Plumbing Legends: Celebrating 10 Episodes with Gene Mitchell

In the milestone tenth episode of the Plum Delusional Podcast, hosts Daniel Mitchell and Lonnie welcome the legendary Gene Mitchell, the founder of Mitchell's Plumbing and Pots. They discuss the evolution of the plumbing industry, share humorous anecdotes from their years in business, and highlight the importance of quality service, teamwork, and maintaining strong family ties. Gene reflects on his journey from starting out in 1976 to managing a robust portable restroom division, emphasizing the significance of hard work, integrity, and employee wellbeing. Listeners will appreciate insights into the challenges faced in the plumbing business and the camaraderie that drives their success. Tune in for a blend of practical advice, memorable stories, and the shared passion for plumbing!

Welcome to Plumb Delusional, the podcast where Daniel Mitchell, owner of Mitchell's Plumbing in Lafayette, Georgia, takes you on a journey through the pipes and problems of modern plumbing. 

Each episode dives into the nitty-gritty of the plumbing world—addressing common issues, uncovering surprising myths, and sharing memorable stories from decades of experience in the trade.

https://www.mitchellsplumbingga.com/
Phone: (706) 523-3201
Address: 206 N Duke St, LaFayette, GA 30728

Transcript

(Music)



 Hey guys welcome back to Plum Delusional Podcast this week. We've got a special one going for you today. We've got the man, the myth, the legend, the originator of Mitchell's Plumbing and Pots, Gene Mitchell. And we've got his sidekick Lonnie here today with us too.



 So Lonnie, he's been with us a long time. He's, they run the portable restroom division for us down there. They're probably one of the most important and vital options we've got down there nowadays because you've got to have a portable restroom with every permit you pull. So they do that but we also,



 I wanted to get that in here on our tenth episode, kind of make it special. This is our tenth episode. I wanted to get the guy that started it all. The guy that originated everything. Without him, they would be none of this that I have today possible.



 So with that being said, I'm gonna let Lonnie introduce yourself.

 Well I'm Lonnie. I'm a port-a-potty technician. I've been with him for I want to say about three and a half years or longer.

 First time or the second time or the third time?

 Well I'm gonna say, well now is my third time and my last time hopefully.



 But yeah, service all portable restrooms.



 Make sure they're well clean and maintained as if I was gonna go in or somebody else you want them nice clean and sanitary as possible.



 You gotta have them all on every job. You gotta have a place to go when you need a place to go. That's for sure. What's our motto Lonnie? You need a place to go. We're here when you need a place to go. That's right.

 Y'all have to excuse Lonnie. He's a little nervous. Yes sir. He's a little nervous. He used to be on camera. No for sure.



 And they don't need to be nervous.

 No.

 It's just what 50 or 60 million people watching us.

 Right.

 Hopefully.

 Yeah hopefully.

 All right. Now dad, you gonna introduce yourself? You want to say a little bit about what's yourself? And he's our head driver for the party man. We'd give him a little bit of a break. So now he just kind of does the driving. I'm Gene Mitchell. I started this about 40 years ago and I'm just driving now taking Lonnie to each place and making sure everything's done right and we go from town to town.



 And he also, he's not gonna tell you, he tries to keep me straight too. He'll get on me. He'll say he's still, he's still, I tell everybody to the day that we write his name on a headstone he'll be my boss.



 And that's the way it'll be.

 Somebody's gotta keep your name.

 Somebody, yeah, yeah, yeah. It goes, it goes, it goes, it goes me,



 dad, me,



 dad, Gila and Alec. Right. That's the chain of command now. Right.



 Well let me ask you this. Back in, you started this back in 1976.



 I know you, and you started out of necessity I'm assuming. Yes. Just trying to provide for us as a family. Right. Stuff like that.



 What did you think, did you ever think you had looked, you know, when you started then did you think, was you thinking then you'd look back and how, you know, it would be as far as we've got now. No, I started portable restrooms in about 80 and had 20 of them.



 Now we got 100. It was actually, we actually started them in 98. 98.



 I was a high school senior. That's how I know. That's right.



 I didn't know I got to wait high school in 98. So we put them together down there in the building,



 the barn at the house. As they got ordered. Yeah. You remember the first one we ever took out? Yes.



 We put it on the back of a pickup truck and tied it with a rope. And what we didn't know at the time is it about 65 mile an hour, a portable toilet becomes a kite.



 And when it opened, the door opened and it caught wind. The rope was tied to the bottom of the porta toilet and we was selling a porta toilet behind a brand new at the time,



 3500 Chevrolet four door super duty truck. And didn't know it till we put it didn't know it till we looked back. I think my mom at the time looked back and said, Jean, the toilet, it's fine. And he put the brakes on the toilet past us, landed in the middle of the road, sliding down the road. The rope stopped.



 I tell you, that's it. It's funny. It's funny how you come along things. I remember,



 I remember as a kid coming up, you doing work, you would work, you would work all day in town catching service calls. And then you would leave at night to go to hell's bar to do gas plumbing up there on the marina. Yeah.



 And done a lot of work in Dalton and the mills over there at night. Daily Citizen News. I remember Daily Citizen News. I remember you going over there and coming back and you'd have that ink on your hands from doing something over there. We had a problem and then a printing press had about ever colored and you can name on it. We done, we worked on that thing for about six years. Yeah. And that's what I tell the guys that work with us all the time. We think we have it tough, but y'all, y'all come up. I mean, you, you actually done some lead and oakum piping back when you first started. We don't, we don't even use, we don't even use soldering and, and, and torches hardly no more. Right. We done lead and oakum. We done two or three ball fields for the government. That's all they'd let us use. Yeah.



