Guillermo’s Landscaping

Guillermo’s Landscaping

Rich was in no mood to screw around with stupid crap today. Not clocked in more than a minute; the owner of the landscaping company, Guillermo (Mo for short), already changed the plans for the day. This came the following morning after a casual meeting at the tavern, the previous evening, in which Mo and Rich discussed the strategy for the remainder of the week. Today was to be a route of 20 residential lawns to be mowed and trimmed. Tomorrow was to be about a dozen commercial properties to be mowed. Friday and Saturday was to be bush trimming at several locations.

“Hey Rich!” called out Mo the follow morning in the parking lot of Guillermo’s Landscaping. “Listen, we’re going to change the plans for today.”

“What?” asked Rich with a note of irritation.

“I know; we talked yesterday afternoon and had a plan. And I know you don't like changing plans. But it’s really important that we knock out those bush trimming jobs. I’ve got customers calling.” Then, as the almighty owner of Guillermo’s Landscaping, Mo made an executive decision with an order. “I need you to start up Friday’s schedule, today. Don’t worry about the lawns. We can do those over the weekend. Start trimming the bushes! Comprende?”

Rich was seconds from punching Mo square in the face. Mo was always pulling this sort of crap. He apparently had control issues and never gave in to any of Rich’s plans or suggestions. It was probably because Mo was afraid that Rich would take over the business and become the new owner of Guillermo’s Landscaping, and make Mo the person to take care of the lawns. Mo, after all, hadn’t a clue on how to run a landscaping company.

But instead of punching Mo, Rich calmly answered with eyes filled with rage, “Si Señor!”

“Good man!” complimented Rich. “That’s what I need.”

***

Of course it wouldn’t hurt if Rich additionally mowed the lawns at the properties where he was to trim bushes. Although slightly deviating from Mo’s orders to strictly concentrate on bush trimming, mowing would save time for Friday and Saturday. You see, this is how Rich is. He knows how to schedule and plan in ways to operate at high efficiency, thereby saving time. If he saves enough time, it provides an opportunity to care for even more properties. This is one of the things that Mo doesn’t understand, and another reason why Rich would make the better owner of Guillermo’s Landscaping.

Rich proudly unloaded the 72 inch hydraulic stand-on mower down the ramp off the enclosed trailer. Mo had paid for the high-tech piece of machinery along with everything else in his business by saving hard-earned money. Mo was a Mexican immigrant who busted his ass, seven days a week, as a landscaper for another company. In those days; while Mo’s co workers blew their money every night on cerveza and mamacitas; Mo was smart and put half his money away into savings to one day start his own landscaping company.

Rich is really smart. Before mowing a lawn; he does all the trimming with the weed wacker, and edges the sidewalks. Only after this does Rich start up the mower. You see, all the trimmings and scrap are then sucked up by the mower and collected into the bag. Rich actually eliminates the need to pick up the scrap from edging and trimming with this technique; something that Rich had to teach Mo—and another reason why Rich would make a better owner of Guillermo’s Landscaping.

But what was this? While edging the sidewalks; that stupid, piece-of-crap, gas-powered edger started to misbehave. The blade wasn’t cutting right—sort of crooked—which took chunks out of the sidewalk.

“Oh, so that’s what you want to do, now?” asked Rich to the gas powered edger. “You like to chew on the sidewalk? Well I’ll show you what happens when you do that!” Immediately Rich moved the edger over to about one-quarter of the width of the sidewalk inwards. This meant that the blade was now chewing directly into the concrete and nowhere near the lawn.

A motorist approached and took sight of the strange landscaper; a middle-aged burnout from the 1970s who wore a pair of tan khaki pants and a tucked-in black t-shirt with sleeves cut off. His shoes were a pair of Timber hiking boots, and he had a lollipop in his mouth. He looked like a retarded dollhouse man; literally dressed like a rejected toy doll that had something wrong with it. And to top it off, the strange landscaper was chewing up the sidewalk with a gas-powered edger—sparks flying everywhere.

The motorist slowed down and looked at Rich in disbelief as Rich bobbed his head from side-to-side with a look of someone with a bad attitude.

Rich glared back at the motorist and thought to himself, “Mind your own freaking business.”

You see; this is one of the amazing gifts that Rich has. Without understanding the source of an electrical/mechanical problem, he has an ability to make machinery work by abusing it—sort of like a violent exaggeration of the Fonz-fix. Rich learned at an early age that machines have consciousness and are self-aware. With this premise, Rich soon became the master of machinery by instilling fear into it. If it doesn’t work right, Rich will punish the machine by abusing it.

