[ollie]

I was medically discharged from the army in 1999 and went straight into a job in the water industry thanks to my brother. My brother had at the age 18 worked for a cowboy carpet cleaning company who made all their employees be self employed, gave them a rug doctor and water as stain protector etc. Anyway my brother decided he would start carpet cleaning on his own in about 2003 (when he was aged about 29) as a part time interest , but professionally. He was doing well and I helped him out as we were living together. He then got married and his wife talked him back into the water industry for a steady wage (he is now on 42k) I got fed up of the water industry and realised working for someone else was worse than being in the army. I had seen how much my brother could earn so I started up in this game. I was lucky when i started as I have an army pension of 600 per month and i was given £50 per week by the counci for 6 months as my area is a regeneration area.

[spindle]

nah len she is tall with those heels on!!
she is 5'10..........i am a tad taller!!

[jasonl]

Was working  as a relief  manager for a chain of newsagents in 92. I picked up a  copy of Daltons weekly and saw an ad with the headline "They  laughed when I said I wanted to clean carpets"
6 weeks later I had paid my £5k to Chem-dry  and was in business, I saw it as a way to learn how to run a small business from the beginning, as a stepping stone to other things.
At the end of 2000 CD had developed into a company where most of the profits were derived from disaster restoration, and I had 200 plus flooded properties to clean/dry, and not enough equipment to   do them with.
I searched on the internet and found a company called Water out , who had huge drying trailers, to dry properties faster. I paid for the  importation of one  and successfully dried many buldings. Water out then asked for a huge amount of cash to continue with the uk operation. I declined ,and developed my own version ,only better of the same machine. CD did not like this , so I sold my franchise for about 70k in 2002.  Scirocco services was then  born to operate the trailer mounted drying business.
After a successful 2007 carrying out sub contract drying, Scirocco was sold.
In october 2008  I bought  Qualcon mini mix ltd , and 2 weeks ago a new concrete batching plant and 2 new lorries .

I still do the odd cc job and quite a few disaster restoration jobs , purely because I like this kind of work and find it relaxing. I feel the real money is to be made in the mini mix concrete business going forward.

[will01]

Was in the RAF until Nov 99 then went to work in France/Belgium until 2001.

Being ex forces I knew I would find it hard to take orders from Joe Public so I decided to go self employed.

Bought a "Wet n Dry" vacuum at £30.00 from b and q,  a vehicle valeting kit from Autoglym, a pressure washer from some old farmer and carried it all around in my vauxhall Nova .

Then called round all car and commercial dealers offering my valeting services and got a couple of "Steadies" mostly cleaning old transits.

Having soon realised there really was no real money in valeting I took the next step and purchased an ex demo Prochem Commanche and a 1995 citroen c15 van.

The rest as they say is history.   Ah memories......

[clinton]

Derek

He was not v competent what so ever  

[derek west]

considering
derek

[carlton care]

These few sentences tell everyone a lot more than a photo could ever do. I now have a new insight into the "character" of the posters and why they write what they write, well sometimes, anyway.

enjoy your time off guys and gals and good luck for next year

[murky]

Used to be long distance truck driver, up to West Coast of Scotland picking up the salmon from the fish farms, paid holiday really, if it snowed we were snowed in, couldnt get out, used to go up to Tarbert, Malaig, up as  far as Ullapool, Isle of Skye etc etc.
Then take the load over to France, Germany to their food fares, paid holiday really. Firm relocated so had to look around, pal of mine was also a driver but fell off the back of his lorry took his injury payment and bought a ServiceMaster franchise.

I used to help him when I was back from a run and of course asked about it and as I was reaching my midlife crisis at 35, bought one as well. Stayed with them until 3 years ago.

It used to be a brill franchise, got the 3 bed semi out of it, good money doing fires and floods but they lost their way, they didnt see CD and R'bow coming up and they are just pants now.

Now working for myself, no VAT, no franchise fees, go where I want. And the phone doesnt ring at silly hours to go and sort someones cr@p out.

Looking forward to prosperous New Year now. Have a good one everyone.

Murky