 Now, if you do lead and oakum, it's an art form. A lot of them don't even know how it goes. And then I remember, I also remember the first service truck you had was a, it was a green and, and I think it was a 68 or nine Chevrolet. Yeah. One truck and you, you had to work on it at you on the weekends to keep it running. Right. You had to keep it going the night time to work during the daytime. Now we got so many trucks. We came count them on one hand. Still mechanic and I'm still working on them. Y'all working on one yesterday, brand new truck.



 You always told me if you're going to work a truck and put it on the ground and work it, you're going to work on the truck. There's there, there's no bulletproof vehicles out there. I don't

 think maintain everything. Yeah. Maintain everything maintenance on everything.

 Yeah. You as one beating the hub of the ball joint off that thing yesterday, wasn't you?

 Yes, sir.



 Well, Ronnie, what's your favorite? What's your favorite day of the week?



 Well, I'd say Friday.



 Was it because of payday or is it because you you're done pumping? You just kind of get to,

 I'm done pumping and I can, I'm actually doing, I'm really what you would call a floater. I go where, anywhere you need me or the positions open or someone laid out. I feel in.

 Yeah. Well, you're actually probably do that. You do it more sometimes in the winter because in the winter is your slower times for the portable restrooms. Cause in the summer you're wide open. Sometimes we have to help you off the plumbing crew to move them toilets around. I mean, y'all get, y'all get to moving more toilets than you are pumping and you can't move toilets and pump toilets. There's, I told Kila the other day that we was getting to the point where we just about needed two trucks,



 one to haul and one to pump with.

 Then we have the vents.

 Yeah.

 We set up for events.

 Yeah. And we got our big one coming up in June. I think it's June or maybe it's the last week of May this year. I think it was talking about,

 I don't know what the schedule is this year.

 Well, they was talking about, they changed it. I thought it was the first, it's usually the first week of June, but it may be the last week of May this year, the honeybee festival. That's probably, that's our biggest event. That's when everybody, that's when everybody changes. As you say, you perverb your hat, you change it from a plumbing hat to a portable restroom and everybody's portable restroom in that day. I think three days of sheer get it, get it, get it. And then I think we finish it. We start on a, we usually start on what Thursday and finish up on Sunday morning, about four o'clock in the morning.

 Yeah.



 We have to move them off the road, good traffic back going after the party. Yeah. And that's a, that's the good thing about, one thing about our company, we've got several avenues of different things that we do as far as plumbing, portable restrooms will we'll do custom baths and showers and me and you, we kind of do a little thing together. We do, we build a house and resell it. Got one coming out of the ground now or way out of the ground. We, I actually posted some pictures of it last night. It's a 1350 square foot. We're about done with, but if you, that if you could, if you could sit down 16 year old Jean back when he was getting ready to start and there's somebody, I say there's a 16 year old out there right now and you could, you could, and you was talking to 16 year old Jean. What would you, is there any advice you would give him?



 Just give a good education cause and, and work hard cause that's how I done it. And I had a good wife and she helped take care of everything. And she had my back. I can tell you that right now. Well now yeah, I can attest to the fact that your, your, your significant other in a, in a small business makes your break. She sometimes, my mother's gone on and she passed away in January, 2014.



 And she was, she, anybody that knows Mitchell's plumbing know Daddy and Mom.



 They was, they were, they were inseparable. They, they done a lot together. She done a lot. We had to really, we had to get together and get a lot of the book work figured out because she done everything from payouts to payroll to taxes. And you know,



 we didn't really realize how much she done until, till we had to do it. But,



 and that was before, that was, that was, that was before everything really ramped up. You know, 2014 things wasn't quite as busy as they are now.



 But you use some passwords. We still ain't got into the computers and stuff. Where's she used? Well, if I was to, if I, yeah, if I was to, if I was to get logged out of some of the



 stuff, I'd, I'd have to have somebody help me get back in it. Cause I still, I mean, there's, there's stuff that we still ain't there. There's probably, we can't get, get the passwords too. And there's some stuff that we ain't never been able to get back into that she had put up at the bank and stuff. I mean, you never really, you know, that's, that's, that's a whole podcast talking about my mom. I tell you, I can talk about her all day, miss her a bunch, but I know I figured, I figured she would come up during this one cause she was such a big part of daddy's upcoming career. But I know what you're talking about on work hard and education. It's, it's the people think sometimes trades, you ain't gotta have a good, you know, education. They're like, that's the educational list or education lists profession, but it's not because you, we deal with, we deal with a lot of small business behind the scenes that keeps, that keeps the paychecks paid. You know, you're doing, you're doing a take offs, bidding jobs. And then let's just be honest. There's always somebody out there trying to catch you slipping. Oh yeah.



 And if you're out there working and you young person, you gotta pay attention to your older, whoever's teaching you. I had some good guys that I worked under,



 Owen Asher,



 Franklin.



 I learned a lot from him just from day to day until I went in business myself.



 Yeah.



 And that's, you know,



 that's our apprentices now, as you know, that's, I was talking to one on the way in here, you know, you've got to, if you're, if you're, you've got to be alert, you've got to pay attention. If you want to, you know, as far as being a plumber or if you want to do your own thing, I, I, I like working for myself.



 I do because I have a very strong bullheaded attitude. I mean, I probably ain't going to work well for somebody. I mean, you know, it's coming up me and you, but it heads a lot, you know, because as I got older, I thought I knowed more than you did, especially in my teenage years.



 Now that I've got into my, you know, my mid forties, I say what daddy was talking about as they part side. Yeah. They, one thing you got to just take it easy and pay attention.



 And a lot of this stuff, you go to school, but they can't teach you what's in the house and what you're going to run up on to work on. Cause it's everywhere you go. It's different.



 Yeah. That's, that's one thing you struggle with. I didn't law it is

 pay attention and slow down.

