Sometimes it seems like the hardest part of running a business is keeping everything working.

You punch the ‘start’ button on your table saw and … nothing. Three trips to the hardware store later, you get that working but then the AC in the office goes down. The AC guy can't make it for a week so you sweat it out. He finally shows up and gets that going again and the feeling relief is almost enough to ease the pain of the "I could take a vacation with that much money" sized check you had to write.

Everything is good and you sit down at the desk to finish the bid you were working on but then your computer unexpectedly shuts down and refuses to boot up again.

In a small shop, most things that break down fall on the owner to get fixed while your employees stand around waiting for it to be done so they can get back to work. It's hard to calculate the difference between what it costs you to do the repair yourself and what it costs to hire it out. But for me, I'd rather get it done than have to spend even more time waiting for someone else to show up.

D.D.