is make damned good and sure they get paid instantly. While I may wait until I see someone to pay them for something I make it a priority to chase down the kid and pay him off as soon as possible.
There are reasons for that and is that I want to keep a 100% rating with him so he knows I am one of the good guys that says what he means. I want them to want to do things for me and treating them right insures it. Kids like straight shooters.
Once Mrs. Piccolo was having back pains and I was headed to sea. I made arrangements with one of the kids to mow the lawn a couple of times when I was away, making sure he knew he was to be paid by me personally when I got home.
The deal was that at the end of the first week he would give the grass a 'mullet', meaning he would do the front and sides. He was also to do the job when my wife's car was not in the driveway. I didn't want her home when he did the job, preferring to keep my wife busy trying to solve the mystery of the freshly mowed lawn. On the second week he would do the entire thing. He said that $15 would cover it. I figured that the lawn was a 30-45 minute job and this was about right.
I got home at about 8 pm and drove past the house. Seeing a good job done, I glanced as I passed the house and knew the backyard was done. I went straight to his house and knocked and handed him a twenty, explaining the extra $5 was for gas as he had used his family mower.
The kid was elated and until he left for college he made an occasional few bucks here and there, mainly shoveling snow in the winter.
While I am generally militant about getting bills paid, I tend to be a little more militant with paying youngsters as it makes them eager to work for you when you need something done.
Last year I hired a kid to take care of my cat while Mrs. Piccolo and I were away. The kid knew I would take pretty good care of him when we returned and in return the kid took damned good care of my cat.
His mother told me he'd get up an hour early and run over and feed and play with the cat and right after school he'd make a beeline to my house and play with him for a while and then do his homework at my kitchen table, taking little breaks to play with the kitty.
I paid him a little extra for going above and beyond and you'd have thought I was a real hero.
The kid lives close by and now when I want something done all I have to do is whistle.
It's the little things in life that make it a lot easier.
Update: I wrote this a while ago. Since then I was at sea and got a call from Mrs. Pic asking me about the pile of gravel in the driveway. I had made a deal with someone a while ago and he had paid his end of the bargain by dumping a pile of pea gravel in my pea gravel driveway. I guess I had forgotten about it but he hadn't.
While Mrs. Pic wasn't blocked in completely, it was a nuisance for her.
I made a call to a certain mother and told her to have her son call me. Ten minutes later her son called me and I gave him instructions.
When Mrs Pic got back from her errands I was treated to a call wanting to know who spread the gravel and carrying on about what a good job he had done wanting to know who to pay. I told her I'd handle it.
To find out why the blog is pink just cut and paste this:
http://piccoloshash.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-feminine-side-blog-stays-pink.html NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED IN THE WRITING OF TODAY'S ESSAY
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