 Yeah. As you, you never know what you're going to be working on the day that day.

 Oh no, no different day by day.

 Yeah. You can come in and you'd be working on laying them laying PVC lines on a ditch or put in a safety tight and feel lines or we may be putting in water heaters. We may be up at the dial. It's putting it working on medical.

 Yeah. I could be helping them do service costs, service work.

 Yeah. That's that's the thing. And service work that's service work is probably one of the hardest aspects of a plumbing company to do do efficiently and make everybody involved. Hack because you know, you go in and you do work on somebody's, you know, tub it's been dripping. The tub's been in the house for 45 years. They don't want to change the faucets. The faucets really need change. So you're going to have to repound to the best of your ability and with material and parts that they ain't made in, you know, 40 years and our, our, uh, part suppliers and stuff. It's hard to get good quality material to work with nowadays.

 Yeah.

 Y'all work y'all, y'all faced that yesterday with the parts of the truck.



 I mean, it took y'all all day just to track down on the right part and a good part.

 Took getting the wrong one. Get this. Yeah.



 Well, I took that new truck that I've got in for a tune up, you know, and I got, uh, it's got 16 cool packs on it, 16 spark plugs and a new and a set of wires and, uh, they put all the wires and all the cool packs on all spark plugs, crunk it up, out of it out to the road and it blowed two of the aftermarket cool packs. They had to take them all back off and go to the OEM up to the dealership and buy OEM stuff.



 That's what you got to do is buy good quality stuff because in finding it is a problem.



 Now, uh, we got three different parts yesterday and finally the third one was the right one.



 Lonnie and them got it on about seven o'clock last night.



 That's another thing, you know, I bet we do these podcasts to let people kind of know what we deal with. Uh, how many, how many days a week do you go home before five?



 Not too many.



 Well, started out this when I started out, got about a half a day and that was enough for me and now we run in probably full eight hours, if not more.



 Right. And then, uh,



 you, you, you could run more. That's the thing about it. Is that could run more. There's people, but that's the reason y'all had to work on the truck yesterday is as people begging you to pump toilets today. Right. Uh, y'all take care of a, a couple of chicken house equipment suppliers that have to have them pumped. Yeah.



 Lonnie, how many gallons of sewage do y'all use to pump a week?

 Uh, if I was going to rough estimate, I'd say about 500 to 600 gallons.

 Really? How many times y'all dump in a week?

 Two to three times a week.

 So if you're dumping three times a week, you hauling your full at 300 gallons. So two would be 600 gallon. Three would be 900 gallon.

 Okay. I was off a little bit.

 Six to 900 gallon.

 Yeah.

 Something like that.

 And use a lot of water.

 Yeah. I know y'all use a lot of fresh water.

 A lot of fresh water.

 Because you, you, you clean them and you

 gotta make sure they spotless.

 Right. And then we,



 I know that which we done it before they implemented the new regulations, but you, you, you wash them down and spray them with a bleach solution to get the bacteria out of them. Back when, when the COVID hit, they started implementing that. But I mean, it was something we had already had already in. We actually didn't really have to change our process much.

 No, sure.

 One thing we had to do was put stickers on our water that said, do not drink,



 which we thought everybody know not to drink the water.

 Yes, sure.

 You know,



 if somebody's up drinking the water, if somebody's drinking the water out of that tank, I'm not messing with them.



 I will put the sticker on it says do not drink, but if they're draining, I'm not going to make them stop because they've got more problems.

 And they had a notice. There's a sticker.

 Yeah. Yeah. That, that they get past it. Well, if I get it out of the, the, the wash down side, it wouldn't be quite as bad. But if they get it out of that big valve on the back, they tough.

 Yeah. They gotta be strong.

 That's where the slurry comes from.



 Human waste.

 Poop smoothie, as some of them call it. Poop smoothie.

 Poop smoothie.

 Have you ever had poop smoothie on you?

 Oh yes. Yes, I have. I've had a human waste on me about three times. Um, and have alert the do's and do's and do not do's. Um, if a valve is wrong, that's one way. Uh, if someone just say, use this example, someone throws a bottle in and you don't see it, just say a five hour energy bottle. That can cause me, uh, problems.

 That can cause you five hours of problems.

 Yeah. Yeah. Just heck of problems. Headache. Uh,



 you gotta, I gotta be very cautious on when I go to pump. I gotta, uh, vacuum. I gotta be very cautious and, uh, actually watch what I'm doing, uh, and not get something in the, uh, valve that does not need to be in there like rocks, uh, bottles, um, diapers, diapers, uh,

 somebody's shirt tail.

 They've cut shirts, socks,



 underwear.

 You name it. They throw it in there.

 They've been, people go eat lunch and then throw their lunch after they get done eating in there. No. Yeah.

 Well, that's another thing people think, well, it don't take it. Yeah. You gotta be too smart to pump a toilet. Well, you gotta have the, you gotta have the work ethic to do it, but you know, there's certain, I mean, there's a way to run that pump hose. You can run that pump hose to where it'll, it'll vacuum and evacuate itself just right. Or you'll clog it up. If you clog a pump hose up, you've got yourself some, I mean, if, if, if you run the pot, if you've run any events and I'm the most of us have, if you've run any events, you've clogged hose.

 Yeah. Sure.

 I mean, no matter how many events we've done, they all towed in there a little fireball liquor bottles and drank them. And that is the worst thing in a hose is one of those little liquor bottles and it gets hung in there and then you've got to take it apart. Well, you've got suction on the tank. It's got, we got a vacuum pump and it'll go forward or reverse.

 Forward the vacuum.