While continuing to chew up the sidewalk—sparks flying everywhere—Rich fantasized the stupid motorist parking his car and coming out to talk to him. “Excuse me, Sir; would you like to tell me why you are operating the edger that way?”

“Do you want to know why I’m doing this to the edger?” asked Rich. “It’s because it suuuuuuuuucks!”

After pulling out of his fantasy and reaching the end of the lawn, Rich thought he would give the edger another try. He moved it over to where it was supposed to be—where the edge of the lawn meets sidewalk—and resumed normal operation. This time, for whatever reason, the blade seemed to cut right.

“There!” exclaimed Rich. “Now it works! See, that’s all I wanted!”

Next, Rich started up the gas-powered weed trimmer to trim in places near the chain-link fence and around the garden. But what was this? The rotating line seemed to have a bad habit of getting snagged while trimming. “Now don’t start that up, again!” warned Rich. “You do that one more time, and there’ll be punishment!”

The weed trimmer challenged Rich by, once again, snagging its line in between the chain-link fence.

Rich responded by lifting it in the air and cutting the bricks of the house with the rotating line. “I warned you! And after this job, expect some punishment! When all the other equipment is resting in between jobs, you will pay! I don’t have time to screw around with stupid crap!”

The weed trimmer must have gotten scared, for it began to behave the way it was supposed to. But it was too late! When Rich threatens punishment, he always follows through.

While mowing the lawn with the high-tech 72” hydraulic stand-on mower, Rich fantasized of the day when he would finally take over as owner of Guillermo’s Landscaping. Assuming Mo would swallow his pride and stay with the company, Rich would punish his former boss by immediately condemning him to eight hours of weed pulling. “Listen…” Rich would begin. “I know you used to be the head cheese around here, but things have changed. I’m the owner, and you work for me. Comprende?”

“Si! Comprende!” acknowledged Mo with a bitter and resentful look on his face. How did he ever lose his company?

Rich gave the first order to his former boss, “I need you to go down to the beach area of Edgewater and weed that area. They want us to do eight hours… eight hours of nothing but weed-pulling, comprende?”

“But Rich!” argued Mo. “Shouldn’t we start up the bush trimming?”

Rich immediately displayed a position of authority as he warned, “I thought we understand that I’m the boss. Do you have a problem with that?”

“No sir!”

“Then get over to Edgewater and start pulling weeds!”

Of course there was one, small obstacle to Rich’s aspirations of taking over as owner of Guillermo’s Landscaping. You see, Guillermo’s Landscaping is a privately owned company that is solely owned by Mo, himself. All the vehicles, tools and equipment were purchased by Mo. The building and offices inside of it are his. And all the employees who work at Guillermo’s Landscaping are paid by (you guessed it!) Mo.

Guillermo’s Landscaping is not a Wall Street company where Rich could work his way up, back-stab his way into Mo’s position and turn the tables on his boss. Rich would have to think of something really good that would work. It would require capital—lots of money. But Rich could get that, easily! He could do the same thing that Mo did many years ago. Rich could start brown-bagging his lunch and cut back on personal expenses so he could start saving up money. Then, when the opportunity presented itself, Rich would move to purchase Guillermo’s Landscaping.

But what sort of opportunity would there be to purchase the company? Mo would have to be in dire straits. His business would have to start falling apart at the seams. What could Rich do to cause this?

That’s when it hit Rich! He could play the same, dirty game that is played in the business world. Rich could make up lies about Guillermo’s Landscaping and hurt its reputation. Customers would end their contracts with Mo, leaving him no choice but to sell the business and save whatever money he had.

“I’ll purchase your company.” offered Rich one fine morning upon entering Mo’s office.

“You????” asked Mo while laughing.

But Rich would have the last laugh. “Yes, me!” He opened a briefcase that was stacked with money. “You’re asking one million dollars for your company?”

“Yes…” answered Mo with an interested look on his face.

Rich sighed and began to make his case. “You see, this business is a little out of date. The equipment is old and some of it needs to be replaced. Plus I’m going to have to train all the landscapers how to work my way, the efficient way. I’m only going to offer you $500,000.”

Mo winced at the low-ball offer.

