Advice on taking a full time job and scaling back

1

So a little bit of a back story, I’m in Ontario and have a few friends who work for Hydro One- For those who don’t know Hydro One is a government utitility/transmission power distribution company. They’re trades compensation is typically $80+/hr for journeyman.

So a few years ago I applied to the Union that my friends are hired out of and got on to their hiring list. Covid happened and they stopped hiring for hydro one- the union hires for other companies. So I started my window cleaning company. I’m in my second year and should gross about $30k this year, however I have been home with my kids a lot which is important to me. My plan was to make $30k this year, and grow to $40-50K next year. I have about 40-50 repeat resi jobs, about 10K/year in route and a few realtors who send me work, I am also ranked competitively on google my business with the only 5 star rating.

In August the Union posted a job that matched hydro one pay schedules so I applied thinking it was hydro one, the job was supposed to start in Sept, the nice thing is its 4 10 hour days Monday- Thurs with the change to get a lineman apprenticeship. Fast forward to now and I get a call for it but it is a different company being sub contracted with the same pay schedule. I figure after being on this call list for 3 years, It’s a now or never thing- I applied to the job, could I say no it’s not the company I wanted.

I took the job and now I am getting nervous, I feel like my business is slowly going to scale back as I wont have the time, I’m worried about not being able to be around as much for my kids- now I am missing taking my oldest to his skating lessons, I had to cancel for hunting season… I just like being in control.

We aren’t rolling in money by any means but we are ok, we don’t need high paying jobs as we don’t have an expensive lifestyle. The job actually pays half of what I make cleaning windows, it’s just more consistent and probably easier on my body. I made 30K this year, this job will pay about 70k with Friday, Saturday and Sundays off.

Any advice?

2

Tough decision but ultimately I don’t think you can do something really well without going all in on something.

Can you answer business related calls during your jobs work hours? If so maybe you can try hiring someone to clean and answer and biz calls that come in during your job.

If not then it’ll be really tough. You could probably find a way to manage both but I think eventually you’ll have to decide on one thing.

Working for yourself and building your own biz is 100x better.

3

To be honest I don’t typically answer my phone anyways- I usually call back my voicemails. I have pretty good retention for repeat customers. I actually like route better so I’ve been wanting to build it up which I can do on Fridays. I’m going into winter anyway so I won’t have much going on.