A Learning Experience

This weekend the Kid and I were mowing our front yard when the neighbour asked if we could mow hers. She said she'd pay $10, I asked the Kid if he would do it and he agreed. But by the time he had mowed both parts of it she handing him a $20 and didn't want change.

Then she asked if he could take apart an old garden area- remove old landscape ties and loosen and level the dirt so she could replace it with grass. He agreed. She said, "I'll pay you $10, no $15 an hour". Saturday night she told me she'd pay him "$200, $50 every other week until the end of September". I told her I doubted it would be that much.

Sunday morning the Kid was out there sweating in the sun until it got to be 29 degrees C and he had sweated enough so we had him come in  - he worked 4 hours. Multiple we would check on him and give him advice on how to do this or that and to keep an eye on how he was working. We supplied all our own tools and even some paper lawn and garden bags. On Sunday she mentioned something about $60 but I told her to wait as the job wasn't done yet.

By  Monday he finished the job putting in another 3 hours to a total of 7 hours. She paid him $60. The Kid was disappointed (good thing I never got his hopes up thinking he was going to get $200) - because he had done the math and he did expect to get at least $100.

I felt bad since I felt I had a part in his price negotiations and he did a great job. He was polite and responsible and didn't want to quit until he was done. I was proud of him, so we had a family discussion about working for others and quoting prices etc and I gave him $40. Lesson learned all around, I believe. And do you want to know what he plans to do with the money? He wants to be a pilot, this money goes towards a training flight.