 Forward, forwards when you're putting pressure on it, when you get the poop on you, that's what, that's why he just chuckled is because I looked at him is that's when you do it. You, you thought, well, I'm going to blow this thing out and you put it on there and you blow it and we've got a gauge on you. You watch it come up and it don't blow it out. And then you go up there and you forget that this thing's hung and you should have went down and, and, and let it out of another valve, but you go up there and you pull it out and it does a suction or the pressure still on it.



 Yep.

 It gives you that sudden burst of poop smoothie.

 And your bath

 you've got it on you. And the good thing about it is it is, it is drenched in the environmental safe



 full chemical.

 Yes, sir. Biodegradable

 biodegradable. Biodegradable. It will biodegrade.



 But that's still, it's still

 nothing you want on you. Nothing you want to deal with. Well,

 yeah, people, people, it don't matter. It don't matter if it's clean, empty.



 What if I say a toilet, it's a toilet. It's like a placebo effect that you put a toilet out and brand new never had no, never had no human wife's did it. They can smell it.

 Yes, sir. I've actually had that happen at the honeybee festival. Seen someone do that looked right at us.

 Oh yeah. Yeah. We, uh, daddy will remember this actually. I think him and mom pick the bullets up. We had a, uh, a 30 foot flatbed trailer and they went over to, uh, Nalonyga's where we pick them up. We buy our toilets over from a supplier and Nalonyga and they put them on there and then they Saran wrap them to keep them together. And then they, you strap them in and they bring them back. And that they brought them back. I think it was seven, right? A clock at night and they pulled in this. These toilets are still Saran wrap and are just strapped. So they pull it in, they drop the trailer and they come home on the next Saturday morning. The mayor was it the mayor called me, mayor called me,



 told me that the people were smelling them toilets on the back of that low boy trailer. And I told him, I said, ain't no way they can smell them. I went and picked them up Friday and they still surround around. You can go down there and look at them.



 Well, I wound up going down there. The mayor and mayor looked at them and we had a talk and, uh, he still moved on just because we moved them round back to where they couldn't be seen. Yeah. That's, I mean, I, yeah, I remember that. That's the, that's the story that sticks out in my mind because, you know, they told us there would, when we finally did undo, we had to cut the surround around all of them. That was each one individually wrapped where the doors wouldn't come open and the seats was still taped down. You know, we used to get them like, yeah, well, when I go get them now, they're pretty much so ready

 to use it.

 But we used to go over there before they, before they had, which, which that company's grown up to with us used to, they, they molded the unit over there, put it together over there. And you come and you done your own shipping. They had no shipping. They've met that whole shipping section over on Polyportables since, since we started. Yeah. You know, you used to drive around the building and, uh, but now you go over there and they've got, so they get everything ready, but them even had the toilet lid still taped down to the, to the toilet. So people wouldn't smell them, but it tickles me how people can, it's just like anything else, you know, it's like,



 like they do the, the trials where they give you the sugar pill and they give somebody the real pill and then the other pill to see if it's just a mine thing.



 Your mind can do a lot of things to you. I reckon mine can go. Mine can do a lot of things drive me crazy, make me sick, make me angry, make me aggravated. If you haul in toilets out and the man's there, he puts them pretty close to the house. Ladies there and you're going to, I know that toilet, you put it at the corner of the property.



 Yeah. And I'll touch on this too. You don't, y'all don't take the same toilets out that you do at a construction site for somebody that's having a wedding or a party or an event. No, we take new ones. Right. We've got special toilets that stay especially clean to come to a house or a party or a wedding. Right.



 Because, you know, y'all know as well as I do, people at construction sites have a lot of time on their sounds obviously to make up whole ones and draw pictures. Right. Yes, if I had the pictures that they drawed in some of these toilets, there ain't no telling. I've seen everything drawn in it. Whole murals,



 stuff. I ought to take pictures of it. It was not filthy. It was pretty good art.



 They were a lot of artists in their life to draw naked women. Yeah. A lot of them draw dirty stuff in them, but they were some. It drawed some pretty good



 stuff.



 Yeah. If you thought about it, you know, that might be, you know, who would have known that TikTok would have took over society like it does if you'd have like, if you had all them pictures, put them on TikTok, you'd probably be a millionaire.

 Yeah. Famous TikTok famous

 pictures on TikTok.

 Yeah.

 I was watching it the other day and there's one on our, you know, we got the new little golden retriever and there's one on our call Bella hops or Bella stomps, Bella stomps. And it's a golden retriever that when he calls her up, she runs between his legs and then she hopped a little hop and she is super fine. Well, I got one of them in order to be able to do that. My granddaughter got her. Oh, Tara, my, Oh, Bella. Oh, she's, oh, she's pretty. She's pretty. She's also very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very full of energy and puppy. Yeah. And she's smart already. Yeah, she is. She's, I, you know, I got her a doorbell,



 the ring when she goes out to party



 and she, she's having, she don't like to party outside. It's not that she don't know that she's got the body. It's not that she knows she's not both. She does not like to party outside unless it's sunny. Like it is today. If it's raining or if it's cold, she don't want to party outside. She wants to party on a puppy pad or she wants to party mostly on puppy pads. So, but she knows the doorbell.



 If she rings the doorbell, it, I was taking her out every time to party, you know. So now she rings the doorbell to go outside to play the constant. Oh, it's all time. I mean, she, if somebody not in the living room, paying her attention, playing with her, she's ringing the doorbell ding, dong, ding, dong, ding, dong.

 It's a game now.

 Huh?

 Thanks. It's a game now.

 Well, she thinks it's a, she wanting to get your attention to take her outside. Like today, being pretty like it is, she would just as soon stay outside all day.

 Yeah.

 And she'll, and then if you'll, if you'll throw her and she ain't been like eight weeks old or eight months,



 you're about eight weeks old. Yeah. She's about eight weeks old.



