As we consider the yard man's role and responsibilities, again, we'll look at the three primary activities, which are administrative, customer relations, and also technical. I want you to remember those different personality styles, and as we talk about the tasks that in your mind try to identify which personalities tend to work better in this particular situation. A yard man has to be a good communicator, and they assist the rental coordinator virtually all day long. They work in close conjunction with the service technician. They could work with customers throughout the day. They may even be involved with third-party truckers that come in the yard. They've got to be able to keep up with things, inspection tags. They need to be able to put fuel in and remember how much fuel they put in something or record that. They are the human conveyor belt, so they move things around the yard all the time. So they basically have to be pretty physically fit type people. They have to also have a good memory, pleasant personality, and enjoy talking to people and enjoy a different routine every day because it's constantly changing. They need to be able to put on a good face for the customer, greet the customer, point them in the right direction to load or unload, give customers safety and operating instructions as required. And then from a technical standpoint, they need to really understand how everything works. They really do need to be able to operate every machine that you've got. They need to understand how buckets are pinned on and not. They need to understand how to hook up attachments on things. They should be able to do even a few minor alterations or replace a handle on something, change a tire out on something that might need to have happen. In smaller operations, they may get involved with shipping and receiving sometime during the day or possibly even putting new equipment together that comes in a box and somebody is going to take it out and put the handles on it, put the wheels on it, those types of things, help with inventory control. So my experience for trying to find a high achiever profile for a yard man would... Someone that's very focused on getting things done, have a sense of urgency, takes direction well, that's really important because somebody is telling them what to do basically all day long and they need to not wrestle with that and second guess everything and overall have a friendly attitude. We talked briefly in our organization chart, your company may or may not have a delivery driver but a delivery driver's got a certain amount of detail that they need to keep up with in terms of documentation. I won't read through all of these things. You can do that, but in essence, they need to... They've got a certain amount of things to record on there, the unit number, the hours. They may need to put the mileage on something when they go out to a job site. They're trying to get the customer to sign the paperwork. They've got to note any damages on the ticket. So they need to be pretty alert as well and making sure that the equipment that they load on their truck is as good as it gets. They are the last line of defense for our quality control. So when they get on a machine, they should make sure that does everything look like it works, are all the instructions here, the safety decals in place, and so on. As far as customer relations, a truck driver oftentimes comes in contact with the customer as much or more than the salesman. I mean, a salesman may only get to a job, let's just say, maybe once a week, every two weeks, and it's possible for a truck driver to potentially go to a high-volume construction site maybe two or three times a week. So this person really has to project a good image for the company and be accessible. So they need to make sure they're answering their phone, and then they make that a top priority. If they see something out on a job site, they need to be able to bring that information back into the office and explain, hey, I saw some competitive equipment out there, or it looks like this is the next thing they're getting ready to do. Maybe we should have a salesman stop by. And so a truck driver, a really good one, will literally behave, in terms of how the customer sees them, almost like an outside salesman. They are a strong representative of the company. From a technical standpoint, they need to know virtually everything about the machine they're putting on their truck, how it works, the safety shutoffs, they need to understand how to tie it down. Of course, they need to make sure that they are operating in a safe way, in terms of how they load things. They need to inspect their own vehicle to make sure that it's in good working order and check for lights and tires and those types of things and write up any deficiencies and turn those into the service department. So a high achiever profile for a delivery driver, somebody that really enjoys people. It's really important for this person to have a good attitude and really present that. They need to be pretty resourceful. Sometimes it can be challenging trying to get something loaded on a truck, especially if something's broken down. And so somebody that can figure out how to either find some assistance on a job site, maybe use another piece of equipment to help push it up there, or just overcome situations that happen when you are out in the field. This person becomes really, really valuable to the organization if they can figure out how to get things done, even though it seems almost impossible. Having good mechanical aptitude is important. We want people that are very safety conscious. We do not want people that are hurrying and working so fast that they're sloppy, and then they can get hurt or they can hurt customers or damage our equipment because they were going too fast. So in that way, we need somebody that's pretty deliberate in terms of how they tie things down. They're kind of systematic. It's not a free-for-all, and they do it nine different ways. They need to understand where to place the load on their truck and do it 10 out of 10 times the same way. Our wash rack labor person, administratively install the service tags. That's a key piece that they have to do, and they have to record some information on those things. They need to keep track of the fuel added to machines. They sometimes are involved in replacing wear and tear items on machines, and so they need to keep track of what things they put on what machines. And occasionally, they're involved with a customer that happens to come in the yard, and maybe they're helping them potentially load or unload a machine. And in some smaller operations, the person doing the wash rack may also be a backup truck driver, so they may come in contact with customers that way. And from a technical standpoint, the wash rack person actually needs to be pretty mechanically sound because they're going to be involved with cleaning equipment, but then as soon as it's clean, they may be involved with refilling the fluid levels or checking to make things work, and they may be changing the oil potentially or cleaning air filters. They need to keep the wash bay operational, so that's keeping up with the maintenance on the pressure washer working the company forklift to load and unload freight trucks, and they are clearly involved in the quality control. So they need to have a little bit of mechanical aptitude and technical training to be really good. So the person for the wash rack, we need somebody that's going to come every day and be really steady. I mean, it's not a real job of glory, but it can be a very important part of our process, and so they need to show up every day. They need to put in a full eight hours a day and do this safely and pay attention to detail.

yard man

delivery driver

technical knowledge

customer relations

attention to detail