happen…
The term for what you are doing is called “Daylighting” and I think it is happening more and more these days. does your boss know what your up to? Or just noticed that your on the phone a lot?
Im an alarm tech and I do it when I’m at the office.
Or during lunch when I go home… I try to check out some props or come here and read.
I have a treo800w so I email from my phone to my agent or call her if I need something.
So having a phone that emails is a great asset to me.
Or the late night hours at home (which suck cuz I have yet to get this down where I don’t spend so much time on the computer)
This is EXACTLY why I can’t have employees! Having them screw around while I’m paying them to work really makes me angry! Stealing time is not any different than stealing money!
I’m with you, Mike. An employee is SO expensive, with all the taxes, Social Security taxes, unemployment taxes. It makes me a little crazy when I see someone doing their personal stuff on MY time.
I give my employees (3 full-time for right now) lots of leeway to get off the clock and go to kindergarden graduations, school conferences, doctors’ visits. So while they are working they need to be helping the company make money in some fashion. Or the company can’t pay them a paycheck.
Very interesting thread. I too, like many of you have a full time job on top of my REI business. Fortunately for me I work second shift and I’m kind of on my own with no oversight, so as long as I get my work done, nobody really cares if I make phone calls or send emails.
The problem I see is that most of us who are really entreprenuers at heart are “stuck” in our current jobs as employees while we build our businesses up to the point of being self-supporting. I gotta say, I don’t lose any sleep at night because I took a few minutes to make phone calls while on the clock. Again, AS LONG AS IT DOESN’T INTERFERE WITH ME GETTING MY REQUIRED TASKS COMPLETED. And it never has.
Whats the prob if you are doing your job…AND…doesnt interfere with your work???
If the roles were reversed you would do the same thing to get ahead. Most of us started at the bottom …right?
Since my wife doesn’t have a regular job right now, I defer as much as I can to her. If I type her an email request for some info, she’ll take it and run with it. I don’t have much time during the day to be on here or do much else besides day to day work stuff. We schedule closings as late as possible and do other REI work outside my work hours. I sit at my desk and eat for about 10 mins every day so I don’t sweat spending an extra 5 mins a day emailing my wife to take care of things.
I know my employees in my little furnished rental home company DO do some personal stuff in the office. Heck, I would have too. But the ones who abused that privilege, like taking an hour to go to the post office five minutes away, or spending lots of time on personal phone calls, are no longer working here. We can’t carry them.
Small businesses operate on tight margins. If the employee isn’t contributing enough I just have to find someone else. Here, the work is NEVER done. We have cupboards full of discarded electronics to sort, filing to do, a laundryroom that always needs attention, advertising flyers to assemble, etc. No one can ever say there is nothing to do.
People get promoted and pay raises based on how much they do. Our current rental house coordinator was a part-time fill-in cleaning temp. She was so industrious and able that she after a few weeks got promoted to office work and is taking computer classes now. It’s all about attitude. I pay way above the local pay scale for those few valuable employees who can do it all.
What about when they work off the clock does that get you angry also? If the job goes undone because they spent the time “daylighting” that is something different. But if they do their job and “daylight” what is the deal. Most of us take work home and do work on our time so we can do our business on your time.
During an 8 hour day there is only about 4 hours of work actually done. This is because unless you are on an assembly line works where work streams at you, work comes in chunks with time in between. If an employee fills that time with his business, or drinks coffee, takes a smoke or just chats up his coworker it is the same (slave driver).
I thought slave driving was only in 3rd world countries. Just look at our sister country mexico.
That one slave driving country.
(And yes I speak from experience cuz I used to live there for years)
To get the full jist of J.O.B. you’d have to pick up of few of Kiyosaki’s books (not a bad idea in my opinion) but his little acronym is J.O.B., or Just Over Broke, or something like that. His idea is that you’ll probably never truly get ahead in life just working at you’re 9-5 job, and you’re financial status in life will never be more than Just Over Broke, as exemplified by the large portion of our country.
I will admit to spending to much time at work doing real estate investing activities. I don’t take phone calls at work though and keep all my communications to email.
I do alot of my learning, reading and webpage development at work. But I don’t let it keep me from getting my actually job done. I am a programmer so if I get caught developing a website I can just say I’m learning a new technique and this is helping me out