 And then she will fetch everything you threw. I mean, she will fetch those till you are tired.



 And so she's not, yeah, yeah. She's very smart, very smart, but, uh, uh,



 uh,



 that's a, that's a, that's a, that's another story for another time. But, um,



 the, uh, plumbing, let's talk about plumbing as far as plumbing. You've seen it change a lot. Oh yeah.



 Since I was started, everything was Oakland led and then we graduated up to PVC and CPVC. We didn't use too much CPVC. Now we'd rather use copper. They'd rather run copper. Now it's Pex and crimp expansion and uh, y'all use all expansion and that stuff. It'd be sweet to climb with now.



 Yeah. Uh, we still use copper, but we don't even, I mean, well, the copper we use, we use a propress. Yeah. I didn't even know they made one of them until Daniel brought one in down there to shop. We'd done some three inch copper and I think he really did. Yeah, I thought that was the greatest thing ever made. Yeah. Yeah. We do doing some chiller lines. Uh, but you know, uh, I know, I know, I know, I know you had seen it change. I've seen it change. I mean, since I was in high school and got in, you know, got my license and stuff, I've seen it change. It changes the, the material changes the way you do it changes. Plumbing not changed a whole lot. I mean, you still got to move water to a house and you got to get sewer out of it cleanly, efficiently.



 Uh, we, uh, and, but another, one of the biggest things that's changed is the difficulty that it takes to run a legit



 Yes.



 Uh, you know, you, you, you started out, like I said, one truck,



 you, you, uh, I did, did they even require state license again when you started? No.



 Then they were, then they started requiring, when you've got your state license and when they started requiring, right? Right. Because you didn't, you actually had been employed long enough. You got in like they did with the general contractor's license a while back. They said, Hey, we're going to require plumbing license. So you've got to, if you file the paperwork to show you've been plumbing, we'll send them to you. Grandfather. Yeah, right. And then, uh, I, when I got ready for mine, I had to go through a process. I had to keep, I had to show where I'd work for you for, and I sent you to Delaunay to college over. Yeah, right.



 Yeah. To get, that was when I was getting ready to go get my master unrestricted.



 Uh, my Germans, I wasn't as, uh, you keep the way it is now is you work for a master as an apprentice for five years. I think now it's three years, three years for, if you documented three years of apprentice, you can go get your German license, hold them for two years, then go back and get your master's restricted or unrestricted.



 Then when you come out, you hit, you've got your, but then, then if you go into work for yourself, that's a whole nother big rigmarole where you've got insurance, you've got comp, you've got stuff like that. And they just don't, I mean, there's no, there's, there's no, no, no, no stopping point, I guess, when you get to a certain point, but, uh,



 a lot of people, a lot of people still running around here doing it without license and no insurance. We see that in a meal now you got to have, uh, probably two or three million dollars just to get on the property. You got to have a million dollars,



 on each vehicle, on million dollars on each vehicle, two million dollars aggregate, five million dollar umbrella. That's what we carry.



 And, uh, you know, you, you wind up, you see some of this stuff and you, you can't believe they've got all this insurance in place for plumbing. I mean, how many people have, you know, that's ever drowned in a house from plumbing, but it's not really just, it's not, it's not to keep you from getting drowned. It is to, it's to protect your, you and your investment of hiring us. Me keeping insurance is really me saying, hey, I'm coming into your house and I've got confidence in my guys, my training technicians, that I'm going to ensure them while they're in your house and, you know,



 and, and if, you know, if your house floods so many days after we've been there, it's still gonna cook.

 Right.



 I mean,



 knock on wood, we've never used our insurance for something like that. I mean, we, that's one thing we try to, I mean, Lonnie, I'll tell you, I mean, Lonnie, I'll test to the fact that I expect a lot of self preservation and self, self, self discipline. That's, that's because you did, you always expected it out of me. You was probably harder on me than you was anybody that ever worked for you other than, you know, Stephen Bayne. Stephen, he was one of your, he, I always thought he would be a plumber, but he became a chicken farmer. Right. He may have been the smart one.



 I don't know.



 He works from sun up to sun down. Well, that's another thing. And I tell you, that's, that's it is you could teach plumbing, you can teach, you can teach building, you can teach farming, you can teach anything, but you can't teach working.

 That's it.

 You either got it or you don't, or you get it or you don't. I mean, you ain't gonna see,



 you know, I've seen a bumper sticker a long time ago. It was working with you up at Tenet Circle for a doctor, heart doctor. And it said, the world is run by people who get up in the morning.



 Right. And that's the truth. If you're in bed,



 somebody's gonna pass you. If you're sleeping, somebody's gonna get ahead of you. You know, I have people ask me all the time now and they're like, well, you know, you're doing so good. You know, you've got, you've got three trucks on the road. You've got an excavation. You got a party truck on the road. You've got a building. Now, first of all, I had a leg up. I'll say this to the day I go away. Daddy had a lot of this stuff in place and I build on top of it. And, but I had to get up. I had to get up every day. I had to go out there every day on the days that, on the days that I wanted to, you know, days was days I opened my eyes and didn't want to get out of bed. I've had some hard times during a business. You have food. Yeah. I mean, that's just part of it. Yeah. But you, you know, I've got up, I went. The thing about it is you can never see,



 if you're running a business and you see a spot to stop,



 you need to reevaluate because there's never a spot to stop. There's never, there's never time to waste. Now there's time that you need to take with your family. I will say this. It's important to mediate time with your family and time with your business. I'm sure you're like me, dad, looking back, there was times you probably wish now that you would have took some extra time with family instead of working. Oh yeah. But at the time you're thinking I'm going to do this extra work for my family.

 Right.

