Hired Help

A few days before Shelby was born, our herdsman of 4 years, put in his 2 week notice.  We didn't know it was coming, but it wasn't entirely unexpected either.  Randy was a good milker, but his attitude had gone drastically down hill.  It's not easy to work with the same person 7 days a week, 365 days a year, so we knew it wouldn't last forever.  At any rate, we were left with trying to find a replacement, and quickly since I was going to be laid up and unable to help.  Needless to say, the timing wasn't great, but it was time for Randy to move on.

Pat started the job search with an ad on craigslist.  He got a few phone calls in the first few days, but it turned out his parents ran into a fellow dairyman and neighbor the day Randy quit.  He suggested a local guy and Pat called around to his former employer to get his phone number.  Everyone who knew him said J was a good worker, had a nice family, etc.  Pat's parents met him that week (we were in the hospital having a baby that day) and seemed impressed.  He seemed like a nice guy, good worker, and better yet, he'd never milked cows.  Now, most jobs would like you to have experience, but dairy farmers prefer you don't.  Every farm has a different routine for milking cows and if you are set in one routine, it's hard to switch to another, that's why no experience is sometimes best.  That way we can teach you the way we want you to milk cows.  It may seem like a silly thing that doesn't matter, but it's huge in the land of milking.  One simple step can drastically change the somatic cell count of your milk.  A lower SCC means a higher milk price for us.

I digress.  J was to start on Randy's last day.  Only thing, he didn't show up in the morning.  Pat tried to call him, but couldn't get through.  He came Monday night and said he had been helping move some furniture and couldn't get out of bed Monday morning.  His cell was out of minutes, yada, yada, yada.  Tuesday morning he called in sick, but he kept showing up in the evenings.  I think he showed up a couple of mornings the first week but then was gone for the weekend.  This obviously wasn't going to work.  We tried for another week to give him the benefit of the doubt, but he never came through for us.  So we called another local guy that had called while we were trying to work with J.  He's showed up every morning and evening so far.  We also have a high school kid that started that wants all the hours he can get.  Hopefully things are straightened out now.

Milking cows is not a glamorous job.  You don't get weekends off.  You have to start early in the morning and go later in the evening (but you get a really long lunch break :).  It's dirty.  It's smelly. Even with all of the cons, we truly enjoy what we do and take a lot of pride in the product we produce.  We just hope our employees do the same.