It was 6:15 pm and the We-Cill-It Concrete Construction Ltd crew was riding in their Ford F250, heading home from the job. They had just finished a 4500 sqft finished shop floor. Three rented guys from another crew had helped with the pour and left at noon, leaving We-Cill-It to do the finishing.
Caleb Cillit was driving, staring at the yellow lines, wondering if concrete work was ever going to be easy. Dave Strong sat staring out the passenger window, pumping his left arm up and down with a 40-pound dumbbell and thinking about race cars. Sam Scroll was scrunched into about 25 percent of the back seat, scrolling through his Instagram.
“Hey guys,” he suddenly spoke up. “We should buy a Somero Laser screed.”
“Did anyone solicit your opinion or invite you to speak?” Was Dave’s reply as he switched the dumbbell to his right arm. Caleb squinted into the rear-view mirror momentarily, grunted dismissively and went back to staring at the yellow lines. Sam went back to his scrolling, more pleased about the fact that he had gotten a response than ruffled about the nature of it.
Caleb swung unto the shoulder of the road next to a Tim Hortons. He threw a 10-dollar bill over his shoulder and said, “Hey Sam, why don’t you go in and perform a matter in conjunction with your primary expertise? You know the drill, a medium double double for me and an extra large for Dave.”
Sam slammed the truck door and hopped across the curb towards the coffee shop. Dave watched him go and shook his head. “That kid knows literally nothing about how life works, what makes him think we could afford a machine that costs half a million to replace a couple 45-dollar rakes?”
“He does know very little,” Caleb agreed. But he remembered the matter of hauling the rented mini excavator and didn’t say more.
Sam returned with the drinks and handed the 2 coffees through the driver’s door window. He clutched his icecap in one hand, opened the passenger door and tossed in a couple empty Gatorade bottles that had tumbled out, leaped in, and slammed the door before more could fall out.
“Hey Mr. Scroll,” Dave said, “I have a question for you.”
“That’s quite fine,” Sam rejoined, “Just remember I charge for correct answers.”
“Well, that would leave me with minimal risk then,” Dave replied, “But what would motivate you to even think that a small crew like us could remotely justify a laser screed. Those things are like a million dollars.”
“Since when?” Sam retorted, looking up from his Instagram and leaning into his icecap. “Somero has a smaller unit. Like a model 485 or something. It is fairly small size and super versatile for small to medium jobs. Its like 175 grand.”
“That is a million dollars,” Dave said.
“No, it isn’t,” Sam came back, “you could finance that thing for 6 years for about 3 grand a month. We do about 3 or 4 of these floors a month. We could leave 2 of those rented guys at home and it would almost cashflow. Or we could get them to finish a cut and strip for us instead. Besides, there is the non-fiscal considerations. We are always half dead from raking the floor before we even start finishing. And we always have this issue of two guys struggling with the last truck or two while the rest need to go start troweling. A machine would sure help with that problem. If you combine the fiscal and the physical that machine would be justified with two floors a month. It would be easier and we would look better. The only negative thing is that you would need a bigger dumbbell at the end of the day.”
“A million dollars and a bigger dumbbell? That would be a deal breaker,” Dave grunted, popping the lid off his cup to drain the last of his coffee.
“By the way Dave, Thanks for the question. I will send you the bill tomorrow.” Sam went back to his Instagram as his straw made noisy vacuum-like sounds at the bottom of his icecap.
Caleb was silent. But he had heard everything. His back ached even more now. That night he could not sleep. Every time he was almost sleeping, he dreamt he saw laser screeds. One time the laser screed reared up like a bear attacking him, and he vainly tried to fight it off with a rake.
Caleb awoke in cold sweat. Enough was enough. He half fell out of bed and went to his desk. He googled 485 laser screed, copied the link and sent it with a note to his banker. “Can we take a look at this?”
He went back to bed and slept soundly until morning.