 And that's the way a lot of us business owners and tradesmen think is, you know, we're working where we can get ahead and when we get, when we get to a certain point, we're going, we're going to do, we're going to go take that trip or something like that. But if you, you know, you know,



 you got to go ahead and take the trip.

 Come back and work.

 Then come back and work. You, you tell me this all the time and I think it's, you used to not tell me this, but now you do. It'll be here when you get back son. Yeah, it'll be there.



 Because some, some of your people, some people you want to do things with won't be there. Right. That's exactly right. And, and time is one thing you can make all the money. I, I told my sister today, she was worried about some, some, some financial stuff that we got going on at that a guy's trying to do some things and is it some banking's messed up. And I told her, I said, don't worry about it. I said, as long as the sun rises tomorrow, as long as my truck runs, we can make more money and you can, you can make more money, but you can't make more time.

 You know, only so much time in a day.

 We're only so much time in your life.

 Only get true that too, but

 we only get so many allotted hours.

 Yeah.

 I mean, and then I say allotted, but you only get so many hours.

 Only live once.

 Yeah. Yeah. Only live once. And I'm not saying go out and act crazy.

 No.

 I'm just saying you've got to make the most of it. You know, if you've got 40 hours work that week, put 110% into that 40 hours. But if you've got 20 hours to be with your family, put the same 110 hours, 110% into your family as you do work work, because it's all important.



 And family life more important than work to a certain extent, right? But you gotta have work to live when people know that. And we all know that, but you also gotta have time to regenerate and take care of yourself and your family and go to ball games and stuff like that. I love going with my grand baby to ball games and stuff now.



 And I took Heather to ball and Daniel to ball the whole time they was in school.



 You just can't get their memories back if you don't do them. But I think that's one of the, I think that's one of the keys to success is, you know, is not only do you got to work hard at work, you've got to have a good family life because if you, I get up every morning and I'm able to take my daughter to school and drop her off. I'm blessed to be able to do that. I'm also able to work with my other daughter's husband and I'm in contact with her every day. I raised her up. I was, you know, me and her went through some stuff where we was, I was a single father for a while, you know,



 but we got through it. That was the stuff. That's what I was going to tell you. That's what got me through is I never seen a point to stop, but I had to mediate work and hurt because about the same time I become a single father,



 I lost my mother.

 Right.



 And so it was just me, dad,



 and Heather, and Caitlin, and we had to get the company going. We had to keep the company going. We had to keep, we had to keep Alec, you know, cutting Alec. Alec killed me since she said I always call her and Caitlin around us, but you got to keep you. I had to keep Caitlin, you know, going to school and stuff like that, but I also had to work too. So I think, I think, you know, my biggest motivation is my family. I mean, that's one of my things. If I can, at the end of the time, at the end of the day,



 if I can sit down and I've got $5 in my pocket to buy Coca-Cola and everybody else has got what they need in their life, I feel like I have become a successful businessman. Yeah. That's what it's about.

 Not trying to break everybody or yank their arm.

 Well, I mean, even y'all, I mean, y'all been with me for a while. I try to put a lot of, a lot of into my employees. You know, I want y'all to have, I want y'all to have stuff.



 You know, I want y'all to be able to spend time with your family instead of have to worry about working a second job to be able to pay you the bills. So a lot of times I, you know, the work that we take sometimes is to be able to make sure we've got plenty for everybody. You know, sometimes we get a little overzealous. I do. I mean, that's like,



 we, you know, I think last week or before last, we all worked till seven o'clock every night. I mean, but you know, this week when it rained, we didn't work as much. But, you know,



 if we don't, if we don't quite make it to, we don't quite make it, you know, a full 40 hours, I'm still going to make sure y'all get paid for four, four years. I always do, you know, and I think that's another aspect. People lose, people lose sight in their business. Employees are important. Yes.



 Yes. And good jobs. And then you have to take bad jobs to make up for the good times. And so it all evens out.



 Right. But if you, you know, it's going back to employees are important. If you're all, you know, the bad jobs, they'll get through for you if you're, you know, there's a big difference between being,



 you know, if your employees feel like you're actually on their side, they'll work them bad jobs a whole lot better than they will if they feel like they're just working to beat us.

 Right.

 I mean, we see it. I mean,



 we've seen it time and time again. We've experienced this this week, you know, there was people that just, there's companies that just needed to focus more on their employees to be more successful.



 I believe that's where we're at. I mean, because, you know, it's hard enough to find employees right now. I mean, good and good. And yeah, I mean, you can

 someone that will actually wants to have the work ethic.

 Yeah. Okay. And prime example, what time do we go to work, Lonnie?

 Center.

 What time is Lonnie sitting in the parking lot? Wait on you. Me and him generally gets there about five 36 o'clock. Well, you don't have to do that.

 No, I get there. I unlocked the door. I unlocked the gate, make sure everything's getting ready for the day.

 But you do it. Why do you do it?

 To get farther into the day and where I'm not as far as my head and I don't know. That's it.

 You know, you don't have a, but if you, if you asked me for something, what am I going to do?

 You're going to do it.

 I'm going to do my best to

 make sure it happens.



 Yes, sir.

 And I think, I think a lot of, I think a lot of business people get lost in the focus of making all the money where you've got to make enough money to, for everybody.



 So I mean, that's, that's one thing I've been super diligent in doing is keeping myself in check.