“Now I know that’s half of what you are asking.” continued Rich. “But this is your ticket out of here. Take it or leave it! And I’ll hire you as head landscaper.”

Rich was so smart! He could think of plan for everything! He wasn’t just a landscaper. He was a business-savvy landscaping engineer with an amazing gift of understanding the nature of machinery. Speaking of which—as Rich pulled out of his fantasy—the 72” stand-on hydraulic mower was beginning to misbehave. The front corner kept bumping into trees.

“It looks like it’s time to teach you a good lesson!” announced Rich to the mower. He backed up a considerable distance and then took off at full speed towards one of the fruit trees.

“BAM!”

Rich had to hold on for dear life upon impact. But the beating was necessary to teach the beast not to misbehave. Rich backed up again and took off towards another fruit tree.

“BAM!”

He did it again to another tree.

“BAM!”

Then he got off the 72” stand-on hydraulic mower and examined the front. “It looks good!” he said with a smile. “It looks like you took a good beating to your face. Consider that a few punches in your face for acting up. And I’ll accept that as my needed pleasure in punching Mo in the face for screwing up the schedule this week.”

The remainder of the job was pretty much uneventful. Rich trimmed the bushes as Mo needed, cleaned up and then packed the equipment in the enclosed trailer. It was then that the homeowner—the housewife—came outside to speak to Rich. At some point, hopefully after Rich deliberately rammed the mower into the fruit trees, she came home and noticed some damage to the outside.

“Excuse me!” she called out. “Could you explain to me what happened to the sidewalk? Why is it all chewed up? And I noticed that a few of the fruit trees have bark ripped off.”

Rich sighed, “Yeah… that’s our equipment. The boss is too cheap to buy us decent equipment. It keeps acting up, and then it causes damage to the landscaping.” Then he used the opportunity to start up his negative rumor campaign. “Listen, I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but Guillermo’s Landscaping isn’t doing so well. Their equipment isn’t any good, and customers are ending contracts because of the poor service they receive.”

“Really?” asked the homeowner.

“Yup! I’m afraid it’s true. Rumor is that Guillermo will soon be liquidating his business. I’m actually working on getting some financing to purchase the company and clean it up.”

“Really!” stated the homeowner with a firm tone of disbelief.

“Yup! I’m going to buy the business and rebuild it so that customers finally get good service. But keep that a secret, okay?”

At a loss of words, the homeowner shrugged her shoulders and walked away.

Satisfied with initiating his negative rumor campaign, Rich walked to the driver side of the landscaping truck. But then he remembered something important. “Oh, wait… Someone’s getting some punishment!”

Surely the gas-powered weed trimmer cringed in fear as Rich entered the side door of the enclosed trailer. All the equipment who worked that hour must have been in fear for their lives at that moment. But it was the weed trimmer who was promised punishment. Rich pulled it out of the trailer and started it up. Then he reached for a roll of electric tape and wrapped some around the trigger so that the trimmer’s engine burned at high throttle. It was thrown onto the floor of the trailer; side door shut. It would remain there on the floor with engine running at high speed until Rich reached the next job. That’s what it deserved for challenging the master and not behaving the way it should.

***

Throughout the remainder of the morning, all the landscaping equipment behaved properly as Rich expected. But then, close to lunch time, the engine of the gas-powered bush trimmer hesitated whenever the throttle trigger was released. This was at a duplex condo complex.

“I’ll fix you!” announced Rich to the bush trimmer. He went to the trailer for his trusty roll of electric tape and returned. Tape was wrapped around the trigger to hold it in open throttle which burned the engine at full force. It was laid on the ground, near the bushes, which just so happened to be under the window of sleeping baby. It would remain there, roaring in overworked agony for the duration of lunch time.

***

By the end of the day, the rotating line of the stupid weed trimmer started to snag in some decorative bricks.

“I thought you learned your lesson!” said Rich to the weed trimmer.”I guess not.”

This time the punishment was far worse for the poor, little gas-powered weed trimmer. With electric tape the trigger was held in open throttle position so that the engine burned at high speed, just like before. But this time, Rich taped a heavy rag over the intake manifold, effectively reducing the amount of air that the engine sucked-in during heavy operation. The poor, little engine choked and wheezed as it lay on the floor in punishment. This would be similar to making someone run on a treadmill with a handkerchief covering the mouth and nose. It would remain like this on the floor of the trailer until the master reached the next destination. That’s what the trimmer deserved.

The End!