 And I guess I got that on my mind because I've had a couple of, I've had a couple of business people reach out to me, the social media and then, and call me and was like, well, how have you done this or how have you done that? Has it been, has it been the podcast? Has it been the website? I don't think it's one thing per per se. I think the podcast is a great thing because they get to see the true behind the scenes, the real side of the eye. I can sit here and I feel like I can articulate, uh, or if that's the right word and watching this podcast, you'll realize I've tried to work on my vocabulary where y'all think I'm smart, but I'm really not. Now, but what I'm saying is the podcast does help. I think that is one of the, I think a podcast is one of the best things that you can get out there podcasting. I listen to them all the time. I mean, I like, I like to listen to the, the Jaco podcast. I mean, uh, I, I got to, uh, doing this podcast by watching to build something media. I mean, with Justin, he done, uh, he done a, you know, he was doing this stuff. He was doing a V-log of getting his truck. It was broke down home from, um, Colorado. And that's how I got, into watching some of this stuff. I mean, it was just, it was, it was just real raw. I like real and raw content, but it's good. Yeah. Learn a lot from it. Right. There's, there's, there's stuff that I might do, or I might talk about that another plumber can implement. I mean, I watch, uh,



 there's not a lot of plumbing podcast I've looked after. There's not a whole lot. I mean, I watch them and stuff like that. And, and I wanted to do 10, you know, episodes in the first segment that kind of, Hey, this is us. This is what we do. We'll get more technical in the next sessions and we're going to do some things. And, uh, we're talking about doing to see which we're going to see what, what best flushing tool it's on the market kind of stuff like that. But right now I wanted to go ahead and get a, I think we've got everybody on here except the office staff. They're still a little skittish need to bring him and, uh, get Alec on here and get boss lady. One where I bring, bring the family and let little boss, little boss. Cause she, that's what she likes to, she's right there with y'all. She's there. She's not sure if she

 wants to be right there with us working, whatever it is.

 Yeah. She's, uh, she is a definitely a, she keeps telling me that she is going to be the boss and she's going to take, take that thing and her and Bubba is going to run it. As she, I said, well, I said, well, how are you going to do that? She said, well, I'm gonna let Bubba run it. I'm going to, I'm just going to be in the office.

 Well, for y'all to know, don't know, Bubba is chanting.

 Yeah. Channing the big call when it comes in my son-in-law, he's been on here several times and, uh, he's, he's another one that I've been really blessed to have on my team. He, you know, he, he's there when I need him, he works over what I need him. I mean, I could go down the list and, and I have not only, I have not only surrounded myself with talent, I've surrounded myself with good people. Yeah. Uh, we had a hard time with that. I mean, I can remember back when we used to have a hard time finding good people. I mean, you've, you struggled hiring people your whole life. Yes. That's been your biggest,



 biggest problem of, of hiring somebody to work and run a truck.



 And that, that if they could run a truck and work, they either went in business for themselves or they went to some big company in Chattanooga. I lost a lot of guys to Roper.



 I trained them, learned them how to plumb, and to work on this stuff. And then they'd, they'd get them a maintenance job somewhere. Well, I still run into guys that I knew worked for you. You know, there's guys that worked, that worked at the city of Lafayette. You know, you had, you know, you, you, you, you, they, they worked for you and they worked in the city of Lafayette. Then there, then, um, there was guys that worked for you that finally went into business for themselves. I mean, Joe Roe worked for you for a long time when it business for yourself. God rest his soul. He passed away last year or last. I mean, and, uh, y'all was friends to the very end. I mean, he, he, he, I tell guys all the time, I'm not going to get mad at them for bettering themselves. I mean, you know, if Lonnie come to me tomorrow and said, Hey, I got a job offer and I'm going, so and so, yeah, it's going to hurt my feelings because I'm going to miss you. Right. But you know, if he, if it was going to better him or his family, you got to understand. But you know, when he tells me that he gives me the opportunity to try to keep him. So, you know, you got to decide, you know, you got to decide what's best for you and your company. As far as employee goes, I'm glad we've got a good group of guys. They're all honest. They're all, they're all, they're all motivated and they're all, we're all headed toward the same goal. And that is to make Mitchell's plumbing, um, a household name and quality and integrity and performance.

 Right.



 Um,



 I know, I know when you started this thing, I know you always tried to, to do quality work and you done the work that other, I always said this, we always have, we've always done the work that other companies probably couldn't.

 Right.



 We, we, we, you know, we wasn't never, we wasn't never, uh, or you wasn't, you, you bestowed this into me. You know, if you didn't know how to do it, you could figure it out, you know, and if it was hard, there was a reason it was hard and the hard stuff pays a little bit better. Right. So, you know, that's, I guess that's why now we still, that's why I still chase after the, the medical stuff. Because it's, it's, it's not as much hard as it is tedious, you know, and it's, you know, if we do something wrong,



 it's not only, uh, uh, it can kill somebody, you know, so we, we, my guys still do it, you know, Channing and them, they work, they work, was working in, uh, medical facilities this week that had to, they, they was in a, a situation and I won't say where they was at and everything because of, uh, patient client privilege and dislike plumbers and doctors. We have patient client pleasurably, but they had to, they had to do a decontamination going in. They had to do a decontamination coming out and any tools they took in, they had to decontaminate and any, uh,



 booties or anything like that, they had to just to put in the incinerator where they was at.



 And so, you know, it wasn't easy,



 but, uh, and it was, you know, it was kind of a headache. And if they didn't get their protocols right, where they was going in and out of, they could have got sick. I mean, that was the thing about it. But, um,



 I think that's one of the things is I like about our company is I feel like I can send my guys out to do something like that. And I don't, I'm not telling you remember your booties or put your booties on, but most of the time I know you've got them on. I'm just going to remind you. I mean, you all, you taught me that. Buy you a set of booties and put a little truck for you guys. Yeah, that box. We ever went in the house, we changed our shoes. We took our shoes off, put the booties on, because sure something happens. They're going to blame it on somebody and they're going to be the one wearing the booties. It's going to be the one that's wearing them muddy boots in the house. Well, I remember, I remember back before we got booties, you used to wear two pair of shoes. You had boots and pair of shoes. Yeah, I've done a lot of plumbing bar and socks. Yeah, I especially set out and stuff like that. But it's funny you say that about the booties. Well, you know, you have an instance where a floor gets messed up. And I have one this month and they come running in as like, your guys scratched the floor. And I said, my guys scratched the floor. Yeah. So you're talking about my guys scratched the floor. So they was the only ones down there. Uh, we think so.



 Okay. Well, I call them my guys. I'm like, Hey,



 uh,



 what's going on? They said, what do you mean? I said, they said, let's go with floor scratch. They said, well, where's it from scratch that they tell us. They said, well, the painters are in there. The trim guys are in there. The, the, the, the mirror guys are in there. I mean, I mean, there's four or five trades down there. And I said, okay. I said, y'all got those booties on. Yep. Well, that's your painters cloth. Yep. Painters cloths out. Two bags sitting on the painters cloth.



 Pops are sitting on the painters cloths. Nothing's on the hardwood floor, but they're going to blame. You're going to call me and blame my guys. The only ones wearing booties and have painters cloths down there that they scratch the floor. But people's looking for you sleeping. If they had to have their booties on, if they had to have their painters cloths in there, I'd have got to change that whole floor. Right.



 I know you remember this. We was doing a job and old boy went outside and set a coffee mug down and then brought it in there and set it down on the marble top and left it. And it made a ring on that marble top.



 Next thing we know, they'd called everybody in there and in the next week or so he'd done the same thing again and got caught. Yeah, I remember that. I also remember when they come out with the stretch vinyl, it wasn't, hadn't been out long and somebody pricked a hole in the kitchen. Yeah. And it swelled out. Well, they wanted to blame it on you. Yep. Blame it on you, blame it on you. And come to find out the homeowner and the homeowners on the carpenters, carpenters moved a refrigerator done it over the weekend. Yep.



 And, but you was the last one in the house that night.

 Right.

 That's another thing about working late. You're the last one in, you're the one that done it. We was at a house the other day,



 real nice island, had white granite on it. And I come in, my guys has got their, their hater cross down, their stuff's on it. They got their booties on, the others are running through the house with no booties. And that, that island is just full of trash, paint cans, stuff like that.



 There's epoxy that's mixed up, paint, and a beer, there's beer cans sitting on it. I said, I told, I told Channing and Seth, I said, snap a picture of that because when this comes flying back in somebody's face, I said, y'alls, take a picture where y'all stuff was at. I said, because where that can't, there was a paint can sitting there and there's paint running down the side of it. I said, well, that thing's messed up. I don't want to even holler at me. Right. You ain't never messing up. Oh yeah.



 What'd you mess up?



 Uh, well,



 I can't think of, I can't think of, but I know I have.



 I know I've messed up.

 So what are you going to do?

 Call you right away or tell you.

 That's what I tell you. Just call me and tell me, yeah, I'm going to, it's going to, I've got temper. I'm probably going to say, I got a meter and you ought to be paying attention. My big, you want to be paying attention,

 pay attention,



 slow down and pay attention.

 Yeah.



 It's hard to slow down and pay attention when you try to make a state. But now you're going to start naming stuff for you. Oh Lord. Oh Lord. But now all you girls and girls out there in podcast land, we're trying to find him a, a, a date.

 Okay.



 Okay. Okay. You can't talk hard to him now. You gotta be good. He would rather, he would rather you like Amish guys. He likes to dress up like Amish.



 All right.

 I just throw the hat on.

 Yeah. You should have wore it today.

 Yeah.



 Oh, speaking about messing up, I got one.

 Okay.

 The window at South Pittsburgh.

 Yeah, I did get accused for breaking the window.

 I know, but you didn't break it.

 No, I didn't.

 But you got accused because the pipe was laid there in front of the window.

 Yes, sir.



 That's a perfect example. If you had a winner, he got the pipe out of the house. You might not have got accused, but somebody broke when I don't want to accuse nobody. Somebody broke the wind and I believe the ones that broke the window is the ones that pointed the finger.

 Yeah. Cause soon as I picked up the copper and moved it is when they, uh, started hauling out of nowhere about it.

 Well, the good thing about it is you're, you're, you're the lead guy.



 Paul was with you and he concurred this, the, the, the, the situation that you hadn't been near the window

 and he snapped a picture as soon as we walked in.

 Yeah. But we couldn't, the thing about it was y'all was our late that night before and y'all was the first one back at day, but y'all left at lunch to go up to the other one when you come back out and was broke. So I don't know. It is what it is. We got it fixed and stuff like that, but we're starting to run out of time here. We've see there. I told you, it don't take you as long to burn. It don't take you long to burn up a podcast out.



 We get a little bit more mouth out of Lonnie, but everybody, we do want to thank you for tuning in on episode number 10. Dad, I want to thank you for coming in and giving your insight. And I do want to let everybody know that I appreciate everything you've given me the opportunity and I really do. I appreciate everything you've done. I've tried to take it and grow with it. You're doing a good job.



 Lonnie, I appreciate everything you do. And if y'all need good portable, clean portable restrooms, this is your two guys right here. Just call in down there at the shop. They'll get you scheduled up with spring coming. We've got some new units they'd love to bring out to you. We've got portable restrooms. We've got sinks.



 We do, you know, don't forget about our plumbing. We do septic fill lines. We do, we'll build you a bathroom. We'll fix your kitchen. We'll do anything it's got to do with plumbing or water.

 Water.

 But that's going to do us today on Plum Delusional Podcast with Mitchell's Plumbing down at 206 North Duke Street down in Lafayette, Georgia.



 Remember, if you were here when you need a place to go, I'm Daniel Mitchell. I'm Gene Mitchell.

 I'm Lonnie.

 And that's it for today folks. See you next